Apple has updated its privacy settings for iOS 8, protecting your sensitive HealthKit data from advertisers and other prying eyes.
Ahead of the expected iOS 8 launch in September, Apple has made some modifications to ensure your sensitive data contained in the Health app and HealthKit enabled services cannot be sold.
Any health data gathered by the HealthKit API will now definitely remain private as Apple has restricted developers from selling or distributing your information.
The terms are buried within the latest iOS 8 beta’s licensing agreement, but the Financial Times managed to dig them out.
According to the license, developers may “not sell an end-user’s health information collected through the HealthKit API to advertising platforms, data brokers or information resellers” and are forbidden from using any collected data “for any purpose other than providing health and/or fitness services”.
Any apps using the HealthKit API must also ensure that they are delivering the privacy policies to end users.
The HealthKit API is an application framework that makes third-party app and hardware compatible with iOS 8 devices and the new Health App coming with Apple’s next mobile OS.
Health lets you access all the fitness data gathered by third-party hardware and software via a centralised hub. It lets you view and share your health metrics, such as your heart rate, calories burnt, blood sugar, cholesterol levels and steps taken.
Of course, all this is primed to work with the heavily rumoured iWatch – Apple’s first wearable device.
The iWatch is supposed to be a wrist worn device that carries a host of health related sesnors, not dissimilar to other fitness trackers already on the markets like the Samsung Gear Live or Nike FuelBand SE.
iOS 8 is expected to be made publicly available on September 9, when the iPhone 6 and potentially the iWatch is unveiled.
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