A researcher tried to buy mental health data. It was surprisingly easy

TL;DR

Sensitive mental health data is for sale by little-known data brokers, at times for a few hundred dollars and with little effort to hide personal information such as names and addresses, according to research released Monday. While the report doesn’t delve into how the brokers acquired that mental health information in the first place, a Consumer Reports investigation in 2021 found that some popular mental health apps were sharing users’ data with advertising companies, including Facebook. ”Dixon cautioned against concluding that information about mental health was more widely traded than other personal information and said the data brokerage industry is out of control

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