Make Fitbit account/profile invisible and unsearchable

[SunsetRunner]

Option to make my account invisible for privacy and safety.

We've all had inappropriate friend requests on fitbit. No woman or adolescent should have to put up with that and I'm even more concerned now my 13.5 year old daughter has a Charge 3. As a middle aged male I've even had my share of invites that frankly I would rather not see.

Not all of us want to take advantage of the social features of fitbit, so for our safety and privacy could you please add the simple option to make our accounts fully invisible to others.

Please note that I have already locked down as much data as possible under Privacy Settings and closed off what I can under Notifications, but it still doesn't totally stop it.

Many thanks

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject and label

[SunsetRunner]

I'd vote for this suggestion 50 times if I could.

[zaacckb]

Are you suggesting a way to disable friend requests or make your profile private?

[SunsetRunner]

@zaacckb for me it's about both, so I guess making the account private / invisible would also stop inappropriate friends requests. 

What do others think? Would it also be good to have an invisible account, but an option to allow friend requests from people that you have specifically given your ID? 

[Danchvn]

I think a completely private profile would be great. I guess I'm one of those few people who don't do the Face book, Instagram, Twitter thing and would rather not have unknown people see my profile and send me friend requests.

[LizFitbit]

Hi @SunsetRunner, thanks for taking the time to share this thoughtful suggestion with us. We rely on feedback like yours to help us develop products and features that we know our community wants to see. This suggestion will be shared internally with various teams at Fitbit. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.

[slmorris05]

Could you please share the steps you followed changing those settings you mention.

It's OVER the top. Proactive photos from lady's or trolls. And at least 10 a day. I just figured it out to delete these messages you have to press and the "delete" pop's up ☝

[SunsetRunner]

@slmorris06 sorry to hear you have had problems too. No one should have to put up with this.

Try this link: https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1294

Scroll down to where it says "Who can see my personal information" which explains how to get to the Privacy settings

You can click on each item (e.g. Birthday) and you will get a choice to set it to "Private", "Friends" or "Public". It does not hide you whole profile, but gives the trolls a bit less info to go on.

One really good tip that I heard is to change your profile picture to something that doesn't give away any clues about you. Mine is now a picture of a spider.

Best of luck. Please vote for the feature if you didn't already.

[RaffiandBoz]

I want my account to be invisible to all but myself. I do not want other fitbit users to know I exist

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity and labels

[Anotheruserthat]

Hi,

The ability to have a private profile is required. Some want to use fitbit and see how they are tracking without sharing with anyone.

This would be great.

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi @RaffiandBoz. Thanks for taking the time to share this suggestion about making your Fitbit account private and unsearchable with us. We rely on feedback like yours to help us develop products and features that we know our community wants to see. If this suggestion receives votes from other customers and gains popularity, it will be shared internally with various teams at Fitbit. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.

Watch this space for status updates. In the meantime, try visiting Health & Wellness to talk with other members about all things health and fitness.

[DavidJH]

I completely agree. I was dismayed when I got my fitibit to find it insisted on uploading my data. I have asked for a completely local option where my data is stored ONLY on my computer / phone. I don't want even the EXISTENCE of my account to be visible. I will never buy another fitbit until they start taking privacy truly seriously.

[ksmcg]

It is so sad to see the app becoming overrun with scammers and fake profiles. A simple solution is to not allow them to post or send any messages unless they have an actual fitbit device sync'd to their smartphone. A more limited option would be to at least disable direct messages thru unsynced apps. It would REALLY help FitBit's reputation!

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @ksmcg, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option to avoid receiving messages from scammers and fake profiles. Thanks for sharing your feedback. I've moved it into a similar request.  A lot of users are asking for this option, I hope we receive updates soon.

[Crell]

I agree entirely.  My FitBit is for *me*, and me alone.  I don't want to connect with other FitBit users.  I don't want to know about other FitBit users.  I don't want them to know about me.  I do not want any pseudo-social connections of any kind whatsoever.  I want my FitBit to function as if I were the only FitBit user in the entire universe.

