Abstract:

Health and fitness app proliferation has been increasingly significantly over the last five years. There is a plethora of evidence to suggest that privacy of the app user is often violated as users do not understand the consequences of agreeing to privacy documentation. This research undertakes a mixed methods study, focusing on survey from 153 health and fitness users, followed by in-depth interviews with 12 app users, and 6 interviews with app developers. This study suggests that the level of experience of user has a direct influence on their ability to understand the privacy risks. Users who are more experienced in the use of apps are also more likely to have less privacy and consent concerns. This research suggest that in order to undertake a fair trade-off between privacy and app facilitation, developers need to increase their interaction with users. The developers also need to undertake self-regulation and facilitate an easier system of consent to ensure that app development is not hindered by restrictive government regulation.