A cross-sectional study found that “top-ranked” mental health apps are sharing their user’s data to third parties.
A cross-sectional study revealed that “top-ranked” mental health apps are sharing their user’s data to third parties.
According to a report titled ‘Assessment of the Data Sharing and Privacy Practices of Smartphone Apps for Depression and Smoking Cessation’ 32 of 36 unspecified, “top-ranked” mental health apps share data with third-parties.
The report published in JAMA Network revealed, “25 of 36 apps (69%) incorporated a privacy policy. 22 of 25 apps with a policy (88%) provided information about primary uses of collected data, while only 16 (64%) described secondary uses. While 23 of 25 apps with a privacy policy (92%) stated in a policy that data would be transmitted to a third party, transmission was detected in 33 of all 36 apps (92%).”
The study also found that “29 of 36 apps (81%) transmitted data for advertising and marketing purposes or analytics to just 2 commercial entities, Google and Facebook, but only 12 of 28 (43%) transmitting data to Google+ and 6 of 12 (50%) transmitting data to Facebook disclosed this.”
