Hello,
Could you please help me to configure correctly data privacy on Zwift account.
Where and how exactly I could hide my heart rate monitor data from others?
What I would like to is to view it only by-myself during the ride or in later stats, but hide this specific info from others.
Thank you!
Godmother Fox
Why??
What is so funny?
I do understand time/distance - speed, power.
But personal health and body data measures…, well those are personal things and one should have his own choice whether he would like to share this data with others or not.
Simple as it is. )
2 Likes
I would suggest submitting a feature request.
IMO, your request is quite valid.
3 Likes
Well, this is not a question of believe.
This is a simple question of personal choice.
As I understand this option does not exist yet. So will take a suggestion of David and submit a new feature request.
I just moved it to Feature Requests.
1 Like
There was nothing stupid about the question. It’s perfectly reasonable to want to keep personal data private.
6 Likes
Hi All,
I do think for racing/Tour series heart rate should be visible.
Otherwise its not really important.
Taking Adam’s thought one step further, You could suggest that power
is also a personal health and body data measure. Do we want to hide
that as well?
I don’t do much racing and being relatively new to Zwift, and its racing
I have been disappointed to see many racers without H/Rate.
(It’s reassuring to know that other racers are struggling as I am)
It doesn’t tell me anything about the other rider, other than they are
working. Heart rates can vary widely from person to person at the
same level of output.
In this world of “Watts” I am glad that some of us still bother with the H/R
monitor. For me its more important than watts for my health monitoring.
The longer a rider is on Zwift the more he or she sees unusual performances
or data. So I would like to see more transparency. Have a user name that is
unreal by all means but can we all show each other that we are real.
Personally for me at my level it doesn’t matter who sees my data. For a Pro
this would I guess be different.
Adam you could just use another site for your H/R data and not use the Zwift
H/R pairing, lots of Zwifters have no H/R.
I prefer to use a site that gives me more detailed data of time in zones, custom
user zones and limits, different zones for cycling/runnig etc.
I’d better shut up now.
Sorry about the long and disjointed flow of thoughts.
Ride On.
Plus a massive thanks to Zwift for transforming indoor/winter training.
1 Like
I think it’s reasonable to ask Zwift to make personal data private; so yes, power as well as heart rate could be only seen by yourself.
I would dilute some aspects of the game, but as you say there may be legitimate reasons particularly for elite riders to want to hide their data from the competition, while still using Zwift as a training platform.
I do think it has to be public for racing though. It’s hard enough to try and police the integrity of the results as it is, without hiding things even more.
Hi, all,
> Taking Adam’s thought one step further, You could suggest that power
> is also a personal health and body data measure. Do we want to hide
> that as well?
Well, this one will be long as well.)
The concept and the reality
Part 1
On one side, what we are speaking about is some sort of virtual reality with the mix of game/reality features.
The other side, is a strong vision to bring it as much as possible to reality (this view concept exists not only in Zwift, but also in many today’s online games, sport virtual soft. etc).
With all this, the way that this works, by taking into consideration so-called "game oriented users" or more precisely "game oriented phsycho-types" that were developed in the society in the last 30 years (aprox.), most of the people do prefer the more close to reality features (as feelings closely to reality), but with the mixed of non-real advantages, game features and advantages.
So, if trying to make the "game" as close as possible to real life, in our case cycling, the users should not see even the exact speed of others.
Example:
Let’s say I am taking a ride outside (not a competition, just a usual promenade on bike), the only thing that I will see is a relative speed of others in relation to my own speed (that I could see in case if I have sensors on my bike).
Part 2
Thus, with the reality described in Part 1, most of the users will feel "boring" when speaking about virtual gaming experience.
So, it is totally understandable from the business and user experience perspectives to bring something more than in real life, some gaming features (non-existing in reality), but with very close to real life feelings.
Part 3
Social reality and human biological reality.
This part is important, since one of the strong arguments about bringing as much as possible open data about each user is the control possibility of dishonest/unfair users (or more precisely: their interaction with the virtual game - wrong data input, devices manipulations etc.). Social control – by other users.
When in same time there is always the system control (technical capability to bring algorithms that will monitor in-game behavior, data anomalies etc.).
This reality could not be changed as a fact. Biological fact. We are too young species, and this is not a question of nations, or so called “good education’ etc. etc. etc… – just our species reality.
And with all this, bringing something outside of the reality will always open a bigger and more “secure” path to dishonest/unfair behavior (you may see plenty of examples form other gaming projects, financial world etc…).
Summary
Well, this is a discussion of thousand years and pages, but the bottom line is to find some rational solution and in same time take into the consideration the sensible part of the personal private data and personal choice.
Personally, I do think and feel that one should have his own choice to decide about transfer of his own data to others. (not bringing to the public, since without bringing some minimum required data to the virtual game system it could not be possible to realize the in-game experience and even the virtual game itself)
With all this, by taking into consideration the actual state of development of Zwift, I think that having the choice to hide from others the heart rate data is very reasonable personal choice (but it still leaves the Zwift system to control any data anomalies, unfair usage, game dishonest data manipulations etc.) .
- The reasons for this could be different: personal choice, it could be personal medical/physiological vs psychological state of person, family that just would like to ride/promenade and enjoy Zwift without showing all of those private data to others, people with different disabilities that do not feel it to share personal data with others, sport pro athlete that would like to train without showing to his adversaries the exact state of his physical capacities etc., etc., etc….
Thank you )
1 Like
Hi Adam,
thank you for taking the time to reply.
I totally agree that your data is your data and that privacy is extremely important.
I certainly don’t need to see another Zwifters H/R racing or otherwise.
I hope I didn’t offend you as that was not my intention.
I must humbly admit to not understanding all that you wrote, due to poor education
on my part. So I will apologise again as I only wrote in to say that from a racing
point of view its good to see someone’s H/R rise when mine does, as I cannot see
a riders face, or hear them breathing hard during a race.
I don’t race much and have no problem if other racers chose not to
show H/R or if Zwifters in general don’t display H/R. I thought I just join
in on the topic.
Cheers
“Ride On”
Over and Out.
2 Likes
Oh…Troy, no hard feelings. ))
And I do understand your side also, from the perspective of real people and feeling it closer.
But still, having a choice is having a choice…