Slashdot Mirror
Ready to Test a 'SmartShirt'?
Roland Piquepaille writes "In a very brief article, Health Data Management reports that Sensatex Inc. is looking for beta testers for its SmartShirt system. These fully washable shirts are using nanotechnology to weave a conductive fiber grid into the cotton fabric to monitor your movements or your heart rate and transmitted wirelessly to a central computer. If the tests are successful, these shirts could be used to remotely check old people living alone, but also soldiers in the field or athletes. Read more for additional details and pictures of these 'smart' shirts."
Frankly, I'm signing up to be a beta tester for several reasons. First, wireless anything is attractive to me.
Biometric information is wirelessly transmitted to a personal computer and ultimately, the Internet.
And I'd like to sniff the packets just to see what they are actually sending/what kind of encryption they are using/etc. Secondly, as someone who is trying to lose weight via an exercise program (I mean program literally - I play the dance game In The Groove) the following is also attractive:
The Athletic SmartShirt System allows the comfortable measuring and/or monitoring of individual biometric data, such as heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature, caloric burn,
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
Considering all the abuses of privacy going on recently, who knows who gets to see the data collected by the smartshirts? What privacy are we getting about the data collected by the smartshirts? And would they even be required by law to keep that data confidental?
There's too many privacy concerns, so until I feel secure enough in knowing that my private health information is not being sold or even placed into a national database, there's no way in hell I'm using those shirts.