Got a Fever? There’s an Ad for That

The data is anonymized and means the store isn't sold out of cough syrup when I show up sick and tired. This is a case when data sharing is good. It's easy to lump all companies that sell data in to the evil category but that's how we limit progress. What we need is rational and thoughtful privacy laws and rules that weed out the good guys from the bad guys.

My fear is that in the future, you'll have to pay a premium for "dumb"/not-internet-connected products that aren't capable of harvesting your data and/or advertising to you. Or worse, that dumb versions of products will cease to exist and your only option is internet-dependent products that collect your data and feed you advertisements. I see no reason why a thermometer needs to be communicating with remote servers, nor do I see how the transmission of your data to those servers is directly helpful to you, the individual user. Certainly helpful and lucrative for the company, though. If you want a cute app for tracking your kid's fever, why not have an old-fashioned "offline" app or widget that only communicates with the thermometer? It's not like you need to pull data from anywhere else to record your kid's fever. Or send your thermometer's data anywhere else, for that matter...

We as a society have lost Pope Leo's edict to 'not profit from the misfortune of others'. We should not have 'for profit' prisons because it encourages those organizations work to make everything illegal..so they have more prisoners..and thus make more $$. We should not have 'for profit' medicine because it encoursages doctors and hospitals to charge more..especially when there are no natural competitors to keep prices in check. But..the worse part is that we have no morally sound leaders who speak out against these things. I guess, once again, its up to me to set things straight.

Most people really don’t know how much the internet of things is violating their privacy. The idea that this type of data can’t be a correlated to produce identity information is disingenuous at best. Also the security for these data skimmers is appalling and many have already been hacked for nefarious uses. It’s an evolving private surveillance state with the potential to become a police surveillance state like China.

This underscores the perils of the 'internet of things'. If you want the convenience of devices that can be monitored remotely, or synced to a mobile app, you have to EXPECT that that data is being collected, monitored and sold to whoever wants to pay for it. Consumers don't really have much ground to be surprised anymore - stories about your data being collected and sold have been prominent for over a decade. In this case, caveat emptor does apply - buyer beware; if your purchases are connected to the internet, they are sending data to their manufacturer. Accept it, and if you don't like it - don't buy it.

How transparent is Kinsa about telling customers their data will be shared and used? And I don't mean nestled within pages and pages of legalese where only a lawyer would pick it out. Healthcare information is considered extremely sensitive and to not have every package plastered with bold type that your data will be shared is deceptive. I would never buy such a thermometer (I just bought an old-fashioned one this weekend) and would not be surprised if some people dispose of their Kinsas after reading this article.

Everyone who owns a Kinsa thermometer should throw it out. Send a message that you value your privacy. Advertisers, enough is enough.

Good. I will NEVER buy a Kinsa device. This type of misuse of customers' data should be illegal.

This is evil. People have forgotten about the security implications of such devices. They can be hijacked and monitored by nefarious forces. Once the data is collected it can be used, by who knows? Once collected it can be subpoenaed or become the subject of a search warrant. Intelligence agencies hopefully have been warning their employees about such gadgets. If they haven't then the agencies themselves will be finding ways to use them to monitor their own employees.

This is disgusting. If I can I will boycott such products and encourage others to do so.

And if someone is charting their temperature with a connection to fertility.....well then, another whole marketing window opens. And maybe data of use to the Catholic Church.

The Amazon patent - Jin, et al. U.S. Patent No. 10,096,319 is for a "Voice-based determination of physical and emotional characteristics of users". The invention also seems to operate like a voice stress analyzer. Evidently, they're trying to monitor someone's emotional state and then force-feed products, services and suggestions to them. At column 2, line 12 it says: "Determined physical and/or emotional states or conditions of a user may be used to select or determine relevant audio or visual content for presentation to the user. Selected or determined content may be highly targeted due to the real-time determination of the physical and/or emotional characteristics of the user..." Let's see...how could someone use the power of suggestion based upon their emotional state? Good gosh, a hacker could have a field day with this thing!

I wonder how Kinsa side-steps the HIPPA medical privacy regulations? Body temperature is, after all, medical data. According to this article, data obtained from the thermometer: "...contains no identifying personal information before being passed along to other companies." However, by merely handling the data, Kinsa must adhere to the HIPPA regulations, and those associated with electronic medical devices. After all, it does seem they are in possession of medical data. According to the article: "It is unique, Kinsa says, because it comes straight from someone’s household in real time."

