Radanliev P. Privacy, ethics, transparency, and accountability in AI systems for wearable devices. Front Digit Health. 2025;7:1431246. doi:10.3389/fdgth.2025.1431246
This study addresses the growing ethical tensions surrounding AI-enabled wearable devices (such as the Apple Watch, Oura, and Fitbit) by proposing a practical framework grounded in responsible AI principles. Wearable devices generate vast amounts of intimate personal data, which fuel innovations in health monitoring, productivity tracking, and anomaly detection. When these devices and personal data are combined with AI and machine learning, they can also enable profiling, discriminatory practices, invasive advertising, and even surveillance. The article argues that without clear safeguards, such systems risk undermining privacy, fairness, and human agency. At the heart of the proposed framework is transparency embedded across the entire data lifecycle. The lifecycle is suggested to encompass collection and preprocessing to model development and deployment. Transparency is presented not as a voluntary best practice, but as a regulatory obligation. Users must understand how their data is processed, why decisions are made, and how to challenge them. This requires traceable system design, explainable models, and intelligible user interfaces. This study also highlights the dangers of algorithmic bias. Wearable devices trained on homogeneous datasets may produce inaccurate or discriminatory results for underrepresented groups, whether due to age, ethnicity, gender, or physiological differences. Examples include heart rate inaccuracies, caloric estimation errors, and facial recognition misidentification. To mitigate these risks, it is critical to focus on diverse data collection, fairness-aware training techniques, regular audits, and evaluation tools to detect bias. Ultimately, protecting privacy through encryption, anonymization, clear data policies, and developing stronger consent and accountability regulations is essential. Addressing these challenges is critical not only for legal compliance but for building public trust and ensuring AI-enabled wearable devices serve society equitably and responsibly.