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Dutch suicide prevention website shares data with tech companies without consent
- functionmouse 5mo agoHate this
- mettamage 5mo agoYea this is bad. I do want to mention though, while this is bad, I feel like we're singling out a site. Fact is, I've seen more places where this doesn't happen. Though, not at places that have such a strong social mission as this one. And while I've done my best to work at those places to get it fixed, there is a lot of inertia and simply ignorance. I'm not talking about small places either. I'm talking about non-tech places that make their profit to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. The inertia, the fact that no one else seems to care at such a place. It's an issue. Then I'm always the odd one out and looked at funny. When it's fixed no one really gives a shit and now I'm "that guy". A small form of resentment stays in these people. Just mentioning my experience. It's stuff like this kind of apathy that gets us a world where a place like a suicide hotline just ignorantly does this kind of stuff. Or at least, that's my hypothesis: it's ignorance and apathy. There's probably not a lot of data on this which is why I'm sharing this anecdata. I hope it's better than nothing.
- jeroenhd 5mo agoOther websites with similar societal impacts and responsibilities have already been covered in Dutch news before, from governments to health information websites to healthcare providers. The 113 suicide prevention hotline works together with professionals but it's not an official health care provider as far as I know. There are probably plenty of similar websites with similar problems, but 113 is well known within the Netherlands so it's a poignant example to use in the media. Getting media coverage on this will probably make these organizations do better, at least until the next conversion improvement marketeer gets access to the backend. Their chat service uses something called "sprinklr.com", blocked by my filters automatically, which calls itself "The definitive AI‑native platform for extraordinary customer experiences". I suppose there's always the phone number.
- iinnPP 5mo agoI have a similar outlook atm as one of "those guys." Everything takes so long, nobody is held accountable. The most likely result of pushing for any type of positive outcome for basically anything is some form of punishment or social degradation. And so, as of October 2024, I don't do it anymore. I will also note that most of the things I see "being corrected" these days are entirely fictitious. As an example is the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in Canada. They tossed out a valid complaint about Shaw (during Rogers buyout) for jurisdictional reasons. Then they are on the news making odd statements about (exclusively) OpenAI not being honest about using your data? It's all a show it seems. I figured it needs to get a qhole lot worse before it can get any better. I have moved to internal tooling creation and have airgapped a machine/tool each month this year so far. Just a laptop and my social phone remain networked.
- mettamage 5mo ago> And so, as of October 2024, I don't do it anymore. I feel you. I wish the world was a better place, but here we are. I don't know what else to say about it. I feel you.
- dylan604 5mo agoThere are times where working on the inside to make changes is a valid strategy, but it is definitely trending down, especially if there's just a single voice. The only other option is the public shaming route, but they've pretty much gotten to the point of being able to survive that as well now. It takes significant numbers to move the needle, but there have been recent examples of companies reacting to negative press.
- Imustaskforhelp 5mo ago> Stichting 113 likely violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by sharing this data. The GDPR states that extra care must be taken regarding the security of medical personal data, which includes contact with an anonymous suicide prevention hotline. This is quite sad to think about in multitude of ways :-( What I am not understanding is the case of why, why would dutch government or website do this, is it out of honest mistake/(incompetence?) or malice. There are so many competent & great dutch engineers and engineers in general, I refuse to believe that they couldn't find anyone ethical enough to take extra care regarding GDPR and sensitivity of the data in general. > “At this moment, we are investigating what happened, how this could have occurred, what the potential impact has been, and what our next steps are,” the spokespersons aid. They didn’t say whether the trackers would be turned on again I hope the investigation that they are saying in the articles goes swiftly to really find out the real reason as to why this ended up happening in first place and the reasons behind it are made public sooner rather than later.
- basisword 5mo agoI think it's more incompetence than malice. It's just such a standard thing for engineers to throw analytics tracking in every website/product they build. Although I am surprised not one person realised this might be a bad idea given the sensitive nature of the site.
- mettamage 5mo agoSee my comment. My hypothesis is: ignorance and apathy that results in incompetence. Using GA4 is just the normal thing right? Look in a room full of marketing experts and they will say yes or shrug. Look in a room full of tech people and you'll see all security experts and security adjacent people screaming HELL NO or simply giving a nuanced answer that ultimately comes down to "no". Some will do funny little dances, some probably even just praying to a sun or rain god because they just lost it at that comment. I know I would. To answer: no GA4 is not just the normal thing. There is no normal. It's the dominant thing and it invades privacy like hell and the whole thing needs to be thought about in a different way. I'd advice almost everyone to stop smoking that Google crack pipe and roll your own or find an analytics friendly vendor. Yea I got a bit rhetorical there, apologies for being a bit fed up with this situation.
- basisword 5mo agoSounds like analytics data. The screen recordings of visits I particularly but. I despise when companies do that and act as if it's a normal thing. It might help your support when a user reports an issue but it's a massive violation of a user privacy and most users wouldn't have any idea it was even possible.
- globalnode 5mo agoonly one of the most vulnerable groups in our community.
