MASSDEVICE ON CALL — Tech titan Apple (NSDQ:AAPL) made some recent changes to its app-developer guidelines in order to protect patient data collected through its highly anticipated HealthKit platform, slated to hit the market later this year.
New language in the developer rules state that app-providers may not "sell an end-user’s health information collected through the HealthKit API to advertising platforms, data brokers or information resellers," according to a report from the Financial Times.
The move may help squash some of the privacy concerns about growing use of phone-based health, wellness and medical apps. The coming HealthKit system will collect data from a variety of healthcare apps, synthesizing the data in one program and allowing developers to build products that use information gathered by other programs, if users grant permission to share data between apps.
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