New Delhi, May 2 (IANS): Mobile apps used for mental health and prayer have the worst privacy protections for users, according to a new analysis from Mozilla researchers.
The team behind Mozilla’s latest “Privacy Not Included” guide looked at 32 prayer and mental health apps dealing with topics like depression, mental health awareness, anxiety and religious-related services, The Verge reported. .
Of these, 29 received a “privacy not included” warning label, indicating that the team was concerned about how the apps handled user data.
The apps are designed for sensitive issues like mental health conditions, but collect a lot of personal data under vague privacy policies, the team said in a statement.
Most apps also had poor security practices, allowing users to create accounts with weak passwords despite containing deeply personal information.
“The vast majority of prayer and mental health apps are exceptionally creepy,” Jen Caltrider, guide lead for Mozilla Privacy Not Included, said in a statement.
“They track, share, and capitalize on users’ innermost personal thoughts and feelings, such as mood, state of mind, and biometric data,” Caltrider added.
According to Mozilla, the worst practice apps include ‘Better Help’, ‘Youper’, ‘Woebot’, ‘Better Stop Suicide’, ‘Pray.com’ and ‘Talkspace’, according to the report.
The AI chatbot ‘Woebot’, for example, claims to collect information about users from third parties and share user information for advertising purposes. The therapy provider ‘Talkspace’ collects the transcripts of users’ chats.
Mental health apps have proven to be more accessible and readily available than traditional in-person mental health care, which can be subject to stigma, waiting for the right therapist, and cost, among others.
Even as mental health problems rose during the Covid-19 pandemic, these apps gained a lot but sacrificed users’ privacy, the report showed.
“They operate like data-sucking machines with the guise of a mental health app,” Mozilla researcher Misha Rykov said in a statement.
“In other words: a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Rykov said.
