Who Owns an Athlete's Biometric Data?

Who Owns an Athlete’s Biometric Data?

By Dan Parks

Modern athletes generate a continuous stream of biometric information every Who Owns an Athlete's Biometric Data? time they train or compete. GPS trackers, smartwatches and other wearable sensors record heart rate variability, hydration levels, sleep cycles and movement patterns. Teams, leagues and technology vendors increasingly rely on this information to guide training loads, injury prevention protocols and even contract negotiations.

But who actually owns the data? The answer shapes how biometric data gets collected and shared, and how it feeds artificial intelligence (AI) systems now used across professional and collegiate sport.

Determining Who Controls the Data

Legal analysts have described the dispute as a four-way ownership question involving the athletes themselves, their team, their league and the technology provider that collects the data (Goldstick & Tantleff, 2025). No single body of law comprehensively addresses biometric ownership in athletics, so the answer typically depends on contract language rather than settled precedent.

Collective bargaining agreements have become a primary vehicle for resolving that ambiguity. Some professional leagues have already begun addressing wearable data through labor negotiations, granting athletes a degree of say over how their performance data is used. Still, most athletes, particularly at the collegiate level, where no bargaining agreement exists, have limited say over how their data is retained or reused once it leaves the training facility.

Navigating a Fragmented Legal Landscape

Part of the difficulty stems from the patchwork nature of biometric privacy regulation. Several states in the United States have enacted biometric-specific privacy statutes that require informed consent before biometric identifiers may be collected. However, the scope and strength of these protections vary considerably from state to state.

Internationally, data protection frameworks in many countries classify biometric data as a sensitive category, generally requiring a lawful basis for processing it along with some form of risk assessment beforehand.

In the U.S., sports employers must also weigh overlapping obligations that may implicate privacy, disability and student-record law, depending on whether the athlete is a student, an employee or both. Because none of these frameworks were written with wearable technology specifically in mind, compliance still varies by an athlete's level of competition, location and employment status.

Moving Toward Athlete Data Sovereignty

Scholars have begun applying the concept of "data sovereignty" to sport, arguing that individuals should retain authority over information tied to their own bodily identity. Kwon (2025) contends that although performance data originate directly from an athlete's body, existing privacy law and international sports governance frameworks do not offer a clear allocation of ownership rights. The research considers this gap as a call for data sovereignty, a concept that originated in Indigenous data governance before expanding into broader digital-rights debates.

The research further proposes that governance frameworks shift toward co-ownership models, treating athlete data as a form of athletic labor that warrants the same transparency and proportionality protections afforded to other sensitive personal information. That framing positions the athlete not merely as a data source but as a stakeholder with an ongoing interest in how the data is used long after its collection.

Weighing the AI Dimension

AI adds a further layer of complexity to these ownership questions. Broader guidance on responsible AI adoption notes that the technology can meaningfully expand human potential when developed responsibly, but that its benefits must be weighed against legitimate concerns about transparency and its broader impact on human welfare (Pennsylvania Psychological Association, 2026). In sport, that tension grows sharper.

AI-driven analytics platforms now process biometric streams for injury prediction, workload management and performance forecasting, and vendor contracts can sometimes let providers reuse that data for AI training well beyond the team's original purpose (Fisher Phillips LLP, 2026). An algorithm trained on an athlete's biometric history could inform decisions about playing time, contract value or roster status without the athlete ever learning the data was repurposed for that end.

Calling for transparency in how AI systems use personal data matters in any industry. It becomes especially consequential in sport, where the underlying data describes an athlete's own physiology rather than an anonymous consumer profile.

Building Practical Safeguards for Sports Organizations

Given the absence of a single governing framework, legal analysts recommend that sports organizations replace informal practices with written governance policies and vendor rules that spell out who can access biometric data and for how long.

Recommended measures include:

Adopt written policies: Cover collection, ownership, retention and third-party access in a single governance document.
Disclose terms plainly: Explain data practices to athletes in plain language rather than dense consent forms.
Vet vendor contracts: Require vendors to specify whether biometric data may be used for purposes such as AI development.
Plan for deletion: Build in provisions for data deletion once a contractual relationship ends.

These measures will not resolve the underlying ownership debate on their own, but they narrow the gap between what athletes expect and how their data actually gets used in practice.

The legal landscape around athlete biometric data is still being written in real time, through state legislatures, league bargaining tables and international regulators working largely apart from one another. Meanwhile, the volume and sensitivity of the data being collected keep growing, and AI systems are becoming more deeply embedded in how that data gets interpreted and acted upon.

Athletes generate deeply personal information every time they compete, yet current law offers fragmented and inconsistent protection over how that information is used, shared or repurposed once it leaves their control. Closing that gap will require more than updated consent forms.

Anticipating the Next Phase of Athlete Data Rights

The future will require treating athlete data governance as an ongoing relationship rather than a one-time signature. Governance must be built on the same transparency and respect for athlete welfare that any sensitive personal data deserves, and it must be flexible enough to keep pace with AI-driven tools now built on athletes' own bodies.

References

Fisher Phillips LLP. (2026, August 3). Wearables are changing sports employment: What teams and schools should know about athlete biometric data. https://www.fisherphillips.com/en/insights/insights/wearables-are-changing-sports-employment

Goldstick, S. D., & Tantleff, A. K. (2025, May 15). Gauging professional sport biometric data privacy concerns. Foley & Lardner LLP. https://www.foley.com/insights/publications/2025/05/gauging-professional-sport-biometric-data-privacy-concerns/

Kwon, J. W. (2025). Athlete data sovereignty: Addressing the legal and policy gaps in sports technology. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living, 7, 1742484. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2025.1742484

Pennsylvania Psychological Association. (2026, July 10). Navigating the AI revolution: Understanding benefits and addressing concerns. https://www.papsy.org/resources/navigating-the-ai-revolution-understanding-benefits-and-addressing-concerns

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