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I also wonder what the impacts of having "Placed calls to the suicide hotline" in your permanent record will be on people's lives if they do choose not to take

I also wonder what the impacts of having "Placed calls to the suicide hotline" in your permanent record will be on people's lives if they do choose not to take it. With the state collecting that data, your phone company collecting that data, your cell phone OS collecting that data, random apps collecting that data, and who knows who is on the other end of that call and what they're doing with your data. Will you be turned down for jobs because when a company has a choice between two equal job candidates and one of them has shown suicidal tendencies at any point why should they risk that their employee will kill himself and lose money on re-hiring/re-training? Will your health insurance company buy that data? Your life insurance company? Could you lose your right to own a firearm? Can it cost you custody of your children? Will it end up leaked or "lost" on a USB drive and find itself on the internet?

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. This is actually one of the big hurdles to getting some people into therapy/treatment/medication that they need: They imagine a lot of catastrophic scenarios about what could possibly happen if they get the help they need, which creates a gridlock that traps them in their situation. From a pure risk management perspective, the highest risk by far in these scenarios is failing to accept help that could improve the underlying problems. If someone reaches the point of considering suicide, it doesn't make sense to refuse help due to hypothetical fears about some future job obtaining phone records and declining someone for a job (which isn't a thing that happens, BTW). Don't let fear of far-reaching hypotheticals get in the way of making progress on mental health.
- WebbWeaver 4y ago
  You are 100% wrong. The current infrastructure only exists to reduce liability (hr ect) and nothing more. It could be subsidized to prevent poor outcomes but I'm honestly afraid of the lobbying against it.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. Practically speaking, these kinds of things are happening every day. I would agree that it might be better to take the help and live accepting the lifelong consequences of your actions in seeking that help. A life where you lose your children, lose job offers, or have your deepest troubles exposed to the world might easily still be a life worth living. The reality is that we've created and enabled a system that hurts people. Our communications are logged forever and we have no power to limit the ways that data can be used against us. It's only natural for people to take that into account before doing something that makes them so very vulnerable.
  - dntrkv 4y ago
    How will you lose your children? How will you lose job offers? Children aren’t even taken away where there is known abuse going on. Lose job offers? How would a company even know you were seeking help?
    - edub 4y ago
      https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2022/04/abolish-child-protective-services-torn-apart-dorothy-roberts-book-excerpt/ https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2022/04/abolish-ch...
    - autoexec 4y ago
      you lose your children when in the middle a custody battle your partner (or ex-partner) subpoenas your phone records, or even your medical records, and uses that to help convince a judge that you're unfit due to your mental health issues and that those issues will have an impact on your child. (see https://dadsdivorce.com/articles/parents-mental-illness-child-custody-battles/ https://dadsdivorce.com/articles/parents-mental-illness-chil...). The stigma that exists surrounding mental illness makes losing your child far too easy. How would you lose a job? Your would-be employer faced with two otherwise equally qualified candidates pays a third party to run a background check that includes information lifted from your social media sites (https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/social-media-survey-2017 https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/social-media-survey-201...) and collected from data brokers. > Data brokers will often combine all the information outlined in these two lists to build complex profiles about each of us. These profiles are used for an increasing number of purposes, from serving targeted advertising to crafting insurance policies to providing background checks for employers. (source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/its-a-data-brokers-world-and-we-just-live-in-it/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/its-a-data-brokers-world-a...). The FTC has warned about this kind of thing (https://www.nydailynews.com/sdut-ftc-puts-background-check-sites-on-notice-2013may07-story.html https://www.nydailynews.com/sdut-ftc-puts-background-check-s...) but it still happens. Maybe you called the suicide hotline using your cell phone and some sketchy app (like a call blocking app or facebook: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/25/17160944/facebook-call-history-sms-data-collection-android https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/25/17160944/facebook-call-hi... or even a stalker app: https://news.softpedia.com/news/stalker-android-apps-with-thousands-of-downloads-found-in-google-play-store-526754.shtml https://news.softpedia.com/news/stalker-android-apps-with-th...) sold your contacts/call history or maybe your phone company did it. See this example from the article here: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/att-accused-of-violating-privacy-law-with-sale-of-phone-records-to-cia/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/att-accused-of-v... > "[T]he sale of CPNI to the government isn’t our only concern—when we did a little more poking around, we found that all four major mobile carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon) have privacy policies that indicate they believe it is OK to sell or share similar records to anyone," It's not really a question of "how is anyone going to know?". Every communication you make is logged forever and shared (read: sold) with "partners" and turned over to the state. Someone, somewhere, will absolutely have that data. You aren't allowed to know who has it, where they got it, how accurate it is, what they are doing with it, or how/if it's being secured, but it is out there and it will follow you for the rest of your life.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  What "far reaching hypotheticals"? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32122139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32122139 I've heard over and over horror stories along those lines. Someone having a mental health crisis calls emergency services for help (and absolute best case scenario they get a very expensive taxi ride to the ER) or goes to the ER themselves. The ER pumps them full of drugs or just locks them in what amounts to a prison, does nothing to treat people or connect them with services but charge tens of thousands of dollars, leaving people in the same spot they were in before but with mountains of medical debt. Or, someone is honest with their therapist, the therapist prioritizes not getting hit with a malpractice lawsuit so they report their patient to the police, and...see above, except worse, because the patient isn't expecting it nor did they consent to such a sudden and drastic intervention.
kanbara 4y ago
if you are suicidal or have mental health issues you absolutely should not be able to go out and buy a gun until a mental evaluation takes place.
- autoexec 4y ago
  Lots of people feel the way you do, and that kind of thinking is one reason why someone might hesitate to have that black mark on their record for the rest of their lives. If we want people to get help we need to think very carefully about what getting help will cost them, because the higher that cost is the more people there will be who are unable or unwilling to afford it.
xwdv 4y ago
Absolutely those things can happen, and they should. For example, imagine if an airplane pilot or anyone in a position of being responsible for a mass number of lives has previously called into suicide hotlines. Would you feel secure knowing the pilot of your plane once exhibited suicidal tendencies? I doubt it. Any bits of data we can collect to make accurate assessments should be collected.
- stemlord 4y ago
  I think the type of background check necessary for something so life-critical like piloting commercial airliners should be considered distinctly different from the kind that any other normal job should involve
- zahma 4y ago
  This isn't a reasonable blanket policy. While I definitely would feel encouraged knowing my pilot has not displayed suicidal ideation, I do not support tracking writ large. For example, resident physicians are known for being pushed to work 80+ hour weeks. Would any of them ever officially admit to having mental health issues? Hell no, and that's a problem from an ethics perspective and a declining level of healthcare, not to mention tragically ironic to boot.
- everfree 4y ago
  > Would you feel secure knowing the pilot of your plane once exhibited suicidal tendencies? I doubt it. I really don't care, to be honest. As long as the problem has been fixed through major changes to lifestyle and/or medication, plus enough time has passed to ensure that the person is stable, the fact that they once called a hotline is irrelevant. I might not be as vehemently against the collection of this data if there were a strict retention limit written into law, perhaps 3-5 years, alongside a solid plan to properly enforce that limit and to keep records confidential. As written, your comment implies that people can never change and situations can never improve. People regularly change their lives drastically, especially young adults whose brains are not even fully done developing. > Any bits of data we can collect to make accurate assessments should be collected. I doubt that the fact that someone called into a hotline twenty years ago would allow anyone to make an accurate assessment as to their fitness to fly today. It would likely be used as a tool of oppression, and it would make people think twice before choosing to risk their future career prospects by calling into the hotline in the first place. Permanently barring hotline callers from becoming pilots makes about the same amount of sense as permanently barring people who have ever had a broken arm from becoming pilots.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. This is actually one of the big hurdles to getting some people into therapy/treatment/medication that they need: They imagine a lot of catastrophic scenarios about what could possibly happen if they get the help they need, which creates a gridlock that traps them in their situation. From a pure risk management perspective, the highest risk by far in these scenarios is failing to accept help that could improve the underlying problems. If someone reaches the point of considering suicide, it doesn't make sense to refuse help due to hypothetical fears about some future job obtaining phone records and declining someone for a job (which isn't a thing that happens, BTW). Don't let fear of far-reaching hypotheticals get in the way of making progress on mental health.

