Along with Microsoft and the University of California San Diego, the Vitality Institute has opened for public comment their initial draft of guidelines for the responsible use of Wearables, Smartwatches and Health Apps. The initiative was launched on July 16 and is intended to proactively - rather than reactively - address the many legal, social and ethical considerations of wearables and health apps, and especially the data they generate. 

Specific goals of the guidelines include guidance and best-practices for key data-driven areas like data stewardship, privacy, validity and interpretation-- but we were also pleased to see a call for guidelines around sustained engagement of wearable devices/apps and ensuring marginalized populations stand to benefit.  A great effort is underway here that is attempting to harness the collective wisdom of lessons learned from previous launch missteps in the tech industry. Comments from stakeholders or even the public are open for three months (thru Oct 15) and may be submitted here.