- 9991 5mo ago[flagged]
- phendrenad2 5mo agoSheesh, reality is more cynical than any bleak humorist could ever write.
- arealaccount 5mo agoWhy am I all of a sudden getting ads for rope and large amounts of Tylenol??
- keybored 5mo agoI have lately thought about how the only tech I am interested in now is to assist programming. Programming for programming. Eternal yak shaving. And a big part of that is that end-user digital technology is a dystopia. No, not dystopic, not going in a bad direction. Just dystopia. Vultures and thugs at every corner preying on every “convenience” and mistake that you could make. It is also good for mindless entertainment in between the real things that sometimes happen. And listening to music.
- latexr 5mo ago> I have lately thought about how the only tech I am interested in now is to assist programming. Programming for programming. Eternal yak shaving. Could you give some specific examples?
- sudosteph 5mo agoI'm not OP, but I took their comment to mean things like internal dev tooling. Kind of stuff platform engineering focuses on
- keybored 5mo agoFor example version control. That’s the kind of the thing that I read about and want to program myself. Things that have nothing to do with end-user software.
- 1234letshaveatw 5mo agoThis kind of crap is why I am moving all of my tech stack to the US
- flanked-evergl 5mo agoSmart. Europe is a circius.
- edwinjm 5mo agoEurope has laws against misuse of personal data. What circus?
- keybored 5mo agoNack. Move all your private thoughts to pen and paper and direct conversations.
- antipurist 5mo ago> This website uses cookies > We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features I know there are some services that send GDPR data removal requests on your behalf. I wonder if there are any similar services that send messages like "Why the hell do you need these cookies?" to website operators. I hardly ever see these cookie banners as my browser blocks most of them, but I still think it would be great to rub the idea of "Your website doesn't need any non-technical cookies" in website operators' faces.
- deepriverfish 5mo agoI thought Europe was more careful about things like this. This is pretty bad, these people are vulnerable and they're just mining they're data for profit.
- thibaut_barrere 5mo agoIt is, and that is why the company took action: > After being confronted with this research, Stichting 113 temporarily suspended all measurement and analysis tools on its website. It does not mean that this cannot happen, but the regulatory framework helps stop it.
- ryandrake 5mo agoI guess it didn't help enough to stop them from doing it in the first place--it just helped them stop once they were caught. Sure, it's a step up from other places where there is literally no consequence for this kind of sharing.
- Ylpertnodi 5mo agoEurope is more careful. But people will break the law.
- spiderfarmer 5mo agoPeople make mistakes.
- haunter 5mo ago[flagged]
- rzwitserloot 5mo agoIn this context, a social construct. In terms much more popular a century ago, a 'nation': A people who have some similarities in how they approach, in this case, a combination of 'privacy aspects in regards to business' and 'to what extent America can be trusted to be of similar social construct and thus likely to end up between company policy and legal principles at the same or a similar conclusion'. Or to make it even simpler: The EU's written and unwritten rules, along with countries that closely track such things, such as Norway, Switserland, Iceland, etc.
- vfclists 5mo agoWho are the founders, their funders and their motivation?
- timcobb 5mo agoIt's telling, IMO, that Western cultures deals with suicidality with hotlines you can call. It's like some joke from gonzo journalism come to fruition. I don't know what the answer is, but as a person who's been suicidal, for me it wasn't a hotline. It's even more fitting, if not kind of perfect, that said hotlines farm your data and sell it. :chef's kiss: what else is there to say. Like just about everything else, callous people make money while vulnerable, sensitive people pay up. Beautiful world we live in ;). Please drink responsibly!
- baigy 5mo agoLearnt a new word today: suicidality. Sounds like physicality, but with deadly consequences.
- mothballed 5mo agoI've heard the Dutch one is is a little better. The ones in the USA aren't likely to do much more than call police to put a mental hold on you, during which the hospital will rack up so many bills that it would make anyone suicidal. And then yay, your gun rights gone forever, so if you are suicidal in part because you live in a dangerous impoverished shithole good luck defending yourself afterwards!
- ceejayoz 5mo agohttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-988-call-the-police-data-suggests-rarely/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-988-call-the-police-data-s... > Many people in mental health crisis fear that if they dial 988, law enforcement might show up or they might be forced to go to the hospital. > But getting sent that kind of "involuntary emergency rescue" happens to around 1% of callers, suggests new data from Vibrant Emotional Health, the administrator of the 988 Lifeline for suicide and mental health crises.
- hilariously 5mo agoIf anything I did had a 1% chance of involuntary committal I would stop doing that thing immediately.
- JohnFen 5mo agoThis kind of thing is why I wouldn't touch a site like that. Websites, service providers, and internet-connected software that collects data from you can't be trusted even a little, so I avoid them to the greatest degree I can. The rule of thumb is that anything you tell to them, or any data you have put in their custody, is at risk.
- whalesalad 5mo agounsure why you are being downvoted. this is universally true. your data is either being actively shared with partners, or inadvertently shared in the form of weak security, exploits, wide-open buckets, etc.
