Privacy by design

Any product that points a camera at children invites a hard question: where does the video go? FitForm answers it with an architectural decision rather than a promise. The pose model is downloaded into the browser and runs there, so the frames are analysed on the student's own laptop or tablet and are never uploaded. What travels to the server is a short summary: the exercise, the number of repetitions, the duration and the points.

Three consequences follow. The system keeps working when the network is weak, since only a few hundred bytes leave the device at the end of a session. The running cost stays low, because no server has to process video. Most importantly, the most sensitive data simply does not exist outside the room where it was recorded.

The public activity board applies the same principle to the information it does hold. Addresses are shortened before they are displayed, locations are rounded to the nearest city or to about one kilometre, and contact details are never shown. Students can also turn location off entirely. Privacy by design means the safe behaviour is the default behaviour, so no one has to remember to protect anybody.