Tech News : Fitbit Data Transfer Complaints
Vienna-based advocacy group ‘Noyb’ has filed complaints against Google-owned Fitbit, alleging that it has violated the EU’s GDPR over illegal exporting of user data.
Complaints In Three Countries
Noyb, which stands for ‘None Of Your Business,’ (and founded by privacy activist Max Schrems) filed three complaints against Fitbit – in Austria, the Netherlands and Italy.
Why?
Noyb alleges that Fitbit forces users to consent to data transfers outside the EU, to the US and other countries (with different data protection laws), without providing users with the possibility to withdraw their consent, thereby potentially violating GDPR’s requirements. Noyb says that the only option users have to stop the “illegal processing” is to completely delete their Fitbit account.
How Would This Go Against GDPR?
There are several ways that this (alleged) practice by Google’s Fitbit could violate GDPR. For example:
– GDPR mandates that consent must be freely given. If users are forced to agree to data transfers with no ability to withdraw, the consent is not freely given.
– Under GDPR, users must be informed about how their data will be used and processed. If the data transfer is a condition that users cannot opt-out of, then the consent cannot be considered specific or informed.
In relation to these points, Noyb says that because Fitbit (allegedly) forces users to consent to sharing sensitive data without providing them with clear information about possible implications or the specific countries their data goes to, this means that consent that it is neither free, informed, or specific (as GDPR requires).
Sensitive Data
GDPR also emphasises that only the data that is necessary for the intended purpose should be collected and processed. Fitbit Forcing data transfers may violate this principle if the data being transferred is broader than what is strictly necessary for the service provided.
In relation to this, Noyb alleges that Fitbit’s privacy policy says that the shared data not only includes things like a user’s email address, date of birth and gender, but can also include “data like logs for food, weight, sleep, water, or female health tracking; an alarm; and messages on discussion boards or to your friends on the Services”. This has raised concerns that, for example, the sharing of menstrual tracking data could be used in court cases where abortion care is criminalised, especially considering that sharing this kind of data is not common practice even in specialised menstrual tracking apps.
Also, Noyb alleges that the collected Fitbit data can even be shared for processing with third-party companies, the location of which are unknown, and that it’s “impossible” for users to find out which specific data is affected.
‘Take It Or Leave It’ Approach?
One other aspect of GDPR is that to ensure users can change their mind, every person has the right to withdraw their consent. Noyb says that Fitbit’s privacy policy states that the only way to withdraw consent is to delete an account which would mean losing all previously tracked workouts and health data, even for those on a premium subscription for 79.99 euros per year. Noyb argues that this means that although people may buy a Fitbit for its features, there appears to be no realistic way to regain control their data without making the product useless.
Maartje de Graaf, Data Protection Lawyer at Noyb says: “First, you buy a Fitbit watch for at least 100 euros. Then you sign up for a paid subscription, only to find that you are forced to “freely” agree to the sharing of your data with recipients around the world. Five years into the GDPR, Fitbit is still trying to enforce a ‘take it or leave it’ approach.”
Blank Cheque?
Bernardo Armentano, Data Protection Lawyer at Noyb, says: “Fitbit wants you to write a blank check, allowing them to send your data anywhere in the world. Given that the company collects the most sensitive health data, it’s astonishing that it doesn’t even try to explain its use of such data, as required by law.”
Fine Could Be £ Billions
According to Noyb, based on Alphabet’s (Google’s parent company) turnover of last year, if the complaints are upheld by data regulators, Google could face fines of up to 11.28 billion euros over Fitbit’s alleged data protection violations.
There appears to be no publicly available comment from Google about Noyb’s allegations at the time of writing this article.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Google which acquired Fitbit in 2021 and at the time, in addition expanding its move wearables, some commentators noted that it may also have been motivated by the lure of the health data of millions of Fitbit customers (potentially for profiling and advertising) and the ability to improve its competitive position in the lucrative healthcare tech space. Also, at the time, it was noted that Fitbit’s corporate partnerships with insurance companies and corporate wellness programmes may have also been attractive to Google.
Now, just a couple of years down the line, it’s the data aspect of the deal that appears to have landed Google in some hot water. Noyb’s complaints against Google-owned Fitbit could have a ripple effect that goes well beyond just a potentially hefty fine. With a penalty that could be up to 11.28 billion euros, the situation would have serious financial repercussions, and the case could set a precedent for how Google and other tech giants handle user data (especially sensitive health information), forcing them to change their global data policies.