The steady stream of "this random person you've never heard of wants to connect on FitBit" is not a feature; it is a stalker-tool and I want no part of it.  (Just turning off notifications isn't enough, because those other people could still find me, and that's what I do not want.)

FitBit is not my social network.  It's a step counter and clock.  That is all I want it to be.

[aUserWithNoName]

I also want the option to make my Fitbit account 100% private and unsearchable. I don't want friends/friend requests, I don't want to "network", I don't want to be visible on this platform. I just want to be able to track my personal physical activity with zero interaction. Why is this not an option yet?!? I have made everything private that I am able to set and I STILL get friend requests from random accounts. Not cool.

[Jules2020887]

Yes please!  I’m tired of getting creepy friend requests from people I don’t know. Not sure what purpose it serves to allow everyone to see others names and profiles. 

[RFDZ]

I agree emphatically.  If folks want to share and be part of online group, that's fine and I get that FitBit aggregates data for analytics...and not much I can do about that.  However, my life should be mine and I should be able to control who is part of it.  It is creepy that folks I don't know ask to friend me.  How the h@#! do they even know I exist?

[CarolJeanne76]

Please insist that users have an actual fitbit.  I am 76 years old and am a member only of the Seniors group.  I get 10 to 20 friend requests every day, mostly from men, half of whom appear to be in their 30's and 40's. It is annoying and time consuming to have to keep deleting them.  I also see a lot of sexy pictures of young women who are obviously not seniors and claim to walk an excess of 100,000 steps per day.  This has got to stop.

[jilly241]

Wow, months later and still no ability to have a private profile!

In the week I’ve had a man influx of “friend” requests from creepy strangers. I asked for help and Fitbit told me I could manually block all these people. 

that’s just not good enough. I didn’t get a Fitbit to find a date. This company needs to DO BETTER and protect their users. 

[BahamasGirl365]

I think this would be an AMAZING idea.

I am constantly getting "friend" requests from people I do not know, 100% of them being Single widowed or "Lonely" men trying to friend Only women and young girls. No woman or man should have to deal with these scammer people trying to friend us because they are "interested" in you. This is NOT a dating app. And there's already enough of that garbage going around on Facebook and Instagram. It's not needed here.

It's disgusting and completely wrong. I don't EVER add people I don't know, on any social media, especially ones like this. And I wouldn't ever add a man who says he's "single, widowed and Lonely." To any social media, in fact, as soon as I see any of those words, it's an instant block and report.

Fitbit isn't supposed to be social media or a dating, find singles etc app, it's supposed to be for your health. If I want to add people I personally know, I should have the ability to send them a link to friend me, so ONLY people with my invite link can add me. NOT creeps trying to scam women.

[Leavemealone111]

Profiles should be private at least as an option. I am considering moving to another pedometer rather than remaining with Fitbit over this sort of issue. 

[sanderpors]

I think it is even required under GDPR to make your unique profilename hidden from the world. Even a user name van be traceable data. Espesially as one is unable to change it. It so becomes your unique identifier.

[llisalou]

I don't like that I mainly get men friend request me.  You find out they are only using the app on the phone not with an actual Fitbit.  They say you're their only friend but when you tell them they have quite a few and mainly women!  They then want to chat to you on other platforms, they are not here for fitness at all.  I have had Fitbits since November 2014 and use it only for getting fit, if you look at my posts.

I didn't think Fitbit meant to try and get a Fit Bit!  Seems people only use it as a dating site.

Where is the petition to sign please?

[HeRMlT]

I use FitBit for personal private use only. The community options should be an opt-in part of the platform.

For the first six months I did not sign up to the FitBit community, but still received friend requests. How is this possible?

Since some of the privacy settings are only available in the community, I have signed up and again set all possible profile settings to private.

Please make it possible to have a 100% private invisible account to members of the public and FitBit community.

[Lgilbow]

I want to be able to make my profile completely invisible. It's an invasion of my privacy to have people I don't know request to be my friend on Fitbit. This is not social media this is health tracking.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject