Samsung Health users face a stark choice: consent to AI training using their personal health data or lose their stored information permanently.

The company has introduced a "Consent to the Use of Health Data for AI training and modelling" toggle buried in the app's settings. Users who attempt to disable this feature receive a warning that their health data will be deleted unless required by law to be retained.

"You will not be able to sync health data with your Samsung account and your health data will be deleted unless retained pursuant to applicable law," the warning states.

What data Samsung wants

Samsung plans to collect four categories of personal health information: sleep patterns, medication records, medical history, and menstrual cycle tracking details. The company said the data will "improve Samsung Health" through refined machine learning algorithms that analyze health conditions.

Human reviewers, including Samsung employees and third-party contractors, will have access to some of the collected data, according to the company's disclosure.

The policy change coincides with Samsung Health's generative AI overhaul ahead of the Galaxy Watch 9 and One UI 9 Watch launch. New AI-powered features include Vitals, which monitors five overnight biometric signals against personal baselines to detect potential illness or fatigue.

Other additions include a Heart Health Score that combines body composition, physical activity, sleep metrics, and stress levels into a single dashboard card. Samsung has also added a Cardio Load metric to prevent overtraining and a Fitness Index that grades fitness levels using VO2 max and step count comparisons.

The move reflects a broader industry trend of tech companies leveraging user data to train AI models, though Samsung's approach of threatening data deletion for non-compliance appears particularly aggressive. Health data represents some of the most sensitive personal information users share with technology platforms.

Samsung has not specified whether users will have granular control over which types of health data can be used for AI training or if the consent applies broadly to all collected information.