Oura CEO Tom Hale is trying to straighten the records of Smart Ring Maker’s partnership with the Department of Defense (DOD) and Data Miner Palantir, used in defense, intelligence reporting agencies and law enforcement agencies in the US and elsewhere. At the Fortune Brainstorm Tech Conference on Monday, Hale’s interview began with a bang with a complete denial that the company was sharing user data with the government.
“There was a lot of misinformation about this,” he said, referring to many influencer-led reports that have led to a virus backlash against the health trackers. Wella’s rings collect information about the user’s heart rate, sleep, temperature, movement, menstrual cycle, and more.
Hale had already gone online to address the misleading reports and subsequent PR backlash. This is my first Tiktok video, which guarantees that the company did not sell the data to a third party “without express consent.”
Instead, he requested that the company run the corporate solution in a different, secure environment due to the involvement of our DOD program, and explained that the government cannot access our users’ Oura Health data.
Hale repeated these points on Monday, saying, “For the sake of the record, we will not share your data with anyone unless you tell us to do it. We will not sell your data to anyone.” He said the spreading online report that users partnered with the US government to share user data was “simply not true,” and thanked the rage has begun to settle.
He also tried to clear up the confusion about the company’s relationship with Palantir, saying calling it a “partnership” is a “a little strong seller.”
Instead, Hale explained that last year he acquired a company with SaaS (as a service as software) ties with Palantir. This means a business agreement rather than a data sharing agreement. That relationship is what is called impact level 5 or IL5, which is a DOD certification standard for processing sensitive and uncategorized data.
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“It’s a component of their solution. That contract is still in place and that news – that relationship – has been blown away by a ‘large partnership’ with Palantir… We have a small commercial relationship. The system cannot access your data. No one in the government can see your data.
Hale added that privacy and security of user data is important to the company and its customers. He also noted that Wella’s Terms of Service states that he opposes efforts designed to use user data for monitoring or prosecution purposes. He pointed out that when users approve of their data (for example for technical support purposes), those who review it have a limited role in the company and can only see specifically approved items.
“We don’t look at people’s data… you can’t do that,” he said. (Technically, the data is not end-to-end encrypted. The data is encrypted with a transit between our app and our Cloud using TLS 1.2.)
The CEO also briefly tackled Wella’s future, observing that the market has shifted to smaller, cheaper wrist wearables, especially in Asia and India. Meanwhile, the size of the ring wearable has doubled.
“We’re growing 100% north,” Hale pointed out.
The company believes that the possibility will become a “preventive” health device. This warns users about problems before they become ill. This is supported by the fact that wellring is designed to provide insight into how users’ health metrics are evolving. The company also leverages machine intelligence to provide dedicated health advisors.
Wella believes she is doing more work with the government, not the way influencers described it. Hale said the company partnered with Medicare Advantage to provide rings to eligible patients.
Hale also hinted at the potential of other wearables.
“If there’s one ring to control everything, I think it’s really cool, but we actually know that it’s not true,” he said. [W]It’s metabolism [monitoring]maybe it’s blood pressure, maybe it’s activity, maybe it’s something else – maybe it’s another kind of metric that can be put together. So I am very confident in us to see the wearable clouds. And these wearable choices are related to the clinical use you are trying to leave it to. ”
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