Connections, Groups, and privacy

Profile Visibility controls who can see health data on your Fitness Connected profile. You can change it anytime under You → Settings → Privacy.

Profile Visibility is separate from Connections and Groups. Joining a group does not change this setting.

A Connection is a relationship between two people in Fitness Connected. Connections are directional: you can connect with someone before they connect with you.

A simple example:

1. You connect with someone.
2. They may or may not connect back.
3. Once both of you have connected, the relationship becomes Mutual.

In the People tab, you may see Mutual, Incoming, Outgoing, and Pending requests:

• Mutual means both people have connected.
• Incoming means they connected with you, and you have not connected back yet.
• Outgoing means you connected with them, and they have not connected back yet.
• Pending request means an approval is still waiting. A pending request is not a Connection yet.

When someone's Profile Visibility is set to Everyone, connecting creates the relationship right away. When someone's Profile Visibility is set to Mutual Connections, a new connection may require their approval before the relationship is established.

The word mutual appears in two related places, and they are not the same thing.

Connection state alone does not decide profile health-data visibility. Profile Visibility does.

• If your Profile Visibility is Everyone, people who view your profile can see your health data even if you are not mutually connected.
• If your Profile Visibility is Mutual Connections, a one-way Connection is not enough. Profile health data becomes visible only after the relationship is Mutual.

Mutual itself is not a privacy toggle. It is the relationship state that Mutual Connections visibility looks for.

If someone has already connected with you, choosing Connect Back creates your side of the relationship right away. The relationship becomes Mutual without another approval round, even if their Profile Visibility is set to Mutual Connections.

Groups are invite-based shared contexts for understanding health and activity together. Membership is explicit and opt-in.

When you accept a group invite, other members can see your supported activity, sleep, and heart-rate metrics in group-related experiences such as group snapshots, trends, standings, and comparisons. Members do not need to be personally connected.

Joining a group does not:

• create personal Connections with other members
• change your Profile Visibility
• unlock another person's ordinary profile health data

Group sharing stays scoped to group-related experiences. It does not replace your profile sharing rules.

Fitness Connected includes two Compare contexts. Both use a fixed 30-day window and are meant to help you observe patterns, not declare winners.

• Health permissions decide what Fitness Connected can read from Apple Health or Health Connect. See Connecting your health data.
• Profile Visibility decides who can see health data on your profile.
• Connections define relationships between people.
• Groups define scoped shared contexts for supported metrics.
• Joining a group does not replace or override Profile Visibility.

If sharing looks different from what you expect:

1. Review Profile Visibility under You → Settings → Privacy.
2. Check Mutual, Incoming, Outgoing, and Pending requests in People.
3. Confirm group membership or invite status in Groups.

For more setup help, return to the Support hub or the Health Data guide. If you still need help, email fitnessconnected@zungl.com.