Your device
What the Apple Watch knows about you
Apple Watch (made by Apple Inc., Cupertino; current models the Series 11 and Ultra 3 from September 2025) is a biometric-primary smartwatch with FDA-cleared cardiac and sleep AI augmentation, sitting in the new biometric form factor distinct from the AI-primary wearable cohort because it would exist as a watch and biometric tracker without its AI layer, only degraded. Its FDA clearances are the verification anchor: the ECG app and Irregular Rhythm Notification were cleared via FDA De Novo in November 2018, AFib History via a 510(k) in June 2022 but only for users 22 and older already diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, sleep-apnea notifications via a 510(k) in September 2024 for moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults without an existing diagnosis and explicitly not for diagnosis, and hypertension notifications cleared in September 2025 as a 30-day passive screening tool rather than blood-pressure measurement. Marketing that frames AFib History as detecting new atrial fibrillation, or the sleep-apnea and hypertension features as diagnostic or as blood-pressure monitoring, exceeds the cleared indications and is cap-flagged. The blood-oxygen feature is a load-bearing verified-versus-claimed exemplar: it was disabled on US units from January 17, 2024 after the Masimo International Trade Commission import ban, then re-enabled on August 14, 2025 through a redesign in which the watch sensor captures raw data but the oxygen value is computed on the paired iPhone and shown in the Health app, so the sensor capability never changed while the legal and computation pathway did. Apple's clinical-validation posture is substantial, the highest peer-review volume in the cohort, anchored by the Stanford Apple Heart Study and large FDA submission studies, while the final Masimo legal end-state and whether the redesigned blood-oxygen reading matches the original accuracy are not verified.
Track the Apple Watch and we will tell you the moment its privacy, price, or safety record changes.
Track this device →What it knows about you
13 findings on record · 13 verified against primary sources
What it collects about you
Where your data goes
What you can control
What it collects about you
The data this device picks up.
Your location
Health features may use your region to check availability. If you opt into the Improve Health and Activity program, Apple also collects your approximate location along with workout data.
Your body data
Continuously tracks your heart rhythm, wrist temperature, blood oxygen, breathing, and sleep patterns. When synced to iCloud with two-factor authentication, this data is end-to-end encrypted and Apple cannot read it.
Your body data
Apple Watch collects health information relating to physical or mental health status, fitness and exercise details, precise location for Find My and region-specific services, device information including serial number, and usage data about activity on Apple services; biometric data is processed on-device where possible.
Where your data goes
Who else can see it once it leaves the device.
Sent to the cloud
Health data in iCloud is only end-to-end encrypted if you turn on Advanced Data Protection, which is off by default. Without it, Apple holds decryption keys and complies with government requests. Most users are not protected.
Shared with others
If you joined an Apple Research study, your ongoing body data goes to universities including Harvard and Michigan, and the NIH. Enrollment continues until you actively quit, and quitting does not delete data already sent.
Selling your data
Does not sell your health data under any US state privacy law, including California and Nevada.
Training their AI
If you opt into the Improve Health and Activity program, Apple uses your data to improve health features. This data is aggregated and not tied to you personally, and Apple says it does not train its core AI models on your private health data.
Selling your data
Apple does not sell your personal data including as sale is defined in Nevada and California; Apple also does not share your personal data as that term is defined in California, and does not share personal data with third parties for their own marketing purposes.
What you can control
Your say over the data it holds.
Deleting your data
HealthKit app permissions never expire on their own. One tap of Allow gives an app unlimited read access to all your health history and future data until you manually revoke it. Apps granted access before June 2022 still have it today, and Apple does not remind you when a connected app has not been opened in months.
How long they keep it
You control how long health data is kept and can edit or delete it anytime. Research study data is automatically and permanently deleted from your device after seven days.
Kept on the device
Key health features including Medications, Mental Health, Siri health requests, Cycle Tracking, and Trends run entirely on your device, so that data does not leave your phone.
Deleting your data
Users can access, delete, correct, transfer, and restrict processing of their personal data via the Apple Data and Privacy page at privacy.apple.com; personalized ads can be toggled off in Settings; consent can be withdrawn at any time; parents can manage children's data through the child's account.
How long they keep it
Apple retains personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, working to retain data for the shortest possible period permissible under law; Apple uses administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect personal data with details in the Apple Platform Security guide.
The full record
- Specs
- Apple Watch (current: Series 11 + Ultra 3, Sept 2025; Series 9/10 + Ultra 2 supported). Sensors: optical (PPG) HR, electrical ECG, temperature, accelerometer/gyro, blood-oxygen. AI/health: ECG app, AFib/irregular-rhythm notifications, AFib History, fall + crash detection, Vitals, sleep-apnea notifications, hypertension notifications. Hardware purchase; NO subscription for the FDA-cleared medical features.
- Form Factor
- biometric (biometric-primary smartwatch + AI augmentation; FDA-cleared cardiac/sleep AI)