Fitness App Runkeeper Secretly Tracks Users At All Times, Sends Data to Advertisers (androidauthority.com)

An anonymous reader writes: FitnessKeeper, the company behind running app Runkeeper, is in hot water in Europe. The company has received a formal complaint from the Norwegian Consumer Council for breaching European data protection laws. But why? Runkeeper tracks its users' location at all times -- not just when the app is active -- and sends that data to advertisers. The NCC, a consumer rights watchdog, is conducting an investigation into 20 apps' terms and conditions to see if the apps do what their permissions say they do and to monitor data flows. Tinder has already been reported to the Norwegian data protection authority for similar breaches of privacy laws. The NCC's investigation into Runkeeper discovered that user location data is tracked around the clock and gets transmitted to a third party advertiser in the U.S. called Kiip.me.Finn Myrstad, the council's digital policy director, said: We checked the apps technically, to see the data flows and to see if the apps actually do what they say they do. Everyone understands that Runkeeper tracks users while they exercise, but to continue after the training has ended is not okay. Not only is it a breach of privacy laws, we are also convinced that users do not want to be tracked in this way, or for information to be shared with third party advertisers.

Comments

Price?

[Nidi62]

Not surprisingly, it is a free app(with in app purchases-not sure how that works with a running app, but whatever). They had to be getting their money from somewhere....

Re:Price?

[SumDog]

With Map My Ride, the in app purchases are to unlock "MVP mode" which allows you to get more workout analytics (break down your split times) or live tracking (let your friends track your ride)

Can we sue for this?

[Locke2005]

If I'm going over my monthly data cap because an app it using up my bandwidth, can I ask them to reimburse me for added data costs? Seems fair to me...

Re:Can we sue for this?

[vux984]

You sure can.

First, you must calculate how much bandwidth they used at times that you weren't expecting it to be using bandwidth. Be precise. Its likely in the low MB.

Next, look at your recent phone bills, and document your actual overages. (If you weren't actually over, what are you suing for?)

And calculate (show your work) what portion of that overage is attributable to the app running when it wasn't supposed to be. Hope you didn't have a 2GB overage streaming movies because the 2MB contribution of the app to your overage is then only about 1% the 20$ you spent on overages. (or 20 cents)

Next, document what steps you took to minimize the harm. (If you've had data cap overages for the last 3 years and you are only doing something about it now, the judge will disallow most of your claim as you have an obligation to minimize harm. So you'll need to show that you took reasonable steps to monitor and control your data use and manage overages.)

Finally, file your lawsuit; attend the hearing; and then wait for your check for $2.27 in data overages that the court is likely to allow as directly attributable harm from the app for data use.

Assuming it allows anything at all.

Re:Is this not in the EULA?

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

You can write whatever you want in your EULA, even with "user consent" (i.e. nobody reads those damn things, they're 20 pages long and requires you to be a lawyer to understand half of it) it cannot overrule the existing laws of the country.

I think they all do

[Anonymous Coward]

Sister got Dad a fitbit as a gift. It wants so many permissions in Android that the family decided not to install, activate, or use it. Seems corporations view people as marks to be fleeced instead of valued customers.

Re:I think they all do

[Voyager529]

Another one to echo your sentiment here. There are no tasks that the Fitbit account does that couldn't be handled within the app with the data kept locally. The fact that this isn't an option - not just on a fitbit but with any of the other fitness trackers I've looked at - gives me grave discomfort. It'd be a trivial selling point for anyone to do, but the fact that no one is doing it means that someone, somewhere, is paying handsomely for that data.

Re:Joggers don't care about privacy

[Gadget_Guy]

Never met one that didn't tell the world when and where they ran.

How would you know? If you met a jogger who didn't tell you anything about their jogging then you wouldn't know it. You would just assume that they were non-joggers and your preconceived notions about joggers would remain untested.

Re:Oh wow how unexpected!

[mspohr]

Welcome to the world of "Surveillance Capitalism"... you are the product they are selling.

Re:Joggers don't care about privacy

[Tom]

Never met one that didn't tell the world when and where they ran. They're like vegans in that regard. I doubt many of their users will care.

Here.

There are a lot of casual joggers in the world, who don't make it a religion but use an App simply to track or to remind or because they can.

Just like there are a lot of people in the world who sometimes eat a lunch that would qualify as vegan, not because they think anything about vegan food, but simply because their choice of what to eat that day turned out to be so.