Adam Maguire

By the way, that company has since lost its contract with Meta.

Meta says it has nothing to do with the fact that the workers were complaining, though.

Yeah, and again, a wearable is just another device that's gathering information about you.

You're generally laden with sensors beyond the camera at the front.

So it might be heart rate sensors, body temperature sensors,

GPS, and that can be very informative in the wrong hands.

You know, someone who has access to that might be able to see your movements, your habits, get an idea of your work and social activities, maybe learn about your health, your fitness habits, maybe something as personal as your fertility cycle.

And at the very least, that could impact the kind of ads that are targeted at you.

That's assuming it's not putting to more concerning use.

So anyone buying a wearable like this really needs to look at the data it's gathering and who has access to it because it's not just the device maker that has access necessarily.

As I say, your phone is usually a conduit and if you're sharing data from your phone with other apps, they could then be able to tap into that as well.

And while it's not a privacy issue, these wearables are also kind of impacting people in a different way.

People are using them maybe to keep track of their activity levels, their wellness and so on.

And they can suffer from what's called data anxiety, where you become too focused on meeting goals and targets, or you suffer shame because your wearable tells you you didn't move as much today as you did yesterday.

And even a danger from the notification side of it, because again, it's sold as a way of not having your head buried in your phone.

But it's just replacing it with another screen or another way that you're constantly being pinged and reminded of things and so on.

And it can impact your focus and potentially just become distracting as well.

If you imagine someone wearing smart glasses while they're driving, that's a potential hazard there if they're getting distracted by that.

So those are the downsides.

We should say there are definitely uses for these.