- edwinjm 5mo agoEurope has laws against misuse of data from visitors, so it’s generally safe to visit such websites. The fact that this is on hackernews means this case is the exception, not the rule.
- autoexec 5mo agoEven if you're in the US and make a phone call to a suicide prevention hotline the fact that you called them, how many times you called them, and how long you spoke with them can end up in the hands of data brokers. That data will never go away and it can impact your employment, your insurance, be used against you in court, etc. People in the middle of a mental health crisis shouldn't have worry that trying to get help will cause a black mark on their permanent record with lifelong consequences but that's exactly what surveillance capitalism has enabled. It's not supposed to happen, your call records should be secure, but of course it happens all the time https://consumercal.org/about-cfc/cfc-education-foundation/your-cell-records-are-for-sale/ https://consumercal.org/about-cfc/cfc-education-foundation/y... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/t-says-hackers-stole-records-nearly-cell-customers-calls-texts-rcna161507 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/t-says-hackers-stole-re...
- simonw 5mo ago"Dutch suicide prevention hotline shares visitor data with tech companies" is certainly one way of saying "Dutch suicide prevention hotline website uses Google Analytics".
- _def 5mo agoI get what you mean, but it's still perfectly accurate.
- simonw 5mo agoSure it's accurate but it misleads people who only read the headlines. There are a bunch of comments in this Hacker News thread where the comment author seems to be assuming something a lot deeper than Google Analytics here.
- fsflover 5mo agoNothing deeper is required. This is already outrageous. You can hardly make it worse.
- caymanjim 5mo agoYou say that like there's a difference. You say that like the detail of data that Google Analytics farms is acceptable. You say that like what Google does with the data is acceptable. Just because companies want the data doesn't mean they deserve it.
- repelsteeltje 5mo agoTotally agree that Google should not be on a service like this in any shape or form. But "sharing data" does somewhat suggest they are sharing the payload, the actual conversations.
- simonw 5mo agoWhat does Google do with analytics data that's not acceptable to you? https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397 https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397 says "Regardless of your data sharing settings, your Analytics data may also be used only insofar as necessary to Maintain and protect the Analytics service."
- josefritzishere 5mo agoIf nto illegal, it seems clear that is inappropriate.
- edwinjm 5mo agoIn the EU, it’s illegal
- d812k 5mo ago[dead]
- cm2012 5mo agoAnother name for this article title: Dutch suicide prevention website uses bog-standard industry analytics that share absolutely no PII and threatens no one. No individual can be found who's actually experienced harm from this.
- danaw 5mo ago"Until recently, 113 shared this data with third parties, including Google, even if visitors did not give consent via cookies." that's a violation of GDPR and also kinda suss
- kbelder 5mo ago"How many people came to our contact page, but left without calling the hotline?" "Don't know, boss. We'd need to add analytics." "Like what?" "Google Analytics? It's free and pretty much universal." "Ok, do it." It's just standard. Not great, and Google uses the data in all sorts of ways that they don't make obvious. But it's not a cabal of evil website owners selling data to tech giants. They're just trying to run their websites and they're using industry standard, free services to do so. It doesn't cross their mind that they're helping google build individual profiles to sell targeted ads. I'd love for self-hosted analytics to really get a foothold, not just for the increased privacy, but also because all the tech giants cripple your access to the data they collect off your own site.
- gtowey 5mo agoAt some point we have to get used to the idea that there are no such thing as free services. If you're not paying for something that clearly has a cost to the entity providing it, then value will be extracted from you in other ways.
- piyuv 5mo agoDo you realize this thread is about a suicide preventation website? Can’t you separate between public services and profit-based ones?
- BobaFloutist 5mo agoI think the best-faith assumption was they were taking about the use of Google analytics. For the suicide prevention website, the value is the benefit to society of you not killing yourself.
- dfxm12 5mo agoThis is true, but it's important to note that this will still likely happen for services you are paying for, too.
- like_any_other 5mo ago
- enricozb 5mo agoThe NL Times just translates Dutch articles and editorializes them for a (mostly American) audience. They should be consistently taken with skepticism. In this case, as other commenters have pointed out, this is "just" Google Analytics.
- edwinjm 5mo agoIt’s “just” a major corporation collecting very personal data.
- hirvi74 5mo ago"Do not kill yourself, please! You still have so much value that can be extracted from you."
- ArslanS1997 5mo agoI missed when tech was about saving people's lives not this
- zero_k 5mo agoData Protection Authority (DPA) should investigate. In Germany, the company's DPO (Data Protection Officer) has personal, criminal liability. For these cases, I'd like to see them in front of criminal court, and see what happens. I wanna see someone having a criminal record for this, and then all the stupid excuses of large companies about "I didn't know" and "I thought lalalala" will stop rather quickly. It will turn out that, at the end of the day, it was just a resource issue. And when criminal liability is on the table, resources magically... appear. It's time to be serious about this. Unacceptable.
- j45 5mo agoFree cloud service = risky.
- TitaRusell 5mo agoAt least you want get targeted ads for antidepressiva in the Netherlands!