Question: "donating my anonymized data" checkbox
Under "My Settings", there is a an option called "Research Data" where I can check a box for "I want to improve mental health outcomes by donating my anonymized data". I'm curious to learn more about this.
1) What exactly is the effect of me checking this box? What data of mine from this site are actually being collected and donated?
2) Are 7Cups chat data saved and included as part of this? What about forum posts?
3) Re: the word "donating", does 7Cups actually earn any revenue from this?
These questions aren't driven by data privacy concerns so much as curiosity. I'm thrilled to give 7Cups any/all of my data that they can use, and am just curious how much Big Brother is collecting/how useful it is. :)
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Here are my current guesses at responses to these questions. Am curious whether these are accurate.
1) What exactly is the effect of me checking this box? What data of mine from this site are actually being collected and donated?
By checking this box, I am providing consent for any responses I provide to screening questionnaires on 7Cups (e.g. DASS-21) to be given to universities or government-affiliated organizations for use in social sciences research.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-smartphone-psychiatrist/528726/
I am also consenting to be included in a pool of people who researchers can contact if they are looking for research study participants.
https://www.7cups.com/about/research.php
Beyond this, checking the box doesn't have any practical effects.
2) Are 7Cups chat data saved and included as part of this? What about forum posts?
No. In general, 7Cups doesn't actually save any chat transcripts. This is by design so that one-on-one chats remain completely confidential. Even the people who help maintain the 7Cups website don't have any way of easily accessing these data because they aren't permanently stored anywhere. The user reporting and listener review functions operate based on the honors system.
Member forum posts are already publicly available data that can be viewed/collected by anyone. If a researcher wanted to and had the tools, they could comb through this without needing consent from 7Cups users. So, this also isn't what the "anonymized data" is referring to.
3) Re: the word "donating", does 7Cups actually earn any revenue from this?
No. 7Cups only earns revenue from charitable donations and referral fees from therapy sessions performed on 7Cups. There isn't any sort of Google/Facebook-esque thing happening where my data is being sold.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/365342/holiday-blues-heres-how-7-cups-digitized-the-comfort-of-st
Oops, just looked at the Privacy Policy and can already see that some of my assumptions above are inaccurate. Looks like chat transcripts do get stored and can be read by at least by some people.
https://www.7cups.com/Documents/PrivacyPolicy/
"We collect your Personal Information when you access mental health services through our Services, when you contact or correspond with us, peers or health care providers via the Services or when you utilize the therapy exercises and programs available on the Services."
"All Transcripts are maintained on secure servers. Access to stored data is protected by multi-layered security controls including firewalls, role-based access controls and passwords."
"Private messages are stored for one year."
@frigidstars27
Really makes ya think right!?
As they say: Free is rarely free at all. Look how big Google got using all our data by making email accounts free! Now they learned all of our shopping habits, what things put us in the mood to spend money, and just the right items to put on our screens, and at just the right time too
FREE AINT FREE
@humorousDay8793 If you're getting a service for free you aren't the customer, you're the product.
There are exceptions. A service supported entirely by donations, like most non-profits, is one -- in that case you're a client. An organization supported solely by membership fees is another -- the open-source blogging platform Dreamwidth.org is one such (and I love it there). A project run entirely by volunteers, like fan-run science fiction conventions and some Linux distributions like Debian, is a third. Co-ops, like REI, are a fourth -- the members are shareholders.
The thing that distinguishes a community is that decisions in a community are made by the members or their elected representitives.
@frigidstars27 As for item 2, chats are saved, at least partially, somewhere -- I can walk over to another computer, log in on 7cups, resume a chat, and see the last 40 (I counted) messages. I have no idea what metadata is kept outside of that window.
If you're using the 7cups app, its a whole new ball game what you're agreeing to. I log in everything the old fashion way to be safe from giving companies access. You should see my privacy settings. Locked up tight. But i know they turn things back on remotely so i do maintanace many times throughout the day. Most people are 100% exposed, and don't even realize it. Some call me paranoid, but thats nonscence pressure to make us act a fool and when you are lazy, you are totally vulnerable.
Sad but its true, its hard but its fair.
So watch what you do and try to stay aware
@humorousDay8793 Oh; good point. I haven't been using the app at all, just the website, because I'm a lot better at typing than I am at texting. But I see that I had to turn off Privacy Badger to register; should see whether I can re-enable it now.
@stressBear
When i go to my path tab, then my impact tab, most of the chats ive had for 80+ days, i can click on any of them and the conversations are all still there.
I hope anything good said gets used to help more people. 😊