A St. Louis school district wants its students to wear the devices 24/7




By Mary Shapiro
STLtoday.com
January 3, 2012



When is the line crossed between better health and surveillance?

In early 2012, wristwatch-like devices called Polar active monitors will be used by older students in PE classes at all 18 Parkway elementary schools. District officials say the devices should help improve the students' fitness and academic achievement.

Later this school year, the district plans to collect data about activity levels and even sleep patterns for a week at a time. It will have the students wear the devices round the clock.

Some parents and legal experts are raising privacy concerns about at least that aspect of the program.

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Still, parents should be asking what data is being collected from those devices and when, Richards said. They should ask what rights they have to control the data, whether data is anonymous, what safeguards will be in place to protect data, whether the district is going to give it or sell it to anyone, when data will be destroyed, and whether the district has a privacy policy available to parents.
Parkway's use of fitness monitors raises privacy questions




The students' monitors for data collection are being set up with a Finland company (linked in article). Their legal notice, especially the privacy policy is very interesting and a description of a personal data file can be found here: https://register.polar.fi/legal/lega...00&modal=false