Mental wellness apps offer options like
online consultation, meditation and relaxation tips, support groups and screenings. In fact, digital therapy saw a marked increase in consumption during the pandemic as many struggled with mental health burnout. According to a report by Sensor Tower, a marketing intelligence company, mental health and wellness apps generated two million more downloads in April 2020 than in January 2020. However, seeking help for mental health issues comes with a strict doctor-patient confidentiality clause. Mozilla’s research found that
mental health apps they have worse privacy protection for users than most other apps. The investigation described them as “data-sucking devices with the look and feel of a mental health app.” In other words, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. So if there is a possibility of a data breach, how secure are these apps, despite their popularity?
According to Deloitte research, “a conservative annual growth rate for global spending on mental health apps is 20%, for an estimated total of Rs 3,932 cr, up 83% from 2019 levels.
LACK OF VERBAL OR WRITTEN CONSENT TO SHARE DATA
According to Mozilla, one of the applications collects the transcripts of users’ chats. Riona Lall, a psychotherapist, sharing a similar experience, feels that these apps are still in a murky space. “During one of the conversations with a mental health app startup, I found out that they insist on storing session notes on their platform, which is extremely private information that should remain between the therapist and the patient. The patient is also not verbally consenting to or signing this,” she adds. Experts also stress that unless users start questioning why certain information is required, the data privacy debate is endless. Tarun Gupta, co-founder of a mental wellness app, adds: “Why would an app need to track your messages or access other apps on your phone when it only provides mental health support? Just the phone number or name should be enough. It’s also important to make sure that if you’re talking to a chatbot, the conversation is encrypted.” People don’t even read the privacy policies that are mentioned in the app, experts add. Omkar Ambekar, chief data officer of a multinational company, highlights that mental health apps currently do not belong to any medical board and are not vetted by any regulatory body.This lack of regularization can be detrimental.
According to research from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), only about 40% of interactive apps confirmed that user data would be kept confidential, raising concerns about data misuse.
WHY IS THE DATA TRACKED?
According to an investigation by Consumer Reports, several mental health apps say in their privacy policies that your data can be shared with researchers. While it may be a common assumption that the data helps doctors and university researchers learn more about how to treat mental health. In fact, the report highlights that sharing patient data for public health and other academic research is standard practice in health care. However, some of the privacy policies blurred the lines between medical research and marketing or app design projects. Dr. Amit Sharma, a principal investigator at Microsoft India, says mental health apps are often free, but the apps are supported in part by using data collected from the app. “Even tracking your mood or anxiety by some apps is sensitive information because it reveals information about how you feel. Applications can share your information with other companies that generate online ads and the user, without his knowledge, will start seeing ads relevant to his activity or the words he used, ”he adds. Among the other uses, Omkar says companies train their AI or chatbot model through recordings or words connecting user trends to further amplify the conversation in the app. Tarun, for his part, explains that the apps usually indicate before connecting with a professional that the call will be recorded for training purposes. “The conversation is used to train the AI model to help improve the technology or even to train your customer support agent. Usually usernames are not shared in those cases,” he says.
According to an investigation by Consumer Reports in 2021, some popular mental health apps shared data with Meta and other companies, and tracked targeted advertising. Third parties may combine this information with other data
items like gender, hobbies, and location to determine which ads are shown on your platform or on other websites.
An investigation by Salon highlighted that former employees of a mental health app said that people at the company regularly reviewed transcripts from patients and therapists to find common phrases and use them to improve marketing to potential users.
WHAT TO AVOID IN MENTAL WELLNESS APPS:
Share personal information
Access to text messages and other applications
Multiple popups for related services
Save payment information or personal documentation like Aadhar etc.
.
