New class action lawsuit claims Apple Watch’s blood oxygen sensor isn’t formatted to account for darker skin tones, only exacerbating noted biases in blood detection technology who regularly failed to accurately measure blood oxygen levels for blacks and browns.
The complaint was filed on December 12. 24 in Manhattan federal court on behalf of Alex Morales, a New York resident who purchased an Apple Watch between 2020 and 2021, according to court documents. Apple has 21 days to respond to a initial call.
Pulse oximeters have been around since the 1970s and use light to record oxygen saturation. You’ll probably recognize fingertip pulse oximeters that look like a paper clip attached to the tip of a finger, but phones and smartwatches also use simpler light-based oximeters. But even since their inception, the inherent bias shown by pulse oximeters on darker skin tones has become a notorious issue in the medical community. A Statistical article As of last August, researchers note that they are trying to develop oxygen readers that actually work consistently on darker skin tones.
therevolutionaryThe Blood Oxygen feature has been a staple of Apple Watches since Series 6. The company says it compensates for “natural skin variations” with its four clusters of LED lights on the back of the watch. Apples Blood Oxygen App Page mentions that the measures “are not intended for medical use and are intended for general fitness and wellness purposes only.” While the lawsuit does not explicitly say that Morales or other users used Apple Watches to assess specific medical data, it does instead propose that Apple failed to “acknowledge flaws in pulse oximetry generally in when it comes to people of color.” The lawsuit mentions that the researchers “confirmed the clinical significance of racial bias in pulse oximetry using patient records taken during and before the pandemic.”
Gizmodo reached out to Apple for comment, but we didn’t immediately hear back.
Multiple studies have clearly shown that minorities and other marginalized groups got worse during the worst months of the covid pandemic. A letter published in the New England Journal of Medicine noted two years ago This month, devices meant to monitor blood oxygen levels using pulse oximetry routinely failed to accurately gauge when black patients entered a state of hypoxemia, AKA when the oxygen in the blood is below normal levels.
“The ‘real-world significance’ of this bias went unaddressed until the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which converged with greater awareness of the structural racism that exists in many aspects of society,” declares the lawsuit.
As AppleInsider noted, users already complained in 2015 that black tattoos were messing up the device’s sensors. The Apple Blood Oxygen app page notes that tattoos can block light from the sensor, although it makes no mention of skin color.
Although the lawsuit doesn’t give any concrete example of a user getting inaccurate results from Apple’s blood sensor. Gizmodo has reached out to New York law firm Sheehan & Associates for additional comment, and we’ll update this story if we receive a response. The lawsuit also refers to a to study published in the open-access journal Digital Health which claimed Apple’The oxygen sensor was on par with most medical-grade oximetry devices, but the lawsuit says the study “fails to recognize flaws in pulse oximetry in general as it relates to people of color. “.
Apple is probably used to such class action lawsuits for its wide range of products, but this latest in a long line of allegations of user deception shows what happens when companies stuff “everything” devices to the brim with tech, even tech that’s been proven to be racist. You don’t have to look far either, as it’s only recently that companies like Google have explicitly marketed the ability of their Pixel cameras to capture dark skin with precision. Apple said it has worked on its AI to improve the rendering of dark skin tones, although some users have Problems observed even with the latest iPhone 14 and on iOS 16.
Although the suit has yet to obtain class certification, it welcomes plaintiffs from New York as well as North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, Iowa, Mississippi, Arkansas, North Carolina and Utah.
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