Three former promoters, including ex-Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees and physician Peter Attia, sued Oura and Finnish parent Oura Health, alleging the company failed to honor stock options promised for promotional work. Courts have sent Brees’s claim to arbitration in Helsinki but allowed Attia’s case to proceed in federal court; Oura denies wrongdoing and says its board never approved the grants.
They all say they cut deals to promote health-tracking smart ring Oura in exchange for stock options worth millions of dollars that the company later refused to honor. And now, they all are suing.
After Oura announced a Fort Worth plant to support defense work, online critics alleged ties to Palantir and feared civilian data could be exposed; some creators said they would discard their rings. CEO Tom Hale said Oura uses Palantir’s FedStart for some government business but asserted consumer data never reaches government systems. The company says it does not share personal data without express consent.
(NewsNation) — A Finnish tech company that makes smart rings for tracking health and wellness metrics says it’s not sharing civilian customer data with the United States government or a third party through a project with the Department of Defense. In a recent news release, Oura announced it would build a plant in Fort Worth, Texas, to support its defense sector work. The company said it has worked in that sector since 2019, "deploying tens of thousands of rings in support of the DoD’s efforts to enhance human performance across all branches of the armed services." A PR nightmare ensued. Online backlash included allegations that Oura is working with software defense contractor Palantir and claims that Oura's civilian data would be compromised. In protest, some social media content creators said they were getting rid of their rings. Oura rings measure heart rate and heart rate variability, body temperature and blood oxygen, among other metrics. They start at $299 and require a $6 monthly membership to access health insights, after a free first month. Oura says it doesn’t sell or share personal data to a third party without a customer’s “express consent.” CEO Tom Hale said in a TikTok that Oura uses Palantir software FedStart for some government business, but stresses that its sales to consumers are a separate matter. "Your personal data never touches any government system," Hale said in the video. "Nobody from Palantir or the government has access to your data — full stop." A portion of the online criticism stems from some consumers' negative feelings about Oura working with the U.S. military. Others accuse Oura of being heavy-handed with its competitors. Oura accused international competitors of infringing on its patent and took legal action. Under an International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling, two of them can no longer sell products in the U.S.
In a recent news release, Oura announced it would build a plant in Fort Worth, Texas, to support its defense sector work. The company said it has worked in that sector since 2019, “deploying tens of thousands of rings in support of the DoD’s efforts to enhance human performance across all branches of the armed services.”
At a September 2025 conference, CEO Tom Hale said Oura never sells member data and shares it only when users direct it to do so. He described the Defense Department system as separate from the consumer platform and Palantir’s role as a limited commercial relationship. Users nevertheless raised privacy and reproductive-health concerns.
Oura CEO Tom Hale is trying to set the record straight about the smart ring maker’s partnership with the Department of Defense (DoD) and data miner Palantir, which is used by defense, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies in the United States and elsewhere. At the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference on Monday, Hale’s interview started off with a bang with his outright denial that the company was sharing user data with the government.
You also have a partnership with the US military. First was being more American, having more Americans on your border, your executive suite, was that a requirement of that deal in any way?
