Skip to main content

Wearable Biotech: Ethics of Data Collection and Privacy Study Guide

This guide delves into the ethical landscape of wearable biotechnology. It examines the convergence of fashion and technology, the implications of collecting sensitive biological data, and the challenges of ensuring user privacy. Key topics include personally identifiable information (P.I.I.), surveillance risks, data ownership, the concept of privacy as a design affordance, and the critique of 'opt-in' culture. The guide aims to foster a deeper understanding of how these technologies impact our

Save this study guide to your study set

Sign up free

Your learning path

Sociotechnical Contexts and Ethics of Human Enhancement

Empirical Research Agenda for Enhancement

This paper argues that empirical research into the notion and practice of enhancement is necessary to provide resources to bioethicists and understand the social, political and historical contexts of biomedical and technological developments.

  • enhancement
  • bioethics
  • medical humanities
  • social sciences
  • science and technology studies
  • cognitive enhancement
  • pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement
  • social inequalities
  • societal context
  • cultural difference

Sociotechnical Networks of Human Enhancement

An examination of how social and economic factors, regulatory regimes, and sociotechnical networks shape the innovation, legitimacy, and consumption of technological enhancements.

  • social shaping of technology
  • sociotechnical networks
  • bioethical debate
  • regulatory studies
  • modes of governance
  • innovation processes
  • economic value
  • clinical practice
  • grey markets
  • object ontologies
  • subjective properties
  • ethics-in-practice

Ethics and Governance of Human Enhancement

The appraisal and analysis of sociotechnical practices associated with enhancing human capabilities must consider historical, cultural, and political contexts.

  • sociotechnical practices
  • human enhancement
  • bioethical discussions
  • governance of contested drugs and devices
  • decision-making
  • technologies of enhancement

Neuroenhancement, Ethics, and Society

Research regarding neuroenhancement, pharmacological cognitive enhancement, and the pharmaceuticalisation of society among university students.

  • neuroenhancement
  • pharmacological cognitive enhancement
  • prescription stimulants
  • pharmaceuticalisation of society
  • cognitive enhancement
  • medicalisation
  • bioethics

Bioethics and Sensemaking in Digital Health

Navigating Creepy versus Cool in Wearable Biotech

This paper considers how personal data protections figure into the design process of wearable technology and the emerging culture of wearable biotech.

  • wearable technology
  • biotechnology
  • personal data protections
  • data collection
  • personally identifiable information
  • surveillance
  • data ownership
  • privacy as affordance
  • biometrics
  • self-tracking

Bioethical Debates on Cognitive Enhancement

Empirical research from the medical humanities and social sciences informs bioethical deliberation regarding authenticity, autonomy, and the social frameworks of pharmaceutical use.

  • cognitive enhancement
  • authenticity
  • bioethical deliberation
  • psychopharmaceutical consumption
  • moral agency
  • autonomy
  • social frameworks
  • medical humanities
  • social sciences

Sensory Engagements with Digital Self-Tracking

This article explores sensory and sensemaking engagements with digital health technologies and how digitized modes of self-tracking datafy sensory perceptions and experiences.

  • digital health technologies
  • self-tracking
  • sensory engagements
  • new feminist materialism
  • wearable devices
  • datafication of sensory perceptions
  • sensory work
  • digital data archives
  • human embodiment

Digital Health Self-Tracking and Sensemaking

This research explores how women engage in data sensemaking and embodied learning through the use of digital health technologies and self-tracking devices.

  • data sensemaking
  • embodied sensory knowledges
  • feminist materialism
  • more-than-human sensorium
  • digital health technologies
  • self-tracking practices
  • agential capacities
  • affective forces
  • mnemonic assemblages
  • quantifiable bodily functions

Make it your own.

Keep these readings and topics in a new study set, or add them to one you already use.