Samsung Galaxy Watch / Samsung Health
Samsung Electronics · Wearable / Fitness Tracker
✓ Reviewed
Index
The Galaxy Watch and Samsung Health track heart rate, sleep, stress, blood oxygen, ECG, workouts and continuous location, plus a built-in microphone for voice assistants. Samsung combines this with data purchased from data brokers and other sources, and its privacy terms reserve the right to share data with affiliates, marketing partners and analytics providers and to sell identifiers and online activity for cross-context behavioral advertising. Using Samsung Health requires broad, effectively all-or-nothing consent to health-data processing.
Why this rating
Deductions: collects biometric, health and precise-location data (-15); terms permit selling identifiers/online activity for cross-context advertising (-25); combines its data with information bought from data brokers (-15); an all-or-nothing consent gate offers no meaningful opt-out to still use the health features (-10); unilateral terms changes (-5). Among the weakest policies in this slice. Evidence: Mozilla's independent review confirms the sale of identifiers for cross-context advertising, and a 2022 Samsung-account breach exposed customer contact data, though not specifically wearable or health data.
What it is
- Microphone
- GPS / location
- Requires a cloud account
- Manufacturer
- Samsung Electronics
- Category
- Wearable / Fitness Tracker
- Model years
- 2018-present
- Market status
- Current
- Companion app
- Samsung Health
The evidence 2
Independent research, regulatory action, lawsuits, breaches and journalism about this device — the "what actually happens" axis. Each links to its source.
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Mozilla flags the Galaxy Watch with its *Privacy Not Included warning, finding Samsung sells identifiers and online activity for cross-context ads, shares location with third parties and ingests data from data brokers.
Why it matters here: Independent review of this exact product's data-sharing and sale practices.
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Samsung disclosed that a mid-2022 breach compromised U.S. customer information including names, contact details and dates of birth.
Why it matters here: Indicates a breach of Samsung-account customer data (names, contact details, dates of birth); the disclosure did not specifically implicate Galaxy Watch or Samsung Health data.
Descriptive, cited, not legal advice; ratings are versioned and corrections create a new version. Data from the IoT Info Grabber DB research project, CC BY-SA 4.0.