Smart ring maker Oura’s CEO addresses recent backlash, says future is a ‘cloud of wearables’

Oura CEO Tom Hale is trying to set the record straight about the smart ring maker’s partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD) and data miner Palantir, which is used by defense, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies in the United States and elsewhere. At the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference on Monday, Hale’s interview started off with a bang with his outright denial that the company was sharing user data with the government.

“There was a lot of misinformation about this,” he said, referring to the numerous influencer-driven reports that led to a viral backlash against the health tracker. Oura’s rings collect information about users’ heart rates, sleep, body temperature, movement, menstrual cycles, and more.

Hale had already gone online to address the misleading reports and subsequent PR backlash, assuring users in his first-ever TikTok video that the company didn’t sell their data to third parties “without your explicit consent.”

Instead, he explained that the DoD program Oura is involved in requires the company to run its enterprise solution in a separate, secure environment, and that the government does not have access to users’ Oura health data.

Hale reiterated these points on Monday, saying, “For the record, we will never share your data with anyone unless you direct us to do it. We will never sell your data to anyone ever.” He said the reports spreading online that Oura partnered with the U.S. government to share user data were “simply not true,” and he’s thankful the outrage had begun to calm down.

In addition, he attempted to clear up confusion over the company’s relationship with Palantir, saying that calling it a “partnership” was “a bit of a strong sell.”

Instead, Hale explained that Oura had acquired a company last year that had a SaaS (software-as-a-service) relationship with Palantir — meaning a business contract rather than a data-sharing agreement. That relationship was for something called Impact Level 5, or IL5, which is a DoD certification standard for handling sensitive, unclassified data.

“It’s a component of their solution. That contract is still running, and that news — that relationship — became blown into a ‘massive partnership’ with Palantir . . . We have a small commercial relationship. The systems are not connected. There’s no way Palantir has access to your data. No one in the government can see your data. No one at Palantir can see your data. Totally overblown,” he said.

Hale added that the privacy and security of user data are important to the company and its customers. He also pointed out that Oura’s terms of service state that it will oppose any efforts designed to use user data for surveillance or prosecution purposes. He even noted that when users authorize Oura to examine their data (for instance, for tech support purposes), the person who reviews it has a limited role in the company and can only see specifically what was authorized.

“We don’t look at people’s data…you can’t do that,” he said.

The CEO also briefly addressed Oura’s future, observing that the market was shifting — particularly in Asia and India — to smaller, cheaper wrist-borne wearables. Ring wearables, meanwhile, doubled in size.

“We’re growing north of 100%,” Hale noted.

The company sees its potential as becoming a “preventionist” health device, one that alerts users to issues before they become problems that make them sick. This is aided by the fact that Oura rings are designed to give users insights about how their health metrics are evolving. The company also leverages machine intelligence and offers a dedicated health advisor.

Oura does see itself working more with the government, just not in the way that influencers described. Hale said the company partnered with Medicare Advantage to provide rings to eligible patients, for example.

Hale also hinted at the possibility of other wearables.

“It’d be really cool if there was one ring to rule them all, but we know practically that’s not true,” he said. [W]hether it’s metabolic [monitoring], maybe it’s blood pressure, maybe it’s activity, maybe it’s other things — maybe it’s other kinds of metrics that are going to be brought together. So I believe very much that we’ll see a cloud of wearables. And the choice of those wearables will be relevant to the clinical use you’re trying to put it to.”