Bearable

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

Some good news. We mark Bearable as one of the companies that has improved since we reviewed them in 2022. That is mainly because we can now confirm they meet our Minimum Security Standards, which was our biggest concern about them in 2022. Last year when we reached out to the email listed in their privacy policy -- [email protected] -- James didn't reply back to our questions before we launched our reviews. This year we heard from James right away when we emailed our questions! Thank you James. We're also happy to see that the email address now listed in their privacy policy for privacy related questions is no longer James' personal email. Now users can email [email protected]. That seems like an improvement to us.

Bearable does have a few things that concern us here in 2023. The biggest one is how they get your "explicit consent" to collect and process your data. Consent happens when you create an account at Bearable. And it appears the only way to withdraw that consent is to delete your account. Here's what Bearable's privacy policy says on the matter: "The data you track in Bearable about your health and activities is considered sensitive personal data. Bearable does not store sensitive personal data without your explicit consent. It is only when you give us explicit consent by creating a Bearable account, and giving us your consent declaration, that we start storing health data that you choose to provide on our secured servers. You can withdraw your consent at any time by simply deleting your account in the app." Yeah, maybe that's OK. But honestly, how many people read all those privacy policies and consent declarations when they sign up for an app. We would love to see giving "explicit consent" to feel a little more "explicit."

One other thing that gave us pause about Bearable was the discovery that certain trackers, like one for Facebook that could be used to track user data, appeared when our research used the app. As your lovely privacy researcher pointed out, he didn't give his "explicit consent" for any of his user data to be tracked through Facebook. We emailed our good buddy James at Bearable for an explanation of this. We're still waiting to hear back on that one.

Back to nice things we noticed about Bearable, In July, 2022 they added a notice at the top of their privacy policy that reads, "Updated to clarify that as a UK company, we’re not required to have to comply with US criminal subpoenas requesting disclosure of data." This is an important clarification that we love to see in light of the removal of reproductive healthcare rights in the US in many states following the end of Roe vs Wade. We appreciate Bearable letting their users know that any US law enforcement requests for information potentially related to women seeking reproductive healthcare will be better protected under the UK's privacy laws.

All in all, Bearable isn't the worst app we've reviewed. It's not the best either. But we're happy James did confirm they meet our Minimum Security Standards this year, so that's a step forward. There's still work to do though James! Including fixing that confusing "explicit consent" concern. Nobody wants to feel tricked into giving their consent to for an app to collect and/or use their personal information.

Read our 2022 review:

Bearable seems to do a pretty good job taking their users' privacy seriously. This mood and symptom tracking app can collect a lot of personal information if you chose to share it. Things like your email, mood, energy levels and individual symptoms, your medication and supplements, sleep quality, exercise, diet, and daily activities such as work and grocery shopping. That's a lot of personal information. Here's what we like about how Bearable handles all of that data of yours.

First, Bearable says they don't and will never sell your data. Yay! They also say they track as little personally identifiable data as possible to protect users. They purposefully do not ask for information like name, age, and gender. Again, yay! They go on to say they don't process personal data that directly identifies you as a person (such as your first name, surname, email). Good work Bearable, so far so good. Bearable doesn't seem to share personal information with third parties for targeted advertising. Again, good. They do say your health data is encrypted safely and the only personal data attached to it is your email address. And then they say, "your personal profile data (email address) is stored separately from your health (mood, symptoms, medication, your customized health factors) data and your service settings. This allows us to ensure the highest possible level of privacy for your health data. Your password is stored using one-way encryption." Which is a little confusing, because it sounds like your email address is attached to your health data, yet stored separately. Not exactly sure how that works, but it seems OK, we hope.

Unfortunately we couldn't tell if Bearable meets our Minimum Security Standards. We emailed James, the privacy contact listed in Bearable's privacy policy for privacy related questions. Unfortunately, we didn't hear back from James. (Give us a shout James! We'd love to hear from you.) What could happen if something goes wrong? Hopefully not too much. Just make sure to set up a strong password so no one can get into your app and see that you track stuff like how often you fart. That could get embarrassing.