Another Invasion of Privacy?

According to the CBC,  Manulife Life Insurance Company is planning on offering a discount to those who wear a fitness device/armband. Individuals who wear such a device can accumulate points every time they exercise, get a flu shot or get an annual medical check-up. These point can be used " to earn other rewards and discounts from leading retailers"(CBC).

Is this the thin edge of yet one more wedge? Is this the first step of insurance companies (among others) requiring us to share more and more personal information? Will they start to increase premiums of those who refuse to wear such tracking devices? Is it in fact just a continuation of the corporate world demanding more and more access to all of our lives? One can already have reduced car insurance premiums if one installs a monitoring device in your car (and follow their standards of what good diving is).

When people argue that the police and the state need to have ever increasing access to our private world, those in favour of such intrusion suggest that "if you are not doing anything wrong - why do you care that the police have access to your e-mail, or the statistics on your internet usage?" I can hear people making the same argument about wearing a bracelet that monitors my exercise regime, whether or not I smoke, how much I drink or whether I chose to go to the western educated doctor. I am a law abiding citizens and I work hard at staying healthy but I don't think the state or a private company (sometimes it is difficult to differentiate the two) needs to access such personal information. I don't think that a private company which has the sole function of making money for its shareholders has the right to expect to know everything about me. I, quite frankly, don't trust them. Whether it is intentional or not, the risk of such information being shared is just too high. At the very least I will be on someone else's email list and subject to unwanted ads, at the worst the information will used to control me or limit my options.

Of course the logic requiring people to electronically report in when they exercise is obvious to all who have (1) access to such devices and the capacity to use them properly and (2) the opportunity to engage in preventative health activities. Those who take delight at wearing such bracelets (which can cost anywhere from $25.00 to $140.00 and I suspect are some sort of status symbol among a certain "crowd")  will argue that people will be free to choose to wear the device and not.  Not true.

There is, unfortunately, a large segment of the Canadian population for which either buying a bracelet or engaging in all of the "right activities" is not really an option.  As noted in numerous studies (see for example Barriers to addressing the societal determinants of health: public health units and poverty in Ontario, Canada) , people living in poverty are less able to engage in the type of healthy life styles that ensure a long life. There are numerous reasons as to why but quite simply it is hard to find the energy, the time or the resources to exercise when one has just worked at two different, minimum pay, on your feet all day jobs.

Then there are all of the cynics like me out there who will refuse out of principle. I perhaps could even save a few cents a day in insurance costs...... but I will be damn if I am going to give anyone any more information about who and what I am.