Smart ring maker Oura’s CEO addresses recent backlash, says future is a ‘cloud of wearables’

Summary

Oura CEO Tom Hale is trying to set the record straight about the smart ring maker’s partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD) and data miner Palantir, which is used by defense, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies in the United States and elsewhere. At the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference on Monday, Hale’s interview started off with a bang with his outright denial that the company was sharing user data with the government. “There was a lot of misinformation about this,” he said, referring to the numerous influencer-driven reports that led to a viral backlash against the health tracker. Oura’s rings collect information about users’ heart rates, sleep, body temperature, movement, menstrual cycles, and more. Hale had already gone online to address the misleading reports and subsequent PR backlash, assuring users in his first-ever TikTok video that the company didn’t sell their data to third parties “without your explicit consent.” Instead, he explained that the DoD program Oura is involved in requires the company to run its enterprise solution in a separate, secure environment, and that the government does not have access to users’ Oura health data. Hale reiterated these points on Monday, saying, “For the record, we will never share your data with anyone unless you direct us to do it. We will never sell your data to anyone ever.” He said the reports spreading online that Oura partnered with the U.S. government to share user data were “simply not true,” and he’s thankful the outrage had begun to calm down. In addition, he attempted to clear up confusion over the company’s relationship with Palantir, saying that calling it a “partnership” was “a bit of a strong sell.” Instead, Hale explained that Oura had acquired a company last year that had a SaaS (software-as-a-service) relationship with Palantir — meaning a business contract rather than a data-sharing agreement. That relationship was for something called Impact Level 5, or IL5, which is a DoD certifica...