How iOS 16 Health Sharing Invitations Work

Apple’s iOS 16 allows users to securely share their personal health and wellness metrics with trusted family members, caregivers, or doctors. Through an invitation-based system built into the Health app, users maintain granular control over what specific metrics—such as heart rate trends, activity levels, mobility data, and critical health alerts—are shared. This guide explains how to send, receive, manage, and revoke health sharing invitations on an iPhone running iOS 16.

How to Send a Health Sharing Invitation

To initiate health sharing, both the sender and the recipient must have an iPhone running iOS 15 or later with two-factor authentication enabled for their Apple IDs.

  1. Open the Health app on your iPhone.
  2. Tap the Sharing tab at the bottom of the screen.
  3. Select Share with Someone.
  4. Search for and select the contact you wish to invite (the contact must have an active Apple ID).
  5. Choose your sharing preferences:
    • See Suggested Topics: The app recommends key categories based on your logged data.
    • Set Up Manually: You manually select individual categories, such as Heart, Activity, Vitals, Mobility, or Cycle Tracking.
  6. Toggle on specific data points and choose whether to share high-priority notifications, such as irregular heart rhythm notifications or fall alerts.
  7. Tap Next, review the summary of shared items, and tap Share to send the invitation.

How the Recipient Accepts the Invitation

Once the invitation is sent, the recipient receives an alert on their device:

  1. The recipient receives a notification or sees a pending invitation under the Sharing tab in their Health app.
  2. Tapping the invitation displays a summary of the data categories the sender has offered to share.
  3. The recipient taps Accept to establish the connection or Decline to reject it.
  4. Once accepted, the sender's health trends, summaries, and enabled alerts become visible under the recipient’s Sharing dashboard.

Privacy and Data Security

Health data sharing in iOS 16 is end-to-end encrypted when in transit and at rest. Apple cannot access the shared metrics, and the data is visible only to the authorized recipient. The recipient cannot alter the sender's health data; they have read-only access.

Managing and Revoking Access

The sender maintains full control over the shared information at all times:

  1. Open the Health app and navigate to the Sharing tab.
  2. Tap the name of the person with whom you are sharing.
  3. To adjust permissions, toggle individual categories on or off.
  4. To terminate access completely, scroll down and select Stop Sharing. Access is revoked immediately on the recipient's device.