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Dutch Companies Not Allowed To Fitness-Track Their Employees (www.nu.nl)
An anonymous reader writes: The Dutch Privacy Authority made it known today that companies are not allowed to gather their employees' health data from wearable devices [original, in Dutch] such as the Fitbit. Of the two companies that were mentioned in this case, one of them had access to employee sleep patterns. In both cases the employees had given their employers permission to use this data. However, according to the Privacy Authority it is impossible to truly give 'free consent' when there is a 'financial dependency.'
A small consulting company I worked for asked me after about two years to sign a non-compete agreement. I talked to an employment attorney who reviewed the agreement. He said it was a generic boilerplate with no obvious negatives, but then he asked me what I was given in consideration for signing the agreement -- raise, new title, any material benefits?
I said no, should I ask for any? He said no, that might cause problems -- your best bet is to just sign it, but knowing that its not enforceable, as signing a non-compete when you already are employed without being given consideration has generally rendered non-compete agreements unenforceable in our state under the assumption that the relationship is coercive.
I'm wondering if the coercive nature of employment could be used to block fitness tracker use in the US under a similar kind of logic.
I think the entire concept is bogus. What I do away from work is my own business, and if that includes sitting like statue for the 16 hours I'm off work, so be it. I also think there's good reason to question what and how much exercise is ultimately beneficial. I'd also think companies would want to be cautious about implying penalties or career limitations from not meeting arbitrary fitness goals -- those in the worst physical shape may be coerced into levels of activity that are unhealthy for them, believing if they don't post numbers that meet some arbitrary employer standards they could lose their jobs, benefits or compensation.
Ultimately I view these fitness trackers as a kind of confessional for the fitness religion, either affirming one's adherence to fitness dogma or one's place as a fitness heretic.
It hasn't taken governments so long; there are other governments who do have stronger privacy protections (e.g., the Netherlands). It's American voters who are the problem.
American voters have all been taught about the American Revolution in a special, narrow way that primes us to conceive of tyranny as something that comes exclusively from governments. We've forgotten about the tyranny that come from allowing an aristocracy to exercise overwhelming power. That's what government was in most places in the world prior to the 1700s: minorities of powerful individuals who advanced their mutual interests by imposing their collective will on the majority and calling it government by traditional or god-given right.
The single most important event in the history of Western liberty was the Black Death. A medieval peasant couldn't take his labor elsewhere if he was unsatisfied with conditions on the manor; the landlords were effectively an agricultural cartel. But with nearly the entire work force exterminated by plague in many areas, labor prices rose. It became feasible for a peasant to take his labor elsewhere to sell -- if he wasn't caught and forced back onto the manor. The Black Death was the first crack in the aristocratic monopsony hold upon the labor market. That's why serfdom was enforced by law (which the aristocrats made) in so many places, and why attempts to re-create aristocracy relied upon the slave trade (the US South) or the legal and economic subjugation of new groups of people (colonialism).
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Which is why it makes a certain amount of sense to just put healthcare completely on the government. Companies don't have to care about it or assume that risk so they can hire the candidate they want regardless of potential health issues as it doesn't cost them anything extra. It especially makes sense for small businesses who don't have the employment numbers to negotiate for less costly premiums. If employers really want to compete on health care they can always offer additional coverage or benefits beyond what the government does.
There are arguments to be made againts government-run health care, but from an employer's perspective there aren't as many. Let someone else handle it so your company doesn't have to and it then removes the reason for the employer to want any access to health data.
Also, there are some jobs where you probably wouldn't want a person who's at risk for certain conditions, but there are tests for those. I suppose if you really wanted to be racist you could try to do something like you've suggested, but most companies wouldn't.
Just keeping the health data outside the company solves the root problem. Hiring an outside insurance company does that now; there are plenty of laws (HIPAA/Privacy) that ensure they don't share the health data back with the employer. It certainly doesn't have to be the government.
So if the Dutch company wants to help their employees become healthier while still complying with the laws, all they have to do is reimburse the price of a Fitbit to any employee who provides a valid receipt. They certainly don't need access to the employees' accounts on fitbit.com. According to their laws, they also shouldn't provide an EvilCorp Fitness Challenge group. That's what the company I work for did; although since we're in the US, there are no similar privacy restrictions on employers sponsoring their own challenge groups.
And Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications (BFOQs) are always the allowed exception. You can't be forced to hire a blind truck driver. But there is no BFOQ that requires someone to wear a fitness tracker.
John
In the US, we were taught pretty comprehensively about the dangers of aristocracy as well.
The problem is that in the US, we have trouble sometimes telling what aristocracy looks like because we shortsightedly removed all noble titles. That removed the show-off aspect of nobility but made it harder to find the real aristocrats like your Bushes, Kennedys, Clintons, and etc. It might be a little easier to understand the country and where it was going if we'd been looking to elect Prince George II of the House of Bush or Baroness Hillary Clinton of Harlem.