Amazon Halo Band slammed as highly "invasive"

Amazon's Halo Band, a wearable device that tracks various aspects of a user's health and wellness, was widely criticised by health experts and others as highly invasive.

Launched in August 2020, the Halo Band enabled users to track and evaluate their physical activity, sleep, and nutrition. However, privacy concerns were expressed about scans users were asked to share of themselves in minimal clothing to measure body fat percentage and how Amazon could potentially use or share the sensitive health data collected.

Although Amazon claimed to delete body scan images after processing, the fact that they were sent to the cloud made many people uncomfortable. Concerns were also raised that anonymised data could potentially be de-anonymised, especially with location information.

In addition, the device's microphones constantly listened to the user's voice to analyse their tone and emotional state - a feature seen as creepy by many. The fact that Am