Teens' Mental Health Data: Who\'s Keeping it Safe?

Lately, it's come to light that a company been paid millions by New York City for providing free online therapy for teenagers, Talkspace, has been sharing data about who visits their site with big social media platforms. This includes TikTok, Meta, Snap, and others. These companies are currently being sued by New York City for allegedly harming the mental health of teens. The problem? Tracking pixels are tiny pieces of code that gather data about who visits a website. They aim to show targeted advertisements and content based on browsing habits. So, if someone visits a website, a pixel gathers and sharesdata with the platform. This includes tracking groups who viewed the page. When asked the chief privacy officer at Talkspace - Mary Potter said, "the pixels were not sharing any personal medical information. " It came as a shock when a Gizmodo test on January 24, 2024, found no advertising pixels on the website from the report, all other pages remained. Yet Seattle and Baltimore had many tracking pixels still sending data to other companies. These included Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more. All the tracking pixels were removed after contact to Talkspace. The conversation about data privacy didn't stop at tracking pixels. Kids' data used to be gathered i. e. IP address before they even signed up for the service. This was to match patients with therapists. Why would a company do something like this? This was for the biggest reason- Marketing - as Teenager online platforms are the best ways to learn about mental health services. After the pixels were taken down there was no other option to do so. It was found that more than 21, 000 teenagers used the NYC Teenspace service since it began. The people behind this campaign say that it is to help teens to get mental health services but it is not as simple as it seems. Its still unclear whether they violated privacy rules and this service is not the only thing here problematic. Our Big Brothersmay be helping us but too closely and intrusively. .