Author: Alexandra Levine
Publisher: Politico
Publication Year: 2022
Summary: The following resource describes how one large service that offers crisis help for those in mental distress has faced ethical concerns as it shares customers’ data with a third-party partner. While the company says it is only for good use in order to better provide help to people moving forward, and that they strip all personal identifying information from their data when being shared, many users feel this is overstepping the bounds of privacy. Advocates for data privacy argue that while the 50-paragraph consent disclosure users must agree to when they first use the app, users do not have a deep understanding of what they are consenting to and true consent for the company to share their data. This has been an issue that has become very common in the data industry recently, with consumers feeling concerned over not having a great understanding of how their data is being used or shared by companies, regardless of intent.