Samsung Health Forces Users to Choose Between AI Training Consent or Data Deletion
Samsung is effectively requiring users to allow their sensitive health data to be used for AI training or lose that data entirely, raising serious questions about consent and data ownership.
Reporting from 1 source: GIGAZINE.
Samsung Health has added a consent toggle for using health data to train AI models. If users decline, a warning says their health data will be deleted unless retention is legally required. The feature has been spotted in some regions but not Japan. Samsung's help page says data such as activity, health records, medication, and menstrual cycles may be used, sometimes with human review. How-To Geek has contacted Samsung for more details.
Samsung Health already uses AI to offer advice based on sleep and activity, but a new consent requirement ties data retention directly to AI training permission. A toggle labeled 'Consent to use health data for AI training and modeling' has appeared in the app. When users try to turn it off, a warning states that synchronization with the Samsung account will stop and health data will be deleted unless the law requires keeping it. Samsung's help page lists activity, health records, medication, and menstrual cycle data as inputs for AI models, and notes that human review may occur in some cases. The prompt has not been found in the Japanese version of the app. How-To Geek has asked Samsung when the feature was introduced and what functionality is lost if consent is revoked.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.