WildCam: A Privacy Conscious Wearable Eating Detection Camera People Will Actually Wear in the Wild

Northwestern University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Wearable Electronic Devices

Treatments: Device: Raw images; Device: Edge Obfuscation; Device: Blur Obfuscation; Device: Cartoon Obfuscation

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT05547425

STU00213549

1R03DK127128-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

WildCam is a wearable device that collects video data of the user's face and upper torso to capture eating behaviors. WildCam and its accompanying software is privacy conscious, meaning it utilizes a computer vision algorithm that extracts proximal features (the user's body and objects-in-hand) from the video and digitally obfuscates the distal features (background environment and entities therein) to preserve the privacy of the wearer, as well as any bystanders who may be in the device's visual field. The present study tests the impact of 3 different obfuscation techniques on acceptability, including the willingness of users to wear the device. Participants are randomly assigned to 1 of the 3 obfuscation techniques (blurring, masking, or cartooning). Participants wear the WildCam during waking hours during a 7-day period with the randomly selected obfuscation setting enabled and a 7-day period with the raw images (no obfuscation) setting. The order of these periods is counterbalanced, and the two periods are separated by a 7-day washout period during which WildCam is not worn. Structured feedback, including user burden and acceptability surveys, is collected to determine the efficacy of each obfuscation technique on increasing user acceptability, including willingness to use the WildCam device, as opposed to a video-collecting device without obfuscation.

Enrollment: 30 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 64 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• BMI 30 or greater
• Chicago Metro Area resident
• Able to speak, read, and write in English
• Valid phone number
• Smartphone ownership
• Have Wi-Fi at home

Exclusion criteria

• 15% or greater weight change in last 3 months
• Medication related weight gain
• Genetic obesity syndrome (e.g., Prader-Willi, Bardet-Biedl, Cohen Syndrome)
• Member of household enrolled in study

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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30 participants in 4 patient groups

Blur obfuscation

Experimental group

Description:

Blurring is applied to objects and people in the background of images.

Treatment:

Device: Blur Obfuscation

Edge obfuscation

Experimental group

Description:

Objects and people in the background of images are replaced with an outline of the object.

Treatment:

Device: Edge Obfuscation

Cartoon obfuscation

Experimental group

Description:

Blurring is applied to objects and people in the background of images and the wearer's face is concealed with cartoon faces.

Treatment:

Device: Cartoon Obfuscation

Raw images

Experimental group

Description:

No editing is performed on images.

Treatment:

Device: Raw images