Kinsa may indeed be as mission-driven as they claim. However, they have taken substantial amounts of investment from some very traditional VC firms like Kleiner Perkins, which are about as mission-driven as the big pharma companies. By taking on such investors, there is a lot of pressure on Kinsa to generate a return on that substantial investment, and they have decided to sell their customer's data to commercial interests without disclosing exactly who they are selling it to and what these entities are subsequently doing with the data. This is a very slippery slope. I suspect Clorox is the least nefarious entity they have sold their data to, and I'm sure they have sold their data to at least one big pharma company. Who's to say that one of these big pharma companies doesn't use this data to implement surge pricing on their products (à la Uber) to juice up profits? Also, their CEO very obliquely mentions and glosses over Google's attempt at doing something similar called Google Flu Trends. This was a major undertaking involving huge datasets and some of the very best epidemiologists in the field. Google ultimately shut down the project because the models were inaccurate. The reason? Self-reported user data about non-specific symptoms is never going to approach the accuracy of an actual diagnosis by a trained medical professional. A body temperature measurement along with some user-reported symptom data is pretty non-specific and could be indicative of a number of ailments.

It would be funny if the targeted advertising make the first affected individuals buy the disinfectants sooner and thus reduce the overall spread of fever, ultimately resulting in less people buying the disinfectant.

Always have a passcode on your WiFi router and never share it with these devices. They can not communicate without the code.

I think people should use their thermometers with their pets. Dogs, for example have higher normal temperatures than humans. Just kidding!

No. No no no no no. I do not want corporate America tracking my bodily functions. I don't want a thermometer seeking ads for Clorox or Nyquil. I don't want a smart toilet sending fiber supplements or fluffy toilet paper my way. I don't want my fridge ordering more yogurt or veggies. I don't want any of my devices listening to me cough. We finally see horizon - the kids are almost through school and ready to move on and the house is ours. Do I really want to hide from Alexa and my smart medicine cabinet now?

My opinion is that companies like Kinsa should be able to use anonymous data sets with partners as long as they are very very clear with their customers about what they do, including publishing the names of the companies they partner with. By not disclosing the names of all the companies Kinsa partners with, because of confidentiality agreements, I don’t how we can trust Kinsa.

Isn't this a HIPAA violation? This is private medical information that no doctor could disclose, why does the thermometer company get a pass?

I'm sure this is an invasion of privacy and people should be fully aware of what they are signing up for when they buy these products. And the companies that employ this technology should be required to undertake every means required by law to protect the users' privacy. That being said, if indeed the information gathered cannot be targeted individually, then the data gathered is almost surely useless and/or redundant. The CDC already publishes weekly updates about flu activity across the United States (https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm). To think that the handful of "smart" thermometers in each locality will somehow lead to useful increases in a company's return on investment for ads run in those localities, is a fairy tale that only a country completely consumed in the technological-utopian zeitgeist of our time would believe.

Kinsa is actually one of the most mission-driven companies in the Bay Area. It is trying to track and eventually curb the spread of illness. The entire team there is only trying to do good in the world, and only focusing on this ad part of the equation doesn't represent the company well or tell the whole story. Kinsa is close to being able to track and therefore prevent the spread of illnesses which kill millions of people worldwide every year. Thank you Kinsa for all you do! My family will always support this mission-driven company -- our thermometers are Kinsa all the way!

Privacy exists only within the mind, all else is open for all sadly.

You know what else can track my child's fever over a few days? A pen and some paper. Or I'll make a spread sheet if I feel I need to do this over a long time. I feel like we're trying to solve problems that don't exist.

This article sent more shivers down my spine than the latest "Halloween" movie...

Huh, whaddya know. This story is making me sick.

This sounds like the last necessity on the planet yet 500000 people bought this device....? Im so confused and hope you are spammed through sickness or health.

No Kinsa for me either. Am sure Internet connected toilet paper is next with a targeted ad on your smart phone for immodium. It's reaching stalking proportions.

Well isn’t that just creepy. I’ll keep my good old glass and mercury thermometer, thanks. I worked in tech for more than 30 years and I used to love computers, but this crap is getting out of hand.

Clorox ... how do you spell "stalker"?

Why should I believe for even a second that my personal data won't be shared? No "connected" home thermometer for me, thank you. Reminds me of the Woody Allen routine (from the 60s, I think) where the elevator asks him if he's the guy that beat up his toaster. BTW I wouldn't be surprised if hospital telemetry equipment doesn't have this capability as well. Perhaps the manufacturer gives institutions a discount for sharing data.. you can see where this is going.....

