Privacy Policy Analysis and Evaluation of Mobile Psychological Consultation Services in Saudi Arabia

Abstract: Psychological consultation apps have been increasingly used in the last few years. These services collect a variety of sensitive personal information. Typically, a privacy policy is the main way to reduce users’ concerns about sharing personal health information. However, psychological consultation apps are considered an emerging service and their privacy practices have not been fully explored. This study analyzes and evaluates the privacy policies and Terms of Service (ToS) agreements of four Saudi psychological consultation apps, focusing on seven key privacy practices: types of collected information, the purpose of data collection, data sharing, data ownership, data retention, data storage and protection, and notifications about policy and ToS updates. Overall, the findings indicate that the privacy policies of these services must be improved to better inform users, particularly regarding the purpose of collecting their data, with whom the data are shared, and what data are archived. This paper also provides a set of implications to improve the existing privacy policies of psychological health apps.

Keywords: Psychological health apps, mental health apps, privacy, privacy policy, mHealth

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1005511

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