Legal Geek No. 82: Fitness Trackers as Court Evidence

Welcome back to Legal Geek. This week, we look at an interesting case showing the risks and benefits associated with all the smart devices surrounding us in daily life, including FitBits and smart cars.

https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp82

A few weeks ago, a Florida woman had a rape claim undermined in court thanks to a fitness tracker she was wearing on the night she called police to report the incident. Although there was other evidence indicating nobody else was in the house where the woman claimed to be assaulted while sleeping, the smoking gun was the information from her FitBit, after she turned over the password to the device's data to the police.

Turns out, in the time period when the woman claimed the attack happened, the FitBit revealed that she was walking around the house instead of sleeping. Thus, while she may have gained plenty of helpful health information for herself with the FitBit, that same information undermined her story and led to some misdemeanor charges against her for the false claims.

With wearable technology on the rise, expect this type of story of fitness tracker court evidence to become more of the normal. Is this a good thing? It is for preventing false claims like in this rape case, and another similar case where internal data from a Tesla car contradicted claims of the car owner for products liability based on a false claim of the car accelerating on its own.

However, tracking devices can be a positive, like in a 2014 case where a fitness trainer provide a personal injury lawsuit that his FitBit proved lower exercise levels after an accident. That helped prove damages for lack of ability to effectively work.

Aside from questions of constitutional rights like those against self-incrimination, wearable tracking technology is on the rise to increase efficiency and track workers in fields like supermarkets and Amazon order fulfillment. That raises many labor law questions for employers who continue to track more and more information about employees. Unwarranted firings based on such data or unfair increased tracking of some employees over others are just the tip of the iceberg for these issues.

The Bottom Line is, just like all technologies, wearable trackers and other data collection devices may require new rules and standards that will take courts time to figure out. The data collection devices all around us certainly have the capability to make the justice system more accurate, but we again must be aware of the risks to privacy and to constitutional rights when we jump in feet first with new technologies.

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