It’s been noted, for example, in analyst GlobalData’s recent tech regulation report that data protection regulators look likely to continue closer scrutiny of companies in 2023, so there could be more trouble to come for other tech companies relating to which data they collect, how they share it, and around matters of consent.
Some may argue that Google may, several years down the line from GDPR’s introduction, need to invest more resources in compliance to avoid facing similar allegations related to other products or services.
For businesses that similarly rely on user-data, this case is a wake-up call to thoroughly review their data collection and transfer policies to ensure they align with GDPR requirements. Businesses must offer clear, informed choices to users about how their data is used, especially if it crosses borders. The situation with Fitbit highlights the reputational damage and legal risks involved in “take it or leave it” approaches to data consent. If Fitbit’s alleged actions are deemed a violation of GDPR, it could trigger a domino effect, prompting closer scrutiny of other businesses that have similar policies.
For users of Fitbit and similar devices, this case could lead to more transparent data practices, potentially providing them with greater control over their personal information. Reading about what may be happening to their extremely sensitive data may mean that users may become more cautious and discerning about the permissions they grant to these apps. Given the sensitive nature of health data involved, ranging from sleep patterns to menstrual cycles, users may start to demand more robust privacy protections, and this case could also encourage users to seek alternatives that offer better data protection guarantees.
Tech News : EU Teams To Be Unbundled From 365
Following pressure resulting from a formal investigation by the European Commission over a possible breach of competition rules, Microsoft has announced that it will begin unbundling Teams from Office 365 and Microsoft 365 in European markets.
Antitrust Investigation
Following a complaint by Slack three years ago, this July the European Commission opened an antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s bundling of its Teams app with its Office suite over concerns that it could be in breach of the EU’s competition rules.
Slack Complaint
In the July 2020 complaint that led to the EC investigation, Slack said on its website: “Microsoft has illegally tied its Teams product into its market-dominant Office productivity suite, force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers”.
David Schellhase, General Counsel at Slack said: “Slack simply wants fair competition and a level playing field. Healthy competition drives innovation and creates the best products and the most choice for customers. Competition and antitrust laws are designed to ensure that dominant companies are not allowed to foreclose competition illegally. We’re asking the EU to be a neutral referee, examine the facts, and enforce the law.”
The Investigation – Concerns
The EC’s investigation centred on concerns that Microsoft’s bundling of Teams with its other software could put rival online meetings and communications software (like Slack and others) at a disadvantage. The EC said that Microsoft’s practices “may constitute anticompetitive tying or bundling and prevent suppliers of other communication and collaboration tools from competing, to the detriment of customers in the European Economic Area”, and that, “The commission is concerned that Microsoft may be abusing and defending its market position in productivity software by restricting competition in the EEA for communication and collaboration products.”
Will Unbundle It, Starting In October
Microsoft’s response to the concerns outlined in the investigation has been for Nanna-Louise Linde, Vice President, Microsoft European Government Affairs to announce, “proactive changes that we hope will start to address these concerns in a meaningful way, even while the European Commission’s investigation continues and we cooperate with it.”
The ‘proactive changes’ (unbundling) will impact Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites for business customers in the European Economic Area and Switzerland. Microsoft says that, in the coming months, it will take the following steps:
– Beginning October 1, 2023, Teams will be unbundled from Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites in the EEA and Switzerland. Microsoft says that instead it will simply sell these offerings without Teams at a lower price (€2 less per month or €24 per year).
– It will enhance its existing resources on interoperability with Microsoft 365 and Office 365, e.g. to allow companies like Zoom and Salesforce to create tailored and integrated experiences across Exchange, Outlook and even Teams.
– It will create new ways to enable third-party solutions to host Office web applications. For example, Microsoft says it will develop a new method for hosting the Office web applications within competing apps and services, much like it already does in Teams.
Investigated Before
As some commentators have pointed out, Microsoft has been investigated before by the EU for similar bundling practices. For example, in the early 2000s, the EU ordered Microsoft to unbundle its media player from its Windows operating system, arguing that the bundling practice was anticompetitive. In fact, Microsoft has incurred £1.9bn in EU antitrust fines over the last decade for practices that breach EU competition rules, e.g. by bundling products together.
