Fangraphs: Baseball and the Legal Implications Of Biometric Data

[weams]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/baseball-and-the-legal-implications-of-biometric-data/

https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/new-technologies-are-forcing-baseball-to-balance-big-data-with-big-brother

... wearable technology may very well become an issue during this year's collective-bargaining negotiations between MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association. Indeed, Pirates? infielder Cole Figueroa recently mentioned during an episode of the Effectively Wild podcast that a number of MLB players are growing increasingly concerned over the potentially adverse consequences of the growing use of this technology by their teams.

It generally appears that, to date, MLB teams are not actively requiring their players to use wearable technology to collect biometric data; instead, for the time being at least, teams appear to be implementing the use of these devices on a voluntary basis. This makes sense, as neither the use of wearable technology nor the collection of biometric data more generally are currently addressed in MLB's collective-bargaining agreement, therefore falling within something of a grey area, legally.