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I would like the hide me feature to be added back to the options because when I am injured I don't like to have my friends being able to see my steps. I like the option to be hidden!
I stopped wearing my Fitbit for months ( nearly a year and a half on and off ((mostly off))when seeing nothing has been done despite the mass feedback) due to this. It’s an absolute invasion of privacy and we should be able to control what friends see and not be forced into a “community” especially if were struggling with an illness of any kind that affects how many steps we take and that has bad days and good days. Sometimes you want your friends to know about that and sometimes you don’t’!
Since we can not hide our average daily step count, I’ve even gotten messages from people asking if I’m OK when I prefer to keep things private because they see my steps drop significantly.
It is apparent that just because I want privacy sometimes, I’m going to have to “unfriend” my friends. I want to use my Fitbit to monitor things for myself but I still ( YEARS after requesting this be brought back along with countless other users/customers) don’t have the option of deciding what they see and that is insane to me.
I think we’ve all been told about the other privacy options enough when we are already aware this daily step count being forced to be shared with friends is the major privacy/personal choice issue here.
We should have the option to make our daily step count private from friends as well when we choose to. It’s our personal health information.
I feel that I should just give up on my Fitbit yet again and find something that has more privacy BUT don’t have money just laying around to invest in various monitors for a simple privacy feature that Fitbit could EASILY bring back but chooses not to despite thousands of requests from people who have spent their hard earned money on your product.
This issue has been brought up repeatedly for well over three years and we keep getting the same responses from the Fitbit moderators.
It’s really unacceptable to ignore our feedback and respond with the same answer in different formulations over and over and over when people are paying ( and so much at that! ) for your product.
Do you have any idea how many people stop using your product because of this? Do you care? It seems like you definitely do not!
I know at least 10 people who stopped wearing theirs or had to unfriend everyone due to this! Do you have any idea how many people stop using your product because of this?
What’s been made clear to us is that anyone that works for Fitbit is told to tell us as your customers that you want a sense of community for us when in reality Fitbit does not respect your users’/customers’ privacy or listen to their feedback and take it seriously.
To reiterate; This parroted response of wanting to create a “ sense of community “ is both condescending and insulting to us as adults ( apparently Fitbit knows what’s best for us regarding our privacy, and not us as individuals!) and especially insulting to those of us with injuries or illnesses.
Hi @Poxiemarx, thanks for taking the time to share your feedback about making daily step count private. This feature suggestion already exists so I’ve moved your post here as it is not currently planned.
It appears this used to be an option but is no longer offered. There are a million reasons someone may want some privacy in this matter. It seems crazy to me that it was taken away!!
A family member of mine who is in bad health (cannot walk as well as most) and suffers from depression has recently been inspired to start getting healthy and started using fitbit for inspiration. Now she gets weekly e-mails letting her know that she is continually in last place amongst the couple family members she added as friends!
I understand that you want the steps goal to be motivation and the focus of the community, but there are so many other ways we are finding to use fitbit to inspire without comparing ourselves to others.
Please allow us to opt out of leaderboards and control our privacy a bit more.
Hi @Kellyn1964, good idea. 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.
I think it's up to us to make our steps totally private, seen only by friends or public. As of today, I have not the option to make them private from my friends. Thank you.
Hi @SunsetRunner, thanks for taking the time to share your feedback about being able to have steps private from friends. This feature suggestion already exists so I’ve moved your post here as it is not currently planned.
I'd like a privacy (only me) option for the Average Daily Step count and the ability to opt out of being included in the weekly progress reports between you and friends. There is currently only two options: Friends and Public.
Hi @SC1990, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option to hide your average daily steps. This feature suggestion already exists, so I’ve moved your post here. While we don’t currently have plans to release this feature, we always appreciate the passion and creativity that comes out of this Community. Since we know this idea is important to many of you, we have left voting open to continue tracking interest and will post another update if anything changes. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.
Give users the option to make daily step count private again.This option was removed sometime in 2018 for the odd reason of "creating a better community"..!
Yesterday I removed all my friends from my list, including my wife, since I don't feel comfortable letting everyone know my daily step count.
This kind of data is personal and should, by default, be set to private.
Today the options on this value, is only "Friends" and "Public". Previously the users also had "Private" here, just as with all of the other data fields.
Fitbit removed this option sometime in 2018 and said it was due to making a "better community".
Sorry, but the data belongs to us. We should be the one to decide whether we want to share it or not.
Please re-implement this!
I can honestly said that if I knew that the daily step count no longer was private, I would NEVER have bought this product as this "feature" does a big and heavy tap into our personal safety circle.
Hi @El-crigo, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option to make daily steps private again. This feature suggestion already exists, so I’ve moved your post here. While we don’t currently have plans to release this feature, we always appreciate the passion and creativity that comes out of this Community. Since we know this idea is important to many of you, we have left voting open to continue tracking interest and will post another update if anything changes. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.
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