That said, Microsoft certainly doesn’t have the ‘monopoly’ on triggering antitrust investigations. For example, back in 2018, Google was fined £3.8 billion for pre-installing its search engine and browser on Android devices, which was seen as an abuse of its dominant position.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Having already incurred almost a couple of £ billion in fines from the EU over antitrust-related issues in the last decade, it seems that Microsoft would now rather comply than have to offer more self-limiting remedies and risk a mega-fine of (potentially) up to 10 per cent of its total annual turnover. The dominant position of its suite of products means that any bundling is jumped-upon quickly by competitors, some of whom (Slack and Zoom) have grown dramatically and gained in power, share, and influence since the pandemic restrictions skyrocketed their user-numbers.
In its defence, Microsoft says that including modern communication and collaboration capabilities in its business suites was simply in response to what customers expect from a modern work solution. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s market dominance and history make it difficult for Microsoft to do anything other than hold its hand up and politely agree to unbundling.
For competitors like Slack, this may seem like a victory and something that’s long overdue. For customers in Europe, the positive spin is that Microsoft’s suite of products without Teams bundled will cost a little less, but then there’s still the added inconvenience of having to add Teams and then presumably pay the bit of extra money on top for it. As mentioned above, Microsoft’s certainly not the only big tech company to have run into problems over antitrust rules and since the tech world is still dominated by just a few major players, it’s unlikely to be the last time we see this sort of thing.
Sustainability-in-Tech : Offshore Wind Makes Green Renewable Hydrogen
German company Lhyfe is showing how the challenges of producing green hydrogen can be met by using offshore floating wind-to-hydrogen turbines and electrolysers.
The Advantages of Hydrogen
The great advantages of hydrogen as a fuel include dramatically reduced greenhouse gas emissions, it only produces water vapour as a by-product when burned, it has a high energy density, and it can be produced from renewable sources, thereby making it a cleaner and more efficient fuel option for various applications.
The Challenges
Extracting hydrogen at scale through the electrolysis of water using renewable energy is a little used (1 per cent of global production) but very promising way to produce green hydrogen. However, its production comes with some key challenges which are:
– The need for powerful wind turbines (and plenty of wind) to power the desalination plant.
– The need for abundant water resources from which to extract the hydrogen.
– The high costs of some current methods of converting energy at sea and bringing it in a cable to shore (the cable is the costly part).
The Answer? Offshore Wind Farms Connected to Electrolysers
German company Lhyfe believes the answer to these challenges is to use high capacity offshore floating wind farms with turbines connected to electrolysers that utilise seawater, using the green energy to power the separation process.
Using powerful wind turbines offshore harnesses abundant wind energy and by connecting them to electrolysers which utilise seawater, plus a hydrogen production plant, the process overcomes the previous challenges because:
– Seawater is an abundant source of hydrogen.
– Converting the electricity to hydrogen using the seawater and an offshore production plant beneath the turbines, means the hydrogen can be piped ashore (there are many existing North Sea pipelines). This is much less costly than using expensive electric substations and cables.
Two Plants Commissioned Following Successful Pilot
With this in mind, in September 2022, Lhyfe installed the world’s first renewable green hydrogen pilot plant at sea, capable of producing up to 400 kilos of hydrogen a day off the Atlantic coast.
The success of Sealhyfe has led to the commissioning of the first floating platform for green hydrogen production off Le Croisic, directly connected to a floating wind turbine, with a second, much larger project planned called HOPE, this time off the coast of Belgium. Its 10 MW production unit, due for commissioning in 2026, will have the capacity to produce up to four tonnes of green hydrogen per day.
Is Hydrogen Dangerous As A Fuel Source?
Anyone who’s watched the black and white film of the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg airship exploding will be aware of how flammable hydrogen is. It also has a low ignition point, and is odourless and colourless, making leaks difficult to detect. That said, other fossil fuels we use (e.g. petrol and gas) also come with similar risks but are generally used safely. Also, with hydrogen, dispersal in air can mitigate the risk of explosion, and various safety measures can be employed to handle and store it safely.
Oxygen
One other beneficial aspect of extracting hydrogen from seawater is that oxygen is also produced as a byproduct. Lhyfe is developing ways to re-inject this oxygen by-product back into aquatic environments, which (due to global warming and polluting industrial activities) are increasingly depleted of oxygen, in order to re-oxygenate them. This is particularly important since 50 per cent of the oxygen on earth originates in the ocean and scientists have observed declining dissolved oxygen levels in the global ocean since the 1950’s, predicting a further decrease of up to 7 per cent by the year 2100 as a result of ocean warming and nutrient pollution.