WebbWeaver 4y ago
You are 100% wrong. The current infrastructure only exists to reduce liability (hr ect) and nothing more. It could be subsidized to prevent poor outcomes but I'm honestly afraid of the lobbying against it.
autoexec 4y ago
> Practically speaking, none of these things will happen. Practically speaking, these kinds of things are happening every day. I would agree that it might be better to take the help and live accepting the lifelong consequences of your actions in seeking that help. A life where you lose your children, lose job offers, or have your deepest troubles exposed to the world might easily still be a life worth living. The reality is that we've created and enabled a system that hurts people. Our communications are logged forever and we have no power to limit the ways that data can be used against us. It's only natural for people to take that into account before doing something that makes them so very vulnerable.
- dntrkv 4y ago
  How will you lose your children? How will you lose job offers? Children aren’t even taken away where there is known abuse going on. Lose job offers? How would a company even know you were seeking help?
  - edub 4y ago
    https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2022/04/abolish-child-protective-services-torn-apart-dorothy-roberts-book-excerpt/ https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2022/04/abolish-ch...
  - autoexec 4y ago
    you lose your children when in the middle a custody battle your partner (or ex-partner) subpoenas your phone records, or even your medical records, and uses that to help convince a judge that you're unfit due to your mental health issues and that those issues will have an impact on your child. (see https://dadsdivorce.com/articles/parents-mental-illness-child-custody-battles/ https://dadsdivorce.com/articles/parents-mental-illness-chil...). The stigma that exists surrounding mental illness makes losing your child far too easy. How would you lose a job? Your would-be employer faced with two otherwise equally qualified candidates pays a third party to run a background check that includes information lifted from your social media sites (https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/social-media-survey-2017 https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/social-media-survey-201...) and collected from data brokers. > Data brokers will often combine all the information outlined in these two lists to build complex profiles about each of us. These profiles are used for an increasing number of purposes, from serving targeted advertising to crafting insurance policies to providing background checks for employers. (source: https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/its-a-data-brokers-world-and-we-just-live-in-it/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/its-a-data-brokers-world-a...). The FTC has warned about this kind of thing (https://www.nydailynews.com/sdut-ftc-puts-background-check-sites-on-notice-2013may07-story.html https://www.nydailynews.com/sdut-ftc-puts-background-check-s...) but it still happens. Maybe you called the suicide hotline using your cell phone and some sketchy app (like a call blocking app or facebook: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/25/17160944/facebook-call-history-sms-data-collection-android https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/25/17160944/facebook-call-hi... or even a stalker app: https://news.softpedia.com/news/stalker-android-apps-with-thousands-of-downloads-found-in-google-play-store-526754.shtml https://news.softpedia.com/news/stalker-android-apps-with-th...) sold your contacts/call history or maybe your phone company did it. See this example from the article here: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/att-accused-of-violating-privacy-law-with-sale-of-phone-records-to-cia/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/att-accused-of-v... > "[T]he sale of CPNI to the government isn’t our only concern—when we did a little more poking around, we found that all four major mobile carriers (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon) have privacy policies that indicate they believe it is OK to sell or share similar records to anyone," It's not really a question of "how is anyone going to know?". Every communication you make is logged forever and shared (read: sold) with "partners" and turned over to the state. Someone, somewhere, will absolutely have that data. You aren't allowed to know who has it, where they got it, how accurate it is, what they are doing with it, or how/if it's being secured, but it is out there and it will follow you for the rest of your life.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
What "far reaching hypotheticals"? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32122139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32122139 I've heard over and over horror stories along those lines. Someone having a mental health crisis calls emergency services for help (and absolute best case scenario they get a very expensive taxi ride to the ER) or goes to the ER themselves. The ER pumps them full of drugs or just locks them in what amounts to a prison, does nothing to treat people or connect them with services but charge tens of thousands of dollars, leaving people in the same spot they were in before but with mountains of medical debt. Or, someone is honest with their therapist, the therapist prioritizes not getting hit with a malpractice lawsuit so they report their patient to the police, and...see above, except worse, because the patient isn't expecting it nor did they consent to such a sudden and drastic intervention.

