Superbetter

Superbetter

Review date: April 25, 2023

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Mozilla says

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People voted: Somewhat creepy

Games are fun! According to the folks at Superbetter -- an app that uses games to fight anxiety and depression -- games can also help improve our mental health. Seems they have science on their side according to a number of studies . The app is free to download and use, and is targeted at everyone over the age of 13, particularly teens, young adults, and educators working with young people. The apps is designed to help people dealing with anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and concussive symptoms build resilience to deal with their daily challenges. Level up, power up, and go on quests. Users get rewarded for doing things like drinking water, going or a walk, or giving yourself a hug. It sounds rather fun. What's their privacy like? Well, there are a few red flags for us, but not as many as other apps we reviewed.

What could happen if something goes wrong?

First reviewed April 20, 2022. Review updated, April 25, 2023

It seems in 2023 SuperBetter's app is "all new," at least according to their website. Their updated privacy policy does still raise some concerns for us. Now SuperBetter says they can use your personal information for marketing purposes, "In order to support the SuperBetter business and provide our users with relevant information regarding the Service and opportunities presented by partners, SuperBetter may use your personal information for marketing the Service."

SuperBetter also says they can collect information about your from other sources and combine that with information they collect on you. That's not uncommon these days. It also does concern us because are they buying data from data brokers to build a bigger profile on you? The way their privacy policy is worded, is seems that could be the case.

All in all, we have to say that SuperBetter's privacy practices feel like they've gotten a little worse since 2022. That's not great, especially for an app targeted at educators and used by young people. SuperBetter isn't bad, it's also not better, and probably a bit worse, in 2023.

Read our 2022 review:

Good news. Superbetter says they will never, ever sell you personal data. Yay! They do share data with third parties for research and advertising purposes, but it seems to be mostly anonymized data, which is generally ok. Although it's been found to be rather easy to de-anonymize some such data. All in all, it's probably OK to gamify your life with Superbetter without worrying too much about losing the privacy game...we hope.

One big thing to consider when using Superbetter is what you share publicly. Superbetter states in their privacy policy, "To protect your privacy, you agree that you will not submit any User Content that contains Personally Identifiable Information (like name, phone number, email address or web site URL) of you or of anyone else." This is a great reminder, anything you share publicly, even your health information, is fair game for anyone to use. One more reminder from Superbetter, things you share on the internet can live on forever. They say, "You should be aware that it is not technologically possible to remove each and every record of the information you have provided to SuperBetter from our servers."

What's the worst that could happen? Well, hopefully not too much. Yeah, you might see some ads targeting you for water bottles to help you drink more water because you use Superbetter. Our biggest worry is we couldn't confirm if Superbetter meets our Minimum Security Standards. We emailed them our privacy questions multiple times at the email listed in their privacy policy for privacy-related questions and didn't get any answers to our questions. So remember as Superbetter says themselves, "there is always some risk that an unauthorized third party may find a way around our security systems or that transmissions of your information over the Internet may be intercepted." Data leaks and hacks happen everyday on the internet folks. Be careful out there.

Tips to protect yourself

  • Do not log in using third-party accounts
  • Do not connect to any third party via the app, or at least make sure that a third party employs decent privacy practices
  • Do not give consent for sharing of personal data for marketing and advertisement.
  • 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 (e.g. 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.
  • mobile

Can it snoop on me? information

Camera

Device: N/A

App: Yes

Microphone

Device: N/A

App: No

Tracks location

Device: N/A

App: No

What can be used to sign up?

Google Login, Apple Login and Facebook Connect are available

What data does the company collect?

How does the company use this data?

We ding this product for combining personal data with data from third parties and for using your personal information for marketing purposes.

"SuperBetter may also receive information about you from other sources, including our partners, service providers or other third parties."

"We also collect some information from other sources and combine that with information we collect from you. To ensure a proper experience on SuperBetter, we may combine information collected across devices, such as computers and mobile devices."

"In order to support the SuperBetter business and provide our users with relevant information regarding the Service and opportunities presented by partners, SuperBetter may use your personal information for marketing the Service. We may also communicate with you and others about products, services, opportunities, contests, promotions, discounts, incentives, surveys, and rewards."

"We may process data for any other purpose disclosed to you in connection with the Service from time to time. If we intend to process your personal data for a purpose other than that set out above and which is not compatible with the original processing purpose, we will provide you with relevant information prior to such processing and will obtain your consent where necessary."

You have the option to log in to our Service using sign-in services such as Google Login, Apple Login and Facebook Connect. These services authenticate your identity and provide you the option to share certain personal information with us, such as your name, date of birth, and email address, to facilitate the creation of your account."

"“Sell” means to share personal information with a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration. Based on our understanding of that term, we do not sell your personal information. We also have disclosure obligations in Nevada. We do not exchange Nevada residents’ personal information for money with anyone so they may license or sell the personal information to additional parties. We do not sell personal information of minors under the age of 16."

How can you control your data?

"You remain in control of the information you provide to SuperBetter. You may review, edit or delete any information you submit to us at any time by signing into your SuperBetter account; however, deletion of this information may restrict your ability to effectively use the Service. You may also delete your account at any time. If you delete your account, the account history and any activities created will also be also deleted in accordance with our data retention practices."

Data deletion rights are mentioned only for people covered by GDPR.

"SuperBetter retains your personal information for as long as your account is active, to fulfill our legitimate business purposes, or to comply with our legal obligations. When these conditions no longer exist, SuperBetter removes the information in accordance with our standard deletion processes. SuperBetter may retain and use non-personal information, including information which has been de-identified, aggregated, or anonymized, indefinitely."

"We retain records of support tickets and other communications between SuperBetter and our users, for example support emails, survey responses, or feedback submissions, indefinitely in order to better manage our support processes, maintain accurate business records, and identify other trends."

"The easiest way to remove all of your account’s personal data by using the delete account function in your account settings."

What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?

Average

No known privacy or security incidents discovered in the last 3 years.

Child Privacy Information

Children under the age of 13 require the approval of their parent, guardian or teacher to create an account to play SuperBetter. To create an account to play the Service, SuperBetter requires the user to submit a date of birth, username and email address. If a user is under the age of 13, they are required to also provide an email address for their parent, guardian, or teacher. The parent, guardian teacher is then sent an email and must approve the account before the account can be created.

We do not sell personal information from accounts of children (or anyone else). We may share or distribute information as described in this section and this Privacy Notice, including with parents, guardians or teachers to gather consent to create an account, and with third parties to support internal operations related to providing the Service. We may use aggregated or de-identified information about children for research, analysis and other commercial purposes.

Can this product be used offline?

No

User-friendly privacy information?

No

Links to privacy information

Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards? information

Yes

Encryption

Yes

Strong password

Yes

Security updates

Can’t Determine

Manages vulnerabilities

Can’t Determine

Superbetter told us, "We have an internal system for managing security vulnerabilities. We do not offer bug bounties." We have to trust them on this.

Privacy policy

Yes

Does the product use AI? information

No

*Privacy Not Included

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