A type 1 diabetic opened her Dexcom app and says her own blood sugar readings were locked until she agreed to hand over her data

Sam Andrews (anyhow_heres_wonderwall), a type 1 diabetic, claims that when she recently opened her Dexcom app to check her blood sugar, she found it blocked behind a terms of use and privacy policy update. The alert only had two buttons, ‘CONTINUE’ to agree, and ‘View Agreements,’ with a single message above it, ‘Please uninstall app if you don’t agree.’ As she told her followers in an Instagram post, there was no way to see her blood sugar levels without accepting the new terms.

Andrews told her followers that she was extremely alarmed by the update. In her reading of the terms, which could not be independently verified, the company claims the right to track mobile device metadata, including browser history and websites visited before and after checking glucose levels. “So why would a company need to track my cross-app clickstream just to tell me if my blood sugar is crashing?” she asked.

She argued that the resulting personal profile could eventually be used by the medical industry to limit service eligibility or adjust costs. Andrews also claimed that the app’s alert “overrides” Dexcom’s user contract, where Section 1.3 says patients have 30 days to reject modifications by emailing the legal department. “This app is forcing an immediate compliance ultimatum on our screens right now, well before those 30 days are up,” she said.

Andrews isn’t the only user frustrated with Dexcom’s new terms

Privacy researcher Casey Fiesler shared the alert message on Instagram, calling it “the most coercive [expletive] I’ve ever seen.” One Redditor who dissected the terms noted that agreeing waives the customer’s right to sue the company in court, sending disputes to arbitration instead. “It’s widely regarded a scummy move in the legal world because this kind of policy change is very difficult for the average person to understand and notice to begin with,” they wrote.

In response to the backlash, Dexcom issued statements on social media and sent emails to members of its advisory groups, saying its privacy policy has not changed and that it does not sell private data to third parties without consent. The company stated that the update includes “language regarding the use of data for AI-powered features, updates to how users may use the app, and revisions to our arbitration and dispute resolution provisions.”

Dexcom also confirmed that users can still email its legal department to opt out of certain provisions, such as the arbitration section. Many commenters on the company’s statement pointed out that they still had to accept the terms in the app before they could opt out. Others were angry that glucose readings were locked behind the agreement at all, with one user calling it “INSANE.”

On Andrews’ post, one user wrote, “Consent given under pressure is not valid. Having access to your glucose levels to be safe is absolutely a pressed situation.” Another urged Andrews to contact the FDA, writing, “They will be VERY interested to hear about this.”

For Andrews, the issue is about the principle. In a follow-up post, she explained that she felt forced to agree to terms just to keep her medical care active. “It’s coercive consent, and that’s when a company claims that you voluntarily agreed to their terms, but they only obtain that agreement by threatening to cut off your medical care if you refuse,” she said. 

At the time of her latest update, Andrews said she was still trying to resolve the matter with tech support, describing the experience as “yet another dead end.”