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ASA slams blood pressure apps for misleading public

The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld complaints against three health monitoring companies that gave members of the public the false impression their apps can be used to measure blood pressure.

In separate rulings published last week, the ASA criticised the companies P&L Studio, Novabeyond and Healthtracker Apps for misleading ads that appeared online. This forms part of the regulator’s wider work in the health tracking app market.

All three ads displayed digital blood pressure readings showing systolic and diastolic pressure measurements.

Commenting on P&L Studio’s ad, the ASA said: “We considered [that this] gave the impression that the app could measure blood pressure and heart rate using a fingerprint.

“We considered that that impression was enhanced by the name of the app: “Blood pressure”.

P&L Studio, which trades as Blood Pressure, did not respond to the ASA’s questions.

Novabeyond, which trades as Blood Pressure-Monitor Tracker app, told the ASA its product uses photoplethysmograph technology in smartphones but acknowledged it does not allow users to directly measure their blood pressure, and that they must instead upload readings obtained from other sources.

Novabeyond said the ad had been created by a third-party marketing company and acknowledged that the wording and visual elements “may have implied the app directly measured blood pressure”.

Similarly, Healthtracker Apps told the ASA its product does not measure any physiological parameters and that users must instead input their own data.

“They acknowledged that some visual elements could be interpreted as implying a monitoring capability, and said the specific video and banner assets referenced were automatically generated by Google’s algorithms and inadvertently created an impression of measurement functionality that did not reflect the app’s actual use,” the ASA reported.

Google told the ASA that advertisers are responsible for ensuring their compliance with advertising policies and applicable law.

All three companies were warned not to repeat these advertisements or make misleading claims for their apps in future.

Novabeyond and Healthtracker Apps were also told not to “make medical claims for devices that did not hold the applicable conformity marking and were not registered with the MHRA”.