When we think about tracking health and fitness data, smartwatches and other wearables typically come to mind. However, your Android phone can also track basic health metrics on its own, and you may not even realize it’s happening.
Apps like Google Fit and Samsung Health can automatically log your steps, active minutes, calories burned, and more while you go about your day. These apps can also share data with other health and fitness apps on your phone, integrating your health information across platforms.
While this data collection can provide valuable insights into your health and daily routine, it’s important to be aware of what’s being collected and where it’s being stored. The good news is that auditing these apps and managing your data only takes a few minutes.
How Your Data Is Stored
Google Fit now uses a technology called Health Connect, which manages all your health data locally on your smartphone and keeps it fully encrypted. This means that the data is secure and cannot be accessed by anyone unless they can unlock your phone. All apps that use the Health Connect standard follow these security protocols.
Google Fit does sync some data to the cloud as a backup, but this data isn’t end-to-end encrypted. While Google’s standard security protections are in place, this means that, theoretically, someone at Google could access this data if necessary. This situation is similar to many other Google services, including Gmail, where you’re relying on the company to keep your data secure.
For Samsung Health, data is stored locally on your phone by default and encrypted using Samsung’s Knox technology. You have the option to back up this data to the cloud, which allows you to sync it between devices. However, this cloud data isn’t end-to-end encrypted by default, which means there’s a small risk of it being hacked.
Samsung has introduced an Enhanced Data Protection mode for files stored in Samsung Cloud, including those synced from Samsung Health. This ensures that the data in the cloud is fully encrypted and inaccessible to others, though this feature is currently only available on the Samsung Galaxy S24 series.
Checking Health Data Tracking
To see what health and fitness data your Android phone is tracking, open Google Fit. You’ll typically see information such as steps, energy expended, and heart points (a measure of your exercise routines) if these data types are being tracked by default.
You can delete any of this data by going to the Profile tab, tapping the gear icon in the top right, and selecting Delete your data. This allows you to remove data from specific categories or erase everything. If you want to delete an individual data point, like a single workout session, go to the Journal screen, tap the three dots in the top right, and choose Delete.
To stop Google Fit from tracking certain data or sharing it with other apps, go to the Profile tab, tap the gear icon, and select Manage data and access. Here, you can choose App permissions to control which third-party apps have access to your data, and Data and access to manage specific data categories.
For example, to stop Google Fit from tracking your steps, go to Data and access > Activity > Steps > Fit and toggle off the Steps option. This screen also lists all the different types of data Google Fit can log, and you can adjust the settings for each one.
If you’re using a Samsung Galaxy device and Samsung Health, the process is slightly different. You can select a data type, like steps, and pause recording by tapping the three dots in the top right. To erase all your data, go to the Home tab, tap the three dots, and choose Settings followed by Erase personal data.
From the same Settings page, you can access Health Connect, which operates similarly to Google Fit. You can manage which apps (including Samsung Health) have access to your data, review the categories of data being logged, and choose which apps and connected devices, like smartwatches, can report back to Samsung Health.