What Does This Mean For Your Organisation?
Not only is there a well-publicised need for urgent CO2 emission reduction and decarbonisation of our lifestyles and industries, but there’s also a need to find ways to stabilise and restore the functioning of ecosystems in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Lhyfe’s idea for sustainable green hydrogen production appears to address both issues, i.e. by proving a sustainable green fuel (hydrogen) and by putting the oxygen by-product of the process back into the ocean.
The hydrogen from offshore farms produced at sea (using just seawater and wind energy) could count towards decarbonising known high emitters of CO2 on land, e.g. lorries, buses, and waste collection vehicles, and industry (e.g. in the production of chemicals, metals, glass, steel, and more). As such, green hydrogen could have a significant and positive impact on many industries and could create new opportunities as a new industry of its own. That said, extracting hydrogen at scale through the electrolysis of water using renewable energy is still relatively new and little used, making up only 1 per cent of global hydrogen production. Investment and some considerable scaling-up will be needed to help increase its impact and it may also take some time to deploy more of these green hydrogen windfarms in more places around the world.
However, the technology now exists, has proven successful in trials and looks set to be one of many ways that can be used to tackle the climate crisis and targets related to it. Offshore wind offers more additional scale than most other renewable power sources, meaning that that linking hydrogen-producing units to turbines does at least have the potential to be scaled-up and could prove to be a realistic way to help reduce our reliance on natural gas.
Tech-Trivia : Did You Know? This Week in Tech-History …
25 Years Of Google This Month!
Did you know that Google was incorporated 25 years ago, in September 1998?
Or that it was originally made from Lego? (sort of)
Google began as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were students at Stanford in 1996. Originally named “BackRub.” the name “Google” is a play on the word “googol,” a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. The name reflects the company’s mission to organise the massive amount of information on the web.
Their first version of Google was stored on ten 4GB hard drives in a Lego casing! Nevertheless, by the end of 1998, Google was processing 10,000 search queries per day. This number grew rapidly, and by the end of 1999, it was processing 500,000 queries per day.
It now processes over 3.5 billion searches daily.
Google’s homepage was notably simple (primarily because neither Larry nor Sergey were proficient in HTML). This simplicity, plus their powerful ‘PageRank’ algorithm quickly blew all the other search engines away. Remember them? The likes of HotBot, AltaVista, Lycos, Excite and of course, Yahoo were all less relevant, highly cluttered and covered in ads*
Here’s (just a few) notable acquisitions they’ve made, you should have heard of these :
Applied Semantics (2003): Acquired for its contextual advertising technology, which later became a core component of Google AdSense.
Android (2005): Purchased for an estimated $50 million, Android has become the dominant mobile operating system globally.
YouTube (2006): Acquired for $1.65 billion. Say no more!
Fitbit (2007): A consumer electronics company specialising in health and fitness wearables, acquired for $2.1 billion. Think of all your health(y) data!
Motorola Mobility (2012): Acquired for its telecommunications expertise at a cost of £12.5 billion.
Nest (2014): A home automation company purchased for $3.2 billion.
DeepMind (2014): A British artificial intelligence company acquired for an estimated $500 million.
See The Synergy And Strategy Here?
They have many other less well-known acquisitions, yet they all help Google provide services ranging from live-flight bookings to restaurant reviews. Alphabet has a current market cap of around $1.7 TRILLION dollars – not bad for a couple of college kids starting out in a garage on a “Lego” setup, who made an algorithm to rank websites by the number of inbound citations!
* Note – Of course, nowadays Google also promotes many adverts and their famous “Don’t be Evil” code of conduct was reportedly removed a few years ago, depending on who you listen to!
Tech Tip – Sharing Your Location In WhatsApp
If you’d like an easy way to let others know where you are, e.g. a group of friends on a night out, or as a safety precaution, you can choose to share your location on WhatsApp. Here’s how:
– Go to ‘Settings’ on your phone.
– Tap ‘Apps’ (or scroll down on iPhone).
– Select ‘WhatsApp,’ ‘Permissions,’ and ‘Location.’
– Select ‘Allow only while using the app’ (or ‘Ask every time’).
– To turn location sharing off again, follow the same route to permissions and select ‘Don’t allow.’
