Warning: *Privacy Not Included with this product
Mindshift CBT
CBT stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It is a psychological treatment shown to be effective at helping manage things like anxiety, eating disorders, and phobias. Mindshift CBT is a free app created by the Canadian charitable organization Anxiety Canada that uses evidence-based CBT strategies to help users manage anxiety by reducing worry, stress, and panic. The app offers tools based on these CBT strategies such as thought journals, belief experiments, and coping cards as well as fear ladders and expanding your comfort zone guides. Tools all designed to help better navigate the crazy, messed up world we're living in these days. Couple that with the fact that Anxiety Canada is a non-profit charitable organization that isn't looking to share or sell a bunch of your personal information to make money and you've got yourself a pretty good deal. Did we mention it's free? But you can always donate to support this organization if you want. We do worry a little about the app's security practices, though, so unfortunately, it's not perfect.
What could happen if something goes wrong?
First reviewed April 20, 2022. Review updated, April 25, 2023
Not much has changed with non-profit Anxiety Canada's Mindshift CBT app over the last year. Their privacy policy was last update in October, 2021, so no changes there since our last review. And we still have the same concerns about the app from a security perspective that we had last year -- we are unable to confirm if they encrypt their data both in transit and at rest (where they store it online), and they still only require a weak password of "111111".
We see they did start restricting access to their public Community forum where users can share stories and offer peer-to-peer support to only users who turn 18+ in the current calendar year. We consider that a good privacy move, especially since we could find no child-specific privacy information in their privacy policy. This is also a good reminder to only share what you are comfortable being made public in such open community forums, no matter your age (but especially if you are under 18!).
Read our 2022 review:
Anxiety Canada's Mindshift CBT app seems to take their users' privacy fairly seriously, which is nice. They do collect personal information like name, e-mail address, telephone, location, and information about your usage of MindShift. The do not share or sell this information for any targeted marketing or advertising purposes though, so yay! Unfortunately, as we have seen with other apps created by non-profit charitable organizations, we do have some concerns about their security practices. The app accepted the weak password "111111" when we logged in. We also were unable to confirm if and when they use encryption to protect users' data in transit and at rest and if they have a way to manage security vulnerabilities. Emails to the address mentioned in their privacy policy for these privacy related questions went unanswered.
It's great to see the organization take privacy seriously. And we understand that charitable organizations don't always have the same resources as bigger companies to focus on an app's security. Which stinks. Big companies tend to have way worse privacy practices and better security practices where charitable organizations seem to have the best privacy practices and not as strong security practices. We feel a little like Goldilocks out here looking for the rare that manages to do both well.
Tips to protect yourself
- Choose a strong password! You may use a password control tool like 1Password, KeePass etc
- Do not use social media plug-ins.
- Use your device privacy controls to limit access to your personal information via app (do not give access to your camera, microphone, images, location unless neccessary)
- Keep your app regularly updated
- Limit ad tracking via your device (eg on iPhone go to Privacy -> Advertising -> Limit ad tracking) and biggest ad networks (for Google, go to Google account and turn off ad personalization)
- Request your data be deleted once you stop using the app. Simply deleting an app from your device usually does not erase your personal data.
- When starting a sign-up, do not agree to tracking of your data if possible.
Can it snoop on me?
Camera
Device: N/A
App: No
Microphone
Device: N/A
App: No
Tracks location
Device: N/A
App: No
What can be used to sign up?
Yes
Phone
No
Third-party account
No
What data does the company collect?
Personal
Name, e-mail address, telephone, location
Body related
Social
How does the company use this data?
How can you control your data?
What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?
No known privacy or security incidents discovered in the last 3 years.
Child Privacy Information
Can this product be used offline?
User-friendly privacy information?
Links to privacy information
Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards?
Encryption
Strong password
The app has accepted '111111' as a password.
Security updates
Manages vulnerabilities
"To deal with security vulnerabilities, we would escalate reported potential vulnerabilities to our contracted developer, EY, and request a corresponding update to the MindShift app. The contact would be [email protected]."
Privacy policy
Dive Deeper
-
'Creepy' Mental Health And Prayer Apps Are Sharing Your Personal DataForbes
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MindShift CBT app helps people cope with anxietyCanadian Healthcare Technology
-
Top 10 Free Mental Health Apps in 2022Psych Central
-
Best SAD Treatment Online of 2022Verywell Mind
-
10 Things Clinicians Need to Know about Anxiety Canada’s MindShift CBT AppAnxiety Canada
Comments
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