{"id":3786,"date":"2026-06-22T11:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ibvl.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/22\/professional-athletes-and-wearables\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T11:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:04:15","slug":"professional-athletes-and-wearables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ibvl.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/22\/professional-athletes-and-wearables\/","title":{"rendered":"Professional Athletes and Wearables"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I haven\u2019t thought about the privacy issues<\/a> surrounding professional athletes and wearables.<\/p>\n

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Wearables present serious privacy issues<\/a> for \u201cAverage Joe\u201d consumers, who are entrusting tech companies to safely store and protect their biometric data. Imagine the stakes for a professional athlete, whose entire livelihood could be affected by a single biometric data point. To give one of many realistic hypotheticals: a basketball player has a terrible game, and the coach wonders if they showed up to the gym hungover. The coach has access to the player\u2019s wearable data, and checks to see when they went to sleep, as well as what their heart rate looked like during the night. Should the player have been out partying before a game? No. Should the coach be able to surveil them? Definitely not.<\/p>\n

It will not surprise you to learn that there\u2019s an emergent gambling angle here: sports leagues would love to commercialize players\u2019 biometric data, and sharp bettors would love access to data about, say, a hungover player. \u201cWe\u2019re going to get to a spot where people are betting not just on the velocity of the puck that was shot by a player in the NHL playoffs, but on what the heart rate of a certain player is going to be running down the field,\u201d said Helen \u201cNellie\u201d Drew, the director of the University of Buffalo\u2019s Center for the Advancement of Sport, and a professor of practice in sports law.<\/p>\n

There are other practical considerations, too. What if wearable data reveals that a player isn\u2019t as speedy as they were before, and a team uses that data against the player during contract negotiations? What if a wearable reveals a player is favoring their leg, or is at greater risk of injury? This information is potentially beneficial to a training staff and an athlete, so long as it\u2019s disclosed and used in a responsible manner\u2014\u00ada critical, mostly unresolved caveat. \u201cAging and injured players are the most at-risk\u201d of wearable data being used against them, said Michael LeRoy, who researches sports labor laws and AI, and is a professor at the University of Illinois\u2019s School of Labor and Employment Relations.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The bit about gamblers is particularly scary.<\/p>\n

I have often said that surveillance tech is generally deployed first against people with diminished rights: children, prisoners, military personnel, the mentally impaired. This is another early use case with different dynamics. The surveilled are wealthy and powerful, and\u2014in many cases\u2014unionized.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven\u2019t thought about the privacy issues surrounding professional athletes and wearables. Wearables present serious privacy issues for \u201cAverage Joe\u201d consumers, who are entrusting tech companies to safely store and protect their biometric data. Imagine the stakes for a professional athlete, whose entire livelihood could be affected by a single biometric data point. To give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","footnotes":""},"categories":[90,1097,11,1322,216,53],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-3786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybersecurity","category-gambling","category-privacy","category-sports","category-surveillance","category-uncategorized","tag-cybersecurity"],"yoast_head":"\nProfessional Athletes and Wearables - Imperative Business Ventures Limited<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.ibvl.in\/index.php\/2026\/06\/22\/professional-athletes-and-wearables\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Professional Athletes and Wearables - Imperative Business Ventures Limited\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I haven\u2019t thought about the privacy issues surrounding professional athletes and wearables. Wearables present serious privacy issues for \u201cAverage Joe\u201d consumers, who are entrusting tech companies to safely store and protect their biometric data. Imagine the stakes for a professional athlete, whose entire livelihood could be affected by a single biometric data point. 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