Apple launches virtual health studies aiming to enroll hundreds of thousands of customers
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple on Thursday launched three observational studies — focused on mobility, menstruation, and hearing — that each aim to enroll hundreds of thousands of people and monitor them virtually using their own iPhones and Apple Watches.
Amid rising concern about health data privacy, the tech giant has vowed not to sell the data collected from the studies. Apple will allow participants to control which types of information they share and to delete data within 24 hours of their collection. The company may, however, use the collected study data to refine its algorithms; for example, it could mine for correlations between heart rate data and activity data — how many steps you take, how often you stand, or how often you exercise — to try to improve the notifications it sends Apple Watch users who have an irregular heart rhythm or a high heart rate.
