HOUSTON – Mental health apps Betterhelp and Cerebral are facing big penalties after private information was given to companies like Tiktok, Facebook (Meta) and Snapchat.
A Houston area therapist called this predatory, unsafe and disgusting.
“There are things that you say to your therapist that you don’t say to anyone,” said Licensed Professional Counselor, Dr. Manahil Riaz. “Having these online platforms take those vulnerabilities and selling them to market them back to us is very predatory.”
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Betterhelp will be required to pay $7.8 million for deceiving consumers after promising to keep sensitive personal data private.
While the app Cerebral is in trouble after admitting to its patients they’ve been using tracking technologies to share personal user data with third parties, Cerebral claims it inadvertently leaked the information.
In a world where we’ve become numb to privacy violations, Riaz said conversations with her patients are sacred and these companies should be held accountable.
“Ask yourself, ‘Am I comfortable with having my information being sold?’ If the answer is yes, you are comfortable, then continue the services, but most people are not, and I would say to take action. Meaning, holding these companies accountable is really important, which might mean writing an email saying, ‘You’ve breached my personal information, what are you doing about it and what are my rights?’” Riaz said. “The second way of holding them accountable is talking to a lawyer about what are my rights. What can I do about this?”
