If you’re used to using apps related to mental health, Mozilla warns you: many of them turn out to be very intrusive, and steal potentially sensitive personal data.
Many of us are affected by stress on a daily basis and as the smartphone is often a way we have to clear our minds, it makes sense to be interested in apps that promise to help us improve our mental health. Only, under the guise of helping people in psychological distress, many of these apps steal their personal data.
When sanity is the right excuse to rob users
Mozilla conducted a study around applications related to mental health, but also those that present themselves as a “help with prayer”. The result is clear: out of 32 apps studied, 29 received a “Privacy not included” warning label. This means that Mozilla testers found some worrying flaws in the way users’ personal data is handled.
This includes not only an often consequent vagueness concerning what the creators of the applications do with the data collectedbut also security issuesincluding the fact that users can use a very weak password for their account, which often includes very personal and very sensitive information.
Visual of the IA Woebot home page.
The bad students of the Mozilla study
Mozilla points the finger in particular Better Help, Youper, Woebot, Better Stop Suicide, Pray.com et Talkspace. The Woebot AI chatbot, which presents itself as an online personal assistant and a “mental health ally”collects user information through third-party services, and then resells the data collected for purposes. As for Talkspace, which is an online therapy service, it keeps transcripts of user conversationswhich raises real questions regarding confidentiality and medical secrecy.
“These services work like data vacuum cleaners, under the guise of helping users to take care of their mental health”explains Misha Rykov, one of the Mozilla researchers, in a press release. “In other words, it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing”he summarizes.
In summary, the next time you’re interested in a mental health-related app, think twice before installing itat the risk of regretting it later, and consider talking directly to a healthcare professional instead.
Par akazanWriting jeuxvideo.com
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