"...Kinsa sells its data to other companies under the name Kinsa Insights. While Mr. Singh declined to share the names of other customers, citing confidentiality agreements.....It has also been used by pharmacies and manufacturers that make and distribute medicines and cough and cold products to keep retailers’ shelves full with flu-related products when fevers spike in certain areas...". Oh that's rich! We pay to purchase the product, our data is then collected and put up for sale but we're not allowed to know who's buying it. Thank doG that I have a good supply of old fashion glass-and-mercury thermometers from decades ago. Get over the obsessive need to track every body function. The only thing getting healthier is bottom lines of the companies who sell the devices. People certainly aren't!

This is one very slippery slope...

Eventually, a smart toaster will fall under the influence of a smarter fridge, and with the goading of a seriously demented Alexa speaker, they'll go Hal 9000 on somebody. We'll be sorry then, you wait and see.

Wesuggest: Simply throw the smart thermometer away or, for fun, tape it to the exit port of a free-roaming animal or place it in the toilet's water tank. This whole internet connected device/monitoring business is getting to be beyond ridiculous. Next to be surveiled ... one's fertility?

Remind me not to buy one.

It's all fun and games until a cybercreep breaks into the servers of one of these health-related "internet of things" vendors and steals the personally identified data to sell. Let's see, if I were a "professional" housebreaker would it help me to know where people were sick yesterday? Is it possible they went to the doctor today, and the house is empty? Hmm. I can buy this data for my favorite zipcode three for a dollar on the dark web? Pretty sweet. Same thing happens with obituaries. But the police know this and keep an eye on houses with people at wakes and funerals. Here's the thing: All electronic secrets leak. ALL SECRETS. Not even state actors with unlimited budgets can keep secrets from leaking. How to prevent damage from this? Don't keep big heaps of electronic secrets on servers. The secrets (like customer id and fever temperature) you don't gather are the ones that can't leak.

I have multiple Kinsa thermometers and love them. The practical applications for managing my 3 young kids’ health have been incredibly valuable. They don’t gather any personal information and it helps me track my kids’ fevers much more effectively and figure out when to call the doctor, etc.

If they're using data from my life, they should pay for it.

While I use computers all the time, I don't even have a real smartphone, nor do I have any Internet connected household devices and don't want them. This weekend I was staying at an AirBnB in Canada, and when I went to connect to the Internet via WiFi I saw that one of the SSID's was an LG refrigerator. The apartment didn't have an LG brand, so someone else in the building must have had one. I wonder what that's all about.

"Amazon ...It could even suggest a visit to the movies after discerning boredom. Other patents submitted by the company have focused on how it could suggest products to people based on keywords in their conversations." While these devices need to be "listening" all the time to detect their trigger word, I thought the companies said they didn't keep track of anything else they heard. Seems we were mislead. Apparently, at least Echo analyzes everything it hears during its surveillance of your home if it can detect boredom and can recommend products based on what it hears you say. I can imagine what it would recommend if someone worked in the industrial lubricant business and had discussions about work at home, eh?

I want my computers and my phone to have internet connections - with antivirus, firewall and regular software updates and firmware updates on all. I do NOT want any other gadget I own to even know there's such a thing as the internet. Countless millions being spent on marketing, big-data being filled with the minutiae of our lives for marketing, data scientists pawing through are details for marketing - we really don't spend in the right places.

Thank you for this informative article. I'll be sure NOT to buy a kinsa thermometer.

I have the Kensa thermometer. I just keep the location and notifications turned off.

Exactly why I'd never have a Ring, Nest, Alexa, or this thermometer. What goes on my house stays in my house, not to be monetized for someone else's benefit. Period.

A simple matter it would be for a terrorist-connected “advertiser” to get data on the effectiveness of a bioweapons attack by monitoring the health of those in the area affected.

Internet-connected thermometers, corporate eavesdroppers like Alexa, smart TV's that monitor you, sending your DNA off to some company for analysis, etc. Little by little we are voluntarily building our own Panopticons so others can monitor us. Maybe some are comfortable with this, but I will never be and I will resist all such efforts as much as possible. Because it's only a matter of time before that data starts finding its way to insurance companies, law enforcement, and whomever else will pay for it. And because I just don't like it.

Nino wonder people have lost faith in our organizations. Everything is measured in dollars and cents, even illness. There are no safeguards. People are nothing more than ATMs. Not a formula for a healthy nation.

I recently purchased a Blood Pressure monitor from Omron. I found that in order to link the device to my phone, so it could automatically log the results, I had to send the info through their servers. When I called to ask why the data could not go directly to the phone I was told "That's just the way it works". Now I suspect that my data may be aggregated for Omron to sell. I turned off the auto-log feature and enter the data manually. We all need to be aware of how and when our personal health data is being collected and where it goes.

There is no reason on earth to have a "connected" thermometer. This is a FAIL on so many levels and one of the few times I personally would advocate for a class action. Spying and snooping are creepy and should be illegal. Period.