Every day, we seem to see something new that dooms personal privacy to history. We’ve already seen a number of companies using fitness trackers to encourage their employees to live a healthy lifestyle and minimise health insurance premiums. Now, Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma is adopting the tactic with its students. – but with a stick rather than a carrot.

Students are each be required to buy a FitBit wearable watch, and track their aerobic points and fitness with it. Daily steps and heart rate are automatically recorded using Brightspace, a learning management system, which earns them points for their course. Students don’t earn the course credits unless they walk 10,000 steps each day.

Now you could argue that it’s ‘big brother gone mad’, or that it’s for the students own good. But either way,  it shows again what can be done with the technology. Is there some way you could use activity tracking software to motivate, reward or help your customers or employees. And if there is, can you do it  without making them feel uncomfortable about the invasion on privacy.