Many of these apps are transmitting data to third parties without their users’ knowledge or consent.
By Rachel Siegel Rachel Siegel National business reporter Email Bio Follow April 22 at 2:02 PM The pitch: Health apps for users who are battling depression or want to quit smoking.
“Digital data doesn’t go away,” said John Torous, a co-author of the report. “A part of the risk is that we don’t fully know who is going to put this data together, when and where it’s going to show up again and in what context. … Data seems to end up in the hands of the wrong people more and more."Torous heads the digital psychiatry division at a Harvard Medical School-affiliated teaching hospital, where he also is a staff psychiatrist and faculty member.
So not only did most apps share data, but most also gave users no indication sharing was a possibility. The apps in the study didn’t transmit data that could immediately identify a user, Torous said. But they did release strings of information “that can begin the process of re-identification.” If, for example, those strings get sent to Facebook analytics, Torous said, then the question becomes, “Who is putting this all together and who gets to access this?"
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