American files suit against Bose for alleged sale of private data

An American has filed a lawsuit against Bose, because he suspects that the headset maker collects privacy-sensitive data via an app that belongs to the headset and then sells that data. Bose has not yet commented on the charges.

The American by the name of Kyle Zak has filed a so-called class-action case against Bose in the court in the American city of Chicago, reports the Chicago Tribune. A class-action case means that others who feel duped can join the case.

The data would be collected via the Bose Connect app, which users can use to control the bluetooth headset and get updates from the manufacturer. The Android version currently has between 100,000 and 500,000 installs; no stats are known for the iOS version.

Zak accuses Bose of, among other things, collecting data about music preferences and selling it to, among others, Segment, a company that specializes in analyzing and reselling customer data. According to Zak, music preferences are privacy-sensitive data, which can reveal things about religion and belief, among other things.

Bose has not commented on the matter. It can be concluded from the privacy policy of the app that Bose does indeed provide data to Segment. “As noted above, we may partner with certain third parties to collect non-personal information,” Bose said in its privacy policy. “Such parties include Crashlytics for bug analysis and service provider Segment, which allows us to better monitor and target data from the app to analytics providers. Use of online tracking and non-personal data is subject to the Privacy Policy from these third parties and not to this Privacy Policy.”