Professional athletes wearing biometric tracking devices face significant privacy risks, as coaches and organisations may have access to intimate health data — including sleep patterns and heart rate — that could unfairly influence employment decisions. This mirrors broader concerns about wearable data privacy but with heightened stakes given the commercial and contractual pressures of professional sport. The discussion highlights a gap in consent frameworks and data governance around employer-accessed biometric data.

Security Architect’s Take: If your organisation deploys wearables or processes biometric data from employees or contracted individuals, review your data access controls and consent models — ensure role-based access is enforced so that only authorised personnel with a legitimate purpose can query personal health data, and that retention and usage policies are clearly defined and auditable.

Original advisory: Professional Athletes and Wearables