The Evidence Your Insulin Pump is Recording Right Now

The witness inside you never forgets—and now it testifies

If you’re wearing a pacemaker, insulin pump, continuous glucose monitor, implanted defibrillator, or other implanted medical device, you’re also wearing a source of information—a running, time-stamped record of what your body was doing before, during, and after an accident. In a growing number of personal injury cases, that record has become evidence that’s sometimes the most powerful data in the file. 

Today, personal injury lawyers think about medical device data in nearly every serious cause they evaluate. This changes the calculus for all parties as they formulate strategy in a personal injury lawsuit.

What do implanted medical devices actually record?

Modern cardiac devices like pacemakers, implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), and loop recorders continuously log heart rate, rhythm disturbances, pacing events, and physical activity levels. This data is typically transmitted wirelessly to a physician’s monitoring service. 

Insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) like a Dexcom or FreeStyle Libre record blood glucose readings, insulin doses, alarms, and user interactions that send data minute by minute. 

Neurostimulators, cochlear implants, and CPAP machines keep similar usage logs. 

Notably, wearable devices like Fitbits and Apple Watches are not implanted, but they generate closely related evidence such as steps, heart rate, sleep, and sometimes GPS. The courts often treat this category of data similarly to implanted devices.

These implantable devices provide an objective, machine-generated timeline that doesn’t forget, exaggerate, or depend on anyone’s memory—and this cuts both ways in a court of law.

How does implant data get to the courtroom?

There are a couple of ways a lawyer may introduce implant data into a lawsuit or claim.

1. Device “interrogation” report. When a cardiologist or endocrinologist downloads information from the device at an office visit or after an event, that download becomes part of the medical record and is obtainable through a standard records request or HIPAA authorization.
2. Cloud platform. The manufacturer’s platform (for example, Medtronic CareLink, Dexcom Clarity, Fitbit’s servers, etc.) can provide data via a subpoena or signed authorization. If it’s a criminal matter, data can be reached with a search warrant.

Once obtained, the data almost always requires expert interpretation. 

A raw rhythm strip or glucose trace means little to a jury until a cardiologist or endocrinologist explains what it shows and ties it to the timeline of the injury. To be admissible, the data needs to be authenticated as evidence—in other words, proven to be from a specific device on a specific patient—and fall under a hearsay exception. Typically, device records qualify as business records or as machine-generated data, which isn’t hearsay at all. The reliability of the technology is also a crucial piece of admissibility, but laws for proving reliability vary by state. 

Some courts are open to admitting implant data because it’s generated automatically by FDA-regulated equipment, rather than by a person (who might have a motive to alter the truth).

State of Ohio v. Compton (Butler County, Ohio, 2017–2020)

This is a landmark legal case in Butler County, Ohio, that marked the first time prosecutors used data from a suspect’s internet-enabled cardiac pacemaker as physical evidence in an arson and insurance fraud prosecution.

In September, 2016, Ross Compton’s Middletown, Ohio home caught fire. Compton told police he observed the fire, quickly packed his valuables into luggage, broke a bedroom window with a cane, tossed the luggage out the window, and then retrieved them and carried them to his car.

But police had concerns about his story. Compton had a specific medical history and cardiac device implant, which caused investigators to doubt that he was physically capable of performing the heavy tasks in the time frame he claimed.

Investigators obtained a warrant for his pacemaker data, and a cardiologist concluded his recorded heart rate and cardiac rhythms made his account “highly improbable” given his condition. Although the defense moved to suppress the pacemaker data by arguing it violated constitutional privacy rights and constituted an unreasonable search of private bodily functions, the judge ruled the data admissible. 

The judge said a person’s expectation of privacy does not extend to shielding biological performance data seized during a valid warrant. 

Compton was indicted for aggravated arson and insurance fraud. This was the first U.S. ruling admitting data from a beating heart as evidence. The legal question was never finally resolved—Compton died in July 2020 while an appeal on the issue was pending, ending the prosecution. But the suppression ruling remains the touchstone courts and lawyers cite when arguing implanted-device data is fair game.

Implant data and a plaintiff’s case

The plaintiff’s lawyer is going to evaluate implant data based on questions that include:

1. Does a device exist, and did it capture the relevant window? A pacemaker interrogated two days after a crash might hold heart rate data that corroborates the trauma of impact; a CGM might prove our client was not hypoglycemic when the defense claims a “medical episode” caused a crash.
2. Does the data help or hurt the plaintiff? This is the hard, honest question. Activity data that shows a steep, sustained drop after the injury date can be very important for corroborating pain or disability claims. The same data can betray a claim, tbhough. A client who testifies he can’t walk more than a block, but whose device logged 12,000 daily steps is in serious trouble for his legal case. The plaintiff’s lawyer needs to know this immediately, and not find out at a deposition after the defense has subpoenaed the data. 
3. Preservation of data. Once litigation is reasonably anticipated, device data is subject to the same spoliation rules as email. Cloud platforms overwrite or age out data—a deleted account can look like destroyed evidence. A plaintiff’s lawyer will typically instruct clients immediately not to delete apps, accounts, or data, and they send a preservation letter to the manufacturer of the device. 
4. Proportionality and privacy. The plaintiff’s lawyer might fight to limit discovery to relevant metrics and time periods. Caselaw has indicated that courts will allow sleep, location, and heart rate data to be redacted if the issue in question only involves mobility.

What to do if you have an implanted medical device and you’re in an accident

If you were injured in an accident and you have an implanted medical device, there are three considerations:

• It might hold your best evidence. Tell your lawyer about any devices you have or wear right away. 
• Preserve everything. Don’t delete apps, accounts, or data—even if you think the data works against you in a claim or lawsuit. 
• Be scrupulously accurate about your limitations. There might be a machine-generated record against which every statement will be checked.

The device in or attached to your body is there to protect your health. It might protect your legal claim, too.