By: Monica Dugan
Finnish health brand Oura recently suffered a PR nightmare linked to their partnership with the United States Department of Defense.
Oura and the DoD have been partnered since 2019, with the goal of supporting U.S. service members and their health. Oura cites four goals of this partnership: stress management and resilience; optimization of fitness, physical stress, and recovery; managing fatigue-risk; and early illness detection.
Following the tragic loss of seventeen naval soldiers due to an accident linked to fatigue in 2017, the Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) launched the Command Readiness, Endurance, and Watchstanding (CREW) program to better understand how fatigue impacts our armed forces. The NHRC chose Oura Rings to track sleep and health biometrics, and plans to launch a volunteer study with 1,600 naval service members to study crew fatigue. Oura will distribute Rings to the service members in the study, which will gather users’ biometric data and provide commanders and coordinators with real-time insights. In an effort to bring the work of Oura and the DoD closer to home, Oura is constructing a manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas, expected to be fully operational in 2026.
Oura’s deployment with the armed forces is still in its relatively early stages. However, initial results have indicated that biometrics observation could be a powerful source for enhancing human performance, optimizing training times, and combatting physical or mental health challenges.
This is also not the only instance where the military has partnered with health companies. In 2021, the wearable biometric company WHOOP partnered with U.S. Army paratroopers to measure soldier stress in extreme Arctic conditions. The soldiers stationed in Alaska wore the WHOOP watches for the duration of the six month study in order to improve soldier resiliency, optimize training methods, and promote the mental well-being of soldiers. The study concluded in May of 2021 and data was analyzed that summer, providing commanders with insight on how to better schedule training and recovery routines for their troops.
Despite the previous successful partnerships between biometric data companies and our armed forces, Oura’s partnership recently caused an uproar. Influencers took to social media in September to publicly denounce Oura, accusing the company of selling users’ data to the government. One Twitter post from September 1 read: “Oura has partnered with Palantir and the Department of Defense, so we probably shouldn’t use these products anymore”. Another Tweet posted in response to the news: “I’ll never get one now. The sad caveat? They’ll make plenty selling their ring and peoples’ data to the military/security state…”. The PR nightmare became so bad that the Oura CEO Tom Hale had to post his first ever TikTok to address the paranoia.
Much of the concern arose from Oura’s working closely with tech company Palantir to facilitate its partnership with the DoD. Palantir is a software company that deploys information to both commercial and government clients. Palantir uses a service called FedStart, which allows companies to bypass the government’s lengthy accreditation process and run their software within Palantir’s already accredited software. Palantir and Oura do not have a partnership; Palantir just provides the security layer that Oura needs in order to partner with the DoD to ensure that Oura’s data is being shared with the highest level of governmental security that Palantir can ensure.
Those with access to such data include unit commanders and performance coaches, who will be able to use the data to optimize training and respond to their units’ needs. Through this technology jungle-gym, users’ data remains secure and complies with the DoD’s strict security requirements.
The government has a high bar for security in information, and for good reason. In 2017, service members wearing Strava watches unintentionally exposed the location of several military bases. Oura’s partnership with the DoD is enabled to protect information designated IL5 (Impact Level 5), the second-highest level of security control for information within the DoD. This means that the data collected by the servicemembers’ rings is highly protected and encrypted, only for use by the appropriate government personnel, as the information relates to matters of military control and intelligence.
The controversy stems from the fact that many people don’t like Palantir. As a company that specializes in the confusing world of large-scale data analytics, many see it as a “scary tech giant” that provides surveillance information to the government and opens the door to breaches and abuse. Critics of Palantir have accused the company of having “blood on its hands” and fear that the company’s data surveillance capabilities can help police facilitate deportation raids. The company has strongly defended its operation, explaining how its clients always own the data and control its distribution. The truth is that Palantir’s operations are difficult to grasp, even for employees.
Time will tell how effective this governmental experiment between Oura and the DoD is, but social media users should always take the time to research the information they find online, especially when their personal data is involved.
Sources:
[1] Oura Team, Oura Establishes U.S. Manufacturing to Support Growing U.S. Defense Business, OURA BLOG (Aug. 27, 2025), https://ouraring.com/blog/oura-us-department-of-defense/?srsltid=AfmBOoq_tMSVyZQcRh3icqhNP6lXNYM86eIKyu0TE42-EkbKI7-kmCyX.
[2] Id.
[3] Jessica Hagan, Oura Opens Manufacturing Facility to Support U.S. Department of Defense, MOBIHEALTHNEWS (Aug. 27, 2025, 2:15 PM), https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/oura-opens-manufacturing-facility-support-us-department-defense.
[4]Oura Team, supra note 1.
[5]Whoop Partners with U.S. Army in Study to Examine Stress in Soldiers, WHOOP: Press Release (Feb. 24, 2021), https://www.whoop.com/us/en/press-center/us-army-study-soldiers-stress/.
[6] Id.
[7]Laura Miers (@LauraMiers), X (Sept. 1, 2025, 4:16 PM), https://x.com/LauraMiers/status/1962610473632727166.
[8]Adrian (@SillyPutty78), X (Sept. 1, 2025, 5:37 PM), https://x.com/SillyPutty78/status/1962630985297924494.
[9]@ouraring, TIKTOK (Sept. 2, 2025), https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMNNNyLD/.
[10]Tekendra Parmar, How Oura Got Caught in a TikTok Conspiracy Storm, INC: TECHNOLOGY (Sept. 4, 2025), https://www.inc.com/tekendra-parmar/oura-ring-got-caught-in-a-tiktok-conspiracy-storm/91235293.
[11]Christianna Silva, What Oura Ring’s Partnership with the U.S. Military Means for Your Data, MASHABLE (Sept. 2, 2025), https://mashable.com/article/oura-ring-department-of-defense-palantir.
[12]Parmar, supra note 10.
[13]Art Clomera, What is DoD Impact Level 5 (IL5)?, IPKEYS BLOG (Mar. 19, 2025), https://ipkeys.com/blog/dod-il5/; Oura Team supra note 1.
[14]Natalie Sherman, Palantir: The Controversial Data Firm Now Worth £ 17 bn, BBC (Sept. 30, 2020), https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54348456.
[15]Caroline Haskins, What Does Palantir Actually Do?, WIRED: BUSINESS (Aug. 11, 2025, 7:00 AM), https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/.