There’s a lot of data that we all produce through various devices and the lack of regulation has really turned our private information into a commodity. For instance, Google buying FitBit is in other words just a bulk data purchase.
How does this community feel about the risks involved with having our data out of our control? And how can we continue to get insights and value from our data without having to give up ownership and privacy? What are some tools members of this community use to organize and store their data outside of the default cloud providers?
In advance, thank you for sharing your thoughts and comments.
Disclaimer: My team and I have built an app that helps you organize health, location, and digital activity data. We’re a very small startup team in Toronto and are looking to build a hub for personal intelligence and digital privacy.
Usually intermediary like healthkit or googlefit needed because lots of brands with their own APIs. The analyzers and dashboards can’t manage to keep up with most of them. If users goal is prediction and recommendation most of the data will pass through 2 more companies than the originator. Ofc there is always narrative, self motivation, and data for a doctor.
For starters, stick with companies that don’t make you give up all ownership and privacy. Fitbit, for example, lets you download your data, and have it deleted (e.g. if you don’t trust their new owner).
How do I download to take a look? (Never mind, I found you, but I don’t have an android phone at the moment. Still, it’s ok to post a link.)
I keep my information as private as a I can, which isn’t very private. I use WHIB for location, which I like but whose background location tracking gets silently turned off by Apple during OS updates, causing holes in my data.
I use self-collected data with a very wonky process.
If I ever get around to an API driven data flow I’ll probably use Zenobase. The reason is that this service has shown rather unusual “staying power” in our domain. A big risk of API driven data collection and storage services is that they pivot and/or disappear.
The reason is that this service has shown rather unusual “staying power” in our domain. A big risk of API driven data collection and storage services is that they pivot and/or disappear.