Wearables are getting more and more popular and start to move more into the healthcare field by tracking all kinds of data concerning physiological processes and performance. Some companies explicitly want their wearables to be medical devices, others prefer their wearables to stay out of that. Some companies plan their data protection compliance for personal data concerning health, while others stick to treating data from their wearables as ‘normal’ personal data (or maybe not even that).
The variety of wearables also becomes more and more diverse: wearables are not just watches and wristbands but also footwear, clothing, hats, patches, ankle band, gloves, earpieces, monocles, glasses, contact lenses and so on.
Wearables hardware is typically supported by software that also processes data and may perform all kinds of operations on the data that might make the software itself a medical device or an accessory to the wearable (if that is a medical device). Also, data protection considerations apply to the software or end-to-end solution that the wearable is part of, especially if the company instead to aggregate the data from the wearable and maybe use it for purposes additional to providing feedback to the user.
Wearables are also deployed for a variety of purposes that may be very sensitive from a data protection angle, like for example monitoring health risks in employees.
In this mix we see a continuous stream of either nasty or happy surprises for companies with regard to the rules that apply to their product and associated services. To help reduce confusion we decided to organise a seminar about this subject on Wednesday 20 April, featuring the following presentations:
- Regulatory and legal aspects of wearables
- Practicalities on CE marking your wearable and software
- A showcase of wearable development by Microsoft
As you are used from us, the seminar is free and you can bring as many colleagues and friends as you like (just please let us know many so we can plan for it – see in the below invitation for the RSVP email address) and feel free to spread the word! It’s in Amsterdam center on the waterfront, there’s ample parking underneath the venue and we will have drinks and snack afterwards at our office. Hope to see you there!
If you cannot attend and want to receive copies of the presentations, you’re welcome to let me know too.
medicaldeviceslegal 
Bedankt Eric !