kanbara 4y ago

if you are suicidal or have mental health issues you absolutely should not be able to go out and buy a gun until a mental evaluation takes place.

autoexec 4y ago
Lots of people feel the way you do, and that kind of thinking is one reason why someone might hesitate to have that black mark on their record for the rest of their lives. If we want people to get help we need to think very carefully about what getting help will cost them, because the higher that cost is the more people there will be who are unable or unwilling to afford it.

xwdv 4y ago

Absolutely those things can happen, and they should. For example, imagine if an airplane pilot or anyone in a position of being responsible for a mass number of lives has previously called into suicide hotlines. Would you feel secure knowing the pilot of your plane once exhibited suicidal tendencies? I doubt it. Any bits of data we can collect to make accurate assessments should be collected.

stemlord 4y ago
I think the type of background check necessary for something so life-critical like piloting commercial airliners should be considered distinctly different from the kind that any other normal job should involve
zahma 4y ago
This isn't a reasonable blanket policy. While I definitely would feel encouraged knowing my pilot has not displayed suicidal ideation, I do not support tracking writ large. For example, resident physicians are known for being pushed to work 80+ hour weeks. Would any of them ever officially admit to having mental health issues? Hell no, and that's a problem from an ethics perspective and a declining level of healthcare, not to mention tragically ironic to boot.
everfree 4y ago
> Would you feel secure knowing the pilot of your plane once exhibited suicidal tendencies? I doubt it. I really don't care, to be honest. As long as the problem has been fixed through major changes to lifestyle and/or medication, plus enough time has passed to ensure that the person is stable, the fact that they once called a hotline is irrelevant. I might not be as vehemently against the collection of this data if there were a strict retention limit written into law, perhaps 3-5 years, alongside a solid plan to properly enforce that limit and to keep records confidential. As written, your comment implies that people can never change and situations can never improve. People regularly change their lives drastically, especially young adults whose brains are not even fully done developing. > Any bits of data we can collect to make accurate assessments should be collected. I doubt that the fact that someone called into a hotline twenty years ago would allow anyone to make an accurate assessment as to their fitness to fly today. It would likely be used as a tool of oppression, and it would make people think twice before choosing to risk their future career prospects by calling into the hotline in the first place. Permanently barring hotline callers from becoming pilots makes about the same amount of sense as permanently barring people who have ever had a broken arm from becoming pilots.