Risks Posed by Wearables to Data Protection in Sports Science as Identified by User Studies

As a part of the Digitalisation and Trans formation of Research (DiTraRe) project, Razum et al. [1] highlight that sports science research data is connected to various legal and ethical protections. These come to risk when wearables make stored data accessible to the manufacturer (i.e., “calling home”) or to commercial monitoring [2]. Wearables are defined by Murata et al. [3] as worn non-medical technological devices for the monitoring and enhancement of physical activity (e.g., smart watches, GPS, sensor insoles etc.). The focus of this systematic literature review is on wearables’ data protection risks during intended use under standard conditions. Therefore, this review does not address risks caused by human error or technological error. Also, there are additional risks that arise as a result of malicious external intervention (i.e., hacking), which are not the focus of this research.