Want Samsung Health cloud sync? You may have to agree to AI training first

What you need to know

• Samsung Health's new AI consent comes with a major catch: Opt out of AI training, and you could lose cloud syncing and Samsung account backups for your health data.
• Samsung wants access to a wide range of sensitive information, including sleep, activity, nutrition, medical records, medications, body measurements, and menstrual cycle data to improve its AI models.
• Declining consent doesn't just disable AI features. Samsung warns it will stop syncing your health data and may delete previously backed-up records unless it's legally required to retain them.

Samsung is quietly rolling out a new AI consent prompt in Samsung Health, but its approach to user choice is already raising eyebrows. The company doesn't just offer users a choice to opt in or out of AI training; it ties the choice to cloud syncing, so if you opt out, you could lose Samsung account backups of your health data.

The folks at How-To Geek report seeing a new notice labeled "Consent to the Use of Health Data for AI Training and Modelling." According to the notice, Samsung requires permission to use a broad spectrum of health data to improve its AI models and health algorithms. That includes activity metrics like steps, sleep, nutrition, and body measurements; medication details; medical records; and menstrual cycle tracking data. Samsung also says some of this data may be reviewed by humans during AI training.

The controversial part isn’t Samsung asking for consent; it’s what happens if you don’t. If you disable the AI training option, you’ll get a warning that Samsung Health will no longer sync data to your Samsung account.

The notice also says that any health data that has been synced previously will be deleted, unless Samsung is legally required to keep it. That is, you can only get cloud backup in exchange for helping train Samsung’s AI.

The company seems to be promoting the collected info as fuel for smarter health features, saying the data will help improve health analysis algorithms and AI-powered experiences inside Samsung Health.

Privacy advocates and users are unlikely to object to AI improvements alone. The bigger problem is that a core feature — keeping your health history in sync across devices — now depends on an unrelated decision about consent. If you just want your fitness records backed up – without being part of the AI development process – Samsung’s current implementation doesn’t offer much room for compromise.

Android Central's Take

I’m all for AI getting smarter if it actually helps deliver better health insights, more accurate wellness recommendations, or earlier warnings about possible problems. Those are benefits to which most of us can relate. But the choice between contributing sensitive health data or keeping cloud backups seems an unnecessary trade-off. Consent only exists when it's freely given, not when one of your app's core features is held hostage.