Samsung ties Samsung Health backups to AI training consent
Users who refuse to let Samsung feed their sensitive medical history into its machine learning models will lose cloud backups, with their historical logs slated for eventual deletion.
Users of Samsung Health are receiving an ultimatum regarding their personal records: hand them over to train artificial intelligence models, or prepare to see them erased. As reported by Neowin, Samsung has tied its cloud backup feature directly to a consent toggle that grants the company permission to use health data to improve its machine learning algorithms.
Switching the toggle off does not simply pause synchronization. Instead, the application displays a warning stating that cloud-stored health data will be deleted unless local retention laws mandate otherwise. Once any mandatory legal retention period expires, the information will still be purged from company servers.
According to Samsung's documentation, the training pipeline targets four specific categories: sleep patterns, prescribed medications, medical records, and menstrual cycle logs. The company also notes that collected records may be reviewed by humans, including internal staff and external third-party contractors, to validate algorithmic performance.
The policy change coincides with a broader push for generative AI features in the app, timed around the launch of the Galaxy Watch 9 and One UI 9 Watch. Those features include automated cardiovascular assessments, sleep biometric baseline comparisons, and activity-tracking scores that rely heavily on large-scale health datasets.
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