Fitbit Temporarily Turns Its Users Into Exhibitionists

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the good-lord,-it's-like-porn-made-out-of-letters-and-backslashes dept

Remember the old adage "If you’re not doing anything wrong, then you’ve got nothing to hide?" Well, tell that to the users of Fitbit, a fitness tracking device that syncs with your PC to upload your exercise activity.Unfortunately for these very active (and we’ll be enjoying that word on more levels shortly) Fitbit users, their activity tracking is set to public by default. So, when these users detailed workouts like step class, aerobics, sexual activity or just sitting around watching television, this information was uploaded to their profiles where (until sometime Sunday) it could be easily searched by Google.

splutter Sexual activity?!? coughcoughcough

It seems that after people realized that people’s sexual activity was getting spread all over the interwebz, Fitbit did a bit of robots.txt editing to disallow indexing of Mr./Ms. Fitbit’s evening "constitutionals." Nothing official has been noted on Fitbit’s website or blog, and oddly, there’s no mention of it in their community forums. Nevertheless, the damage has been (mostly) undone.

But, yeah, for a few days, Fitbit’s private lives were on public display.

Oh. Yeah.

While most Fitbit users would presumably like the world to know that they’re taking care of themselves (and others, apparently) with their various fitness programs, they probably weren’t interested in sharing details of their life that included descriptive terms like "Sexual Activity – Active, vigorous effort."

(Of course, this doesn’t take into account the exhibitionist streak found in some people — especially men — who would like nothing better than an acceptable public forum to inform the world about how much "action" they’re getting. On the other hand, if what’s been uploaded shows this description instead –"Passive, light effort, kissing, hugging – 15 minutes" — well, you may want to keep that to yourself. And speaking of "keeping it to yourself," shifting to "manual override" does not seem to come with a calorie count.)

So, the good news is that Mom won’t have to accidentally discover why her phone call went unanswered last night. Or the previous afternoon. Or during what would normally be called the "lunch hour." On the other hand, if your Mom is actively searching for Fitbit data with the modifier "sexual activity," then there’s probably deeper issues at play here.

Filed Under: data, fitbit, openness, sex, sexual activity