Last week, Finnish health tech company Oura announced it was expanding its manufacturing operation in the United States by opening a facility in Fort Worth to service its contracts with the Department of Defense. What followed next was a PR nightmare. Hours later, hundreds of influencers took to TikTok and Instagram to performatively discard the health-tracking rings, which have become popular with men and women alike to track heart rate, stress, sleep, and even menstrual cycles. Now, the company seems plagued with viral disinformation surrounding its relationships with the military tech company Palantir, and a lawsuit it won in August against copycat brands Ultrahuman and RingConn. The problem has gotten so bad that CEO Tom Hale took to TikTok to address some of the viral half-truths circling around the company. Here’s what actually happened and what the influencers got wrong. No, Oura does not share your health data with Palantir One of the biggest concerns that influencers have been waxing apoplectic about is Oura's supposed contract with the military contractor Palantir Technologies, best known for creating an AI-powered kill chain and having a co-founder who reportedly likes to transfuse himself with nubile blood. The chain of misinformation stems from the fact that Oura is using a service provided by Palantir called FedStart. If you believe the influencers out there, that means the company is sharing your sensitive health data with the defense contractor. But that’s not what’s happening. The U.S. government has an incredibly high bar for security when it comes to its third-party contractors. It takes millions of dollars and years to acquire the lengthy accreditations to provide your software to the government. With good reason: Service members using the fitness tracker Strava in 2017 unwittingly gave up the location of secret military bases. FedStart is a Palantir product that allows startups and other companies to bypass that accreditation process by running their software within Palantir’s already-accredited environment. This has nothing to do with selling consumer health data to Palantir. Instead, it’s about Oura partnering with Palantir to make sure its products for the military are run in a way that complies with the Department of Defense’s stringent security requirements. It’s also not unusual for the military to partner with health tech companies. A couple of years ago, the Army strapped Whoop’s wearable fitness band onto paratroopers to study their stress and recovery in various scenarios. The misinformation is compounded by the notion that Oura is suing its competitors out of business The influencers will have you believe that after
She made the decision after coming across eye-catching posts on the Oura subreddit. This followed an Aug. 27 announcement: Oura, the Finnish health technology company behind the smart ring, announced it was opening a manufacturing facility in Texas to “better meet the needs of the DoD.” The company also reiterated its position as “the trusted wearable of choice” to the Department of Defense. A company spokesperson told Slate that while the news about the manufacturing facility was new, the nature of the relationship between Oura and the DOD, which began in 2019, had not changed.
"We don't sell your data." Oura's CEO publicly states the company does not sell member data or share it with third parties without your consent. Oura's latest blog reiterates: "Member data is not for sale" and says it will oppose law-enforcement requests "used for individual surveillance or prosecution" in violation of users' privacy.
As the backlash spread, CEO Tom Hale took the stage at a tech conference to insist the concern was “totally overblown,” that Oura’s systems were not connected to Palantir’s, and that “no one in the government can see your data.”
A proposed class action filed in California on Aug. 20, 2026, alleges Oura misrepresented its rings’ ability to measure sleep stages and seeks to stop the marketing and potentially sales, plus restitution. Oura disputes the allegations, says its estimates use multiple physiological signals and are supported by independent studies, and says the ring is not a substitute for a clinical sleep study.
A lawsuit has been filed against the well-known smart ring brand Oura, alleging the company used false advertising by deceiving users about the accuracy of its AI-generated sleep tracking. The suit, filed Thursday by Clarkson Law Firm in San Francisco, seeks class action status and a jury trial.
A proposed class-action lawsuit accuses the popular smart ring company of false advertisement.
POLITICO reported that Oura spent more than $1 million on U.S. lobbying in 2025, up from $40,000 in 2024, and hired lobbying firms linked to the administration and Republican lawmakers. The report also described Oura’s growing presence in Washington and lawmakers’ efforts to protect it from Chinese and Indian competitors.
The company in the last year has hired top lobbying shops with links to the administration and Republican lawmakers in Congress, boosting its lobbying spend from $40,000 in 2024 to more than $1 million a year. As the winter Olympics begin in Italy, it’s handing out $349 Oura rings to Team USA. And it’s got a message that resonates: The rings are a solution to systemic health care challenges no one has been able to fix, ranging from physician shortages to ballooning federal spending.
“The company in the last year has hired top lobbying shops with links to the administration and Republican lawmakers in Congress, boosting its lobbying spend from $40,000 in 2024 to more than $1 million a year.”
A CNET report said Oura faces an ongoing class action alleging that it collected sensitive personal information without customer consent for two years. The report describes an allegation, not a finding or resolved outcome.
This isn’t the first lawsuit Oura has faced: There is an ongoing class action alleging that Oura collected sensitive personal information without customer consent for two years.
WHOOP filed a second protest in January 2025 over a Defense Health Agency procurement it says favors Oura. After WHOOP challenged an initial proposed $96 million sole-source award, DHA canceled it and later specified that the wearable must be a ring. WHOOP says that requirement restricts competition; the protest was unresolved in the report, with a response due by mid-April.
