Are your fitness apps giving out your personal information?

It came to light this week that many of the beloved health and wellness apps, which have become so popular over the past year have been heavily criticized due to their apparent inability to withhold users personal information.

Privacy group Evidon reported that many of the top health and wellness apps have been sending information to up to 70 third-party companies. These companies are likely to use the information for advertising and analytic purposes. They will use customer information to help build profiles and target advertisement, meaning the users most sensitive details can become available to others.

App companies including the likes of Web MD Health and iPeriod have denied the claims. They state that the use of personal information is purely used for site analysis and advertising within apps, but strictly prohibits companies combining the use of information from other sources.

Regulations prevent any tracking or selling of users specific prescriptions or medical records. However people should be warned that any free health apps and services need to make their revenue from somewhere, and a lot of the time this is from data.

The allegations are unlikely to die down any time soon, however it should at least alert all other apps out there and users to check all terms and conditions before committing to the use of a service.