Raising the Standards of Privacy in Digital Mental Health

As a clinician, you would never sell your patient’s files for profit.

We know how important it is for health professionals to protect patient information, and it doesn’t help to hear about the ‘creepy’ privacy practices of many online mental health programs and apps. Data privacy in the world of digital mental health can often seem scary.?

Sadly, not everyone is in this space for the right reasons. We know there are digital services building a business around selling mental health data to third parties and advertisers, or harvesting data to feed hungry algorithms. These programs make money from selling the personal information of vulnerable people – in some cases including names, addresses and medication information.?

If you or your patients are concerned about privacy, rest assured THIS WAY UP will never sell their data for any reason. ?

THIS WAY UP is proud to lead the way in meeting the National Safety and Quality Digital Mental Health Standards, setting the highest standard of privacy within the digital health space. These standards help to distinguish THIS WAY UP as a safe, high quality, online service from some of the 'digital snake oil' out there.?

Before recommending a mental health app or online treatment, there are important things you should consider, such as: what information is collected, where it’s stored, who it’s shared with, and why.?

In signing up to THIS WAY UP, we only ask for patient information that we need to run our programs safely. As part of St Vincent’s Sydney, we follow the hospital’s strict requirements for data privacy and cyber security to ensure the minimal information we do collect is safe and secure. ?

Just as you would never sell your patient files, we are a publicly-funded, not-for-profit service committed to improving accessibility to mental health treatment for all Australians, not private returns for investors.?

Check out our Privacy Policy or get in touch to find out more.?

Written by Ben Prest, Program Manager, THIS WAY UP