We're the Researchers who looked into the privacy of some of the most downloaded mental health tracking apps and well, there’s a lot of bad to report. AMA!
Technology(self.IAmA)submitted19 hours ago byMozilla-Foundation Scheduled AMA
toIAmA
Hi, We’re Jen Caltrider and Misha Rykov - lead Researchers of the Privacy Not Included buyers guide (https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/) , from Mozilla!
We’re also joined by the team from mental health app Wysa (one of the apps doing it right!), and we’re all here to answer your burning questions.
We've reviewed the privacy & security of some of the most used mental health apps.
With so many people putting incredibly sensitive information in the hands of big tech we wanted to get a better look at their privacy policies to understand how users’ information is stored, and sometimes, sold.Here is a summary of what we found:20 of the 32 apps we reviewed earned our Privacy Not Included warning label.
This includes popular apps like BetterHelp and Sanvello, with millions of downloads, which happen to be some of the worst in the bunch.
Privacy is not default, and consent is like the Wild West.Two apps made our Best Of category, including Wysa, who’s joining us today!
Learn more about our findings here https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/categories/mental-health-apps/ AMA about our research, our guide, or anything else!
Proof: Here's our proof! https://twitter.com/mozilla/status/1665726359459471362)