Then, when the initial contract was cancelled, another request for information and subsequent request for proposal was posted to Sam.gov by the DHA in November and December respectively, specifying that the wearable must be a ring — something WHOOP says was designed to still hand the award over to Oura by default. DHA has acknowledged to lawmakers that Oura is the only wearable ring company that is cleared by DoD for use in secure facilities, according to documents reviewed by Breaking Defense.
In a suit filed in 2025, early Oura investor and marketer Gordy Bal alleges he invested €400,000 in 2018 and provided discounted marketing services in exchange for options tied to sales targets. His lawyer says he wants Oura to honor the deal. The case’s jurisdiction remains unresolved; Oura has argued its options grants were invalid because its board did not authorize them.
The most recent suit was filed last week by marketer Gordy Bal, a Victoria, Canada-based author and founder of CTR Capital, and it lays out a now-familiar set of claims against Oura.
The supplied evidence for this account contains only the speaker label “Tom Hale” and provides no statement or other details to summarize.
Politico reported that Oura spent more than $1 million on lobbying in the past year, up from $40,000 in 2024, and hired lobbying firms with Trump administration and Republican connections. The report said the Defense Department is its largest customer and quoted CEO Tom Hale saying government access is key to expanding technology access.
The Finnish company’s popularity stems not only from good design and timing, but also from shrewd attention to the way politics works in the capital. In the past year, Oura has hired top lobbying shops with links to the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers in Congress, spending more than $1 million on lobbying, up from $40,000 in 2024.
In a July 15, 2026, article, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said many smart watches, rings and bands lack special health-privacy protections. It said manufacturers collect extensive data and some share it with third parties for marketing or insurance-rate influence, or use it themselves, including to train AI models.
Surveys suggest that around 40 percent of people in the United States own some sort of commercially available wearable health device. Despite being marketed as health devices, they have no special health-related privacy protections that one might hope for. The companies who make these devices can and do collect an abundance of data, and many of them share that data with third-parties for marketing or to influence insurance rates, or use it for their own purposes, like training artificial intelligence models.
Tom Hale said Oura does not sell or share users’ data without their direct consent and will never provide certain data for prosecution or surveillance, even under duress. He said subscriptions reduce incentives to monetize data and described Oura’s work with Medicare Advantage provider Essence as intended to support beneficiaries’ health.
The first thing actually is really to make the point that the privacy of your data is paramount to us. There’s no scenario where we sell or share your data without your direct consent and authorization. And in fact, there’s some kinds of data that we will never share. You can read our terms of service to understand that anything that could be used against you as a prosecution or for surveillance, we will never provide that even under duress.
CEO Tom Hale said Oura serves people managing chronic illness and fertility, and expects wearables used in clinical settings to need regulation. Oura has FDA approval for fertility tracking and is seeking blood-pressure clearance. Separately, a POLITICO newsletter reported the company wants rules allowing health alerts without diagnosis to avoid lengthy device approvals.
“We’re already in the health care business,” Tom Hale said in the latest episode of Semafor’s Compound Interest show. Oura’s customers have expanded beyond what Hale calls the “chronically well” — the “healthy, wealthy, ‘I’m getting on my Peloton and I hope my husband likes the way I look’” crowd — into people managing chronic illnesses and trying to get pregnant (or not), and health insurers looking to manage costs.
Most CEOs, especially in tech, run away from regulated industries. Oura built an $11 billion valuation with relatively little government oversight, but it now has FDA approvals for fertility tracking and is seeking clearance for blood-pressure monitoring. (The FDA recently cleared a hypertension tool for Apple Watch and sent a warning letter to Oura competitor Whoop for unauthorized health marketing.)
Now, Oura’s push is to convince the government to rethink what constitutes a medical device. The company wants the FDA and Congress to allow wearables to notify users about abnormalities in their health data without a diagnosis, avoiding the lengthy medical-device approval process.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation said Oura added a promise to notify users about law-enforcement requests in a June 2026 privacy-policy update. Oura also told EFF it was evaluating ways to provide more visibility, such as a transparency report; EFF welcomed this but said it considers reports the best option.
Only two of the companies we surveyed, Apple and Google (which also owns Fitbit), currently publish transparency reports. Apple, Google, and Whoop promise to notify users of law enforcement requests in publicly available documentation.