Mental health app to pay $7.8m for sharing private data
March 08, 2023
A woman using her phone. Unsplash
Online counselling firm BetterHelp will be ordered to pay $7.8 million to consumers to resolve claims that it disclosed private patient information to outside parties, reported
Health News.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has released a proposed order prohibiting BetterHelp from disclosing consumer health information to specific third parties for the purpose of re-targeting or displaying adverts to users who have already visited BetterHelp's website or used its app.
The California-based business provides online counselling services under a number of different identities, including BetterHelp Counseling and other apps targeted at particular demographics, like Faithful Counselling for Christians and Teen Counselling for younger users.
The FTC lawsuit claims that BetterHelp broke its pledge to keep customer-sensitive data private by sharing it for advertising purposes with Facebook, Snapchat, Criteo, and Pinterest.
For instance, BetterHelp made many commitments to keep consumers' personal health information confidential, only using it or disclosing it when necessary, such as when offering counselling services, the
Health News
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 at 10:00 am