Featured Article : Google’s Answer To Copilot
In this article, we take at what Google’s ‘Duet’ is, it’s features and potential benefits to businesses, and the price.
Duet
Introduced in May this year, Duet AI in the Google Cloud is essentially Google’s answer to Microsoft’s Copilot. Duet is a paid-for, “always on” AI assistant and “collaborator” that is embedded within (and works across) all the Workspace apps including Gmail, Drive, Slides, and Docs, linking them together to provide value-adding synergies.
The Benefits
Google says Duet offers a “personalised and intent-driven cloud experience” and that, just as Copilot does with Microsoft’s apps, it provides cohesions of the apps and offers users a more holistic picture of the Google Cloud. Also, being able to ask Duet for help with anything related to Google Cloud’s apps on demand saves time and makes Google Cloud more accessible (and personal) to any type of user at any skill level.
Examples Of What It Can Do
Some examples of what Duet can do include:
– Providing recommendations for building and operating apps with Google Cloud (Codey, one of the models that powers Duet AI has been pre-trained with the necessary code). For example, Duet AI for AppSheet lets users create business applications, connect their data, and build workflows into Google Workspace via natural language, all with no coding required and with users simply needing to describe their needs for apps in a chat guided by AI-powered prompts.
– Giving code recommendations, generating full functions and code blocks, and identifying vulnerabilities and errors in the code, while suggesting fixes.
– Creating slides for a presentation from Google Docs or make charts from data in spreadsheets.
– Writing email responses (Duet is embedded in Gmail), summarising documents, checking grammar, and generating images, e.g. custom visuals in Slides.
– Summarising long threads in Chat, providing automated meeting summaries in Meet, and allowing users to easily alter sound and visuals in Meet with studio look, studio lighting, and studio sound. Duet can also provide dynamic tiles (a named tile) and face detection for Meet attendees.
– Giving real-time chat assistance on various topics, e.g. how to use certain cloud services or functions, and giving detailed implementation plans for cloud projects.
When?
From May it’s only been available to a limited number of Google Cloud users with others being invited to sign-up via Google Cloud’s AI Trusted Tester Program. However, Google announced on August 29 that Duet AI for Google Workspace is generally available now as a “no-cost trial”.
How Much?
Google says, for larger organisations, Duet is priced at $30 per user (on top of the existing Workspace subscription), the same price as Microsoft’s Copilot.
Will It Really Work?
Although Google Workspace has 3 billion users and more than 10 million paying customers, Google says Duet has so far been used by just thousands of companies and “more than a million trusted testers”. This means it’s still early days when you compare it to ChatGPT which was released 9 months before and has around 100 million users and had 1.6 billion visits to its site in June. That said, when Copilot was announced back in March, Microsoft said it was only being tested by 20 customers (although these included 8 within Fortune 500 enterprises).
The point is, however, anyone who’s used generative AI knows it can’t be trusted 100 per cent, and sometimes gets things wrong / makes things up so a reality check, the right prompts, and a good period of widespread use (and, therefore, more training) are needed to improve the outputs of AI work assistants like these. It should, however remembered, that Duet is mainly designed and focused specifically on working with Google Clouds apps so, hopefully, it should be relatively reliable.
Plans For More
As with Copilot, Google says there’s plans to expand the capabilities of Duet with Google’s Workspace.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Google’s keen to points out that Duet enables users to “get back to the best parts of their jobs, to the parts that rely on human creativity, ingenuity, and expertise” by simplifying and speeding up the parts that would have taken time trawling through data and manually summarising and putting reports, visuals, and other things together.
Like Copilot, some of the main advantages of Duet are that it allows business users to get more value from the synergies of making more holistic use of many Google apps, i.e. it provides an instant, on-demand, flexible, and effective way to get much more out the most popular apps.
As with Microsoft’s Copilot, businesses using Google’s Duet can save time, be more creative with IT, boost productivity, upskill staff in IT (without spending on training), and get greater and perhaps new insights into their own business and operations.
All this, however, comes at the price of $30 per user which (as with Copilot which is the same price) has been criticised by some for being quite expensive. Since we’re still at the very early stages of businesses trying and using Copilot and now Duet, plus with businesses wanting to protect the source of any competitive advantages, it’s not easy to find any clear information of how much of a boost to productivity and profits either are, so making the decision to take the plunge may be based more on price which (at the moment) may not be particularly attractive. That said, Duet does offer some tempting capabilities and potential benefits to businesses.