Therapy apps are proving to be growing in popularity as people seek mental health help without the inconvenience and high cost of face-to-face counseling. We found that most of them did not meet the expected privacy standards.
Of the 32 mental health apps surveyed, about 19 were labeled as “privacy-free,” and researchers say they were shocked by how bad the apps were…
Testing therapeutic apps for privacy
Mozilla, the nonprofit behind the Firefox browser, has a team dedicated to app privacy research. The team reads privacy policies, checks whether appropriate safeguards are in place, and reviews the company’s track record regarding data breaches and more.
Apps are selected according to their popularity in the US and Europe, and if they fail two or more criteria, they are labeled as “contains no privacy.”
we assign *Privacy not included We place a warning label on products that we deem to be the most problematic in terms of protecting user privacy and security.Products *Privacy not included A warning label when you receive two or more warnings for the following criteria:
How the Company uses the data it collects about you. We warn companies that sell user data or collect more data than necessary for general business purposes. For example, you purchase data from a data broker.
How users control their data. We blame the company if we don’t have a clear and manageable way for users to remove their data from the company, or explain how long we keep users’ data.
What is the company’s known track record of protecting user data? If we have a bad track record of not protecting user data based on known and reported security I will evaluate the company severely.
Finally, we alert companies when we are unable to verify that a product meets minimum security standards. In rare exceptions, where we determine that a warning is of particular concern to a consumer, we may issue a warning to the company if he only has one warning.
Additionally, the team checks the permissions requested by the app. It states that there may be perfectly legitimate reasons for an app to request access to your location, camera, microphone, etc., but we will flag any request that we believe is not necessary for the app’s functionality.
Latest privacy results
Only two therapy apps have cleared all.
There were also 11 privacy concerns (depending on the app).
- finch
- woobot
- mood fit
- tolerable
- uper
- Ginger
- recovery
- record
- calm down
- super better
- modern
- health
- NOCD
The remaining 19 therapy apps were considered failures and had disadvantages in two or more categories.
- Mindshift CBT
- breath,
- think and do
- with sesame seeds
- 7 cups
- mind dock
- Hapify
- better stop
- suicide
- rain
- shining
- head space
- release
- sanity and self
- insight timer
- mighty
- Sanvello
- talk space
- cerebrum
- better help
- pride
- counseling
- replica
Worst medical app
The worst was the failed Replica. All Categories: Review of data use, data management, performance, security, and privacy policies.
You can see the full rating here.
Get help with mental health issues
The National Institute of Mental Health has a list of resources for people with mental health issues.
Call 119 If you or someone you know is in imminent danger, or go to the nearest emergency room.
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Call 988 or send a text message. Llame al 988 (para ayuda en español)
Use Lifeline Chat on the web (English only)
Lifeline provides 24/7 confidential support to anyone facing suicidal or emotional distress. Call or text her on 988 to connect with a trained crisis counselor.veterans crisis line
use Veterans Crisis Chat on the web
The Veterans Crisis Line is a free, confidential resource that connects veterans with trained responders 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This service is available to all veterans and their supporters, even if they are not enrolled in VA or enrolled in VA Healthcare.Disaster helpline
Call or Text 1-800-985-5990
The Disaster Distress Helpline provides emergency crisis counseling to people experiencing emotional distress related to natural or man-made disasters. The helpline is free, multilingual, confidential, and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.If you’re concerned about a friend’s social media updates, contact the social media company’s security team. They will reach out and connect the person to the help they need.
View our infographic of 5 action steps to help someone in emotional pain to see how you can help someone in distress.
Photo: Sydney Sims/Unsplash
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