Dive Brief:
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Student data privacy advocates are raising concerns over a $26 million, three-year contract between digital mental health platform Talkspace and the New York City government for free online counseling and therapy services to teens ages 13-17.
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Among the issues flagged in a Sept. 10 letter to city officials are that the service, known as Teenspace, is asking city teens to disclose personal and sensitive information before securing legally required consent from parents for their child to use the service, and that Talkspace has been known to use signup data for marketing purposes.
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Since the program launched in November 2023, over 16,000 teens have received services through Teenspace, according to the NYC Health Department. In an email to K-12 Dive, the department said it “has taken additional steps to protect the data of Teenspace users and ensure information is not collected for personal gain.”
Dive Insight:
While Teenspace is not a school-based service, the letter to city officials expressed concern over the NYC Department of Education’s promotion of the telehealth app to public school students on school websites. The letter came from the New York Civil Liberties Union and the advocacy groups Parent Coalition for Student Privacy and AI For Families.
The organizations said the sensitive information Teenspace is collecting from its young users for access to the app’s services include “their first name, date of birth, address, school, and a series of questions related to their mental health, including how often they feel stressed, and whether they need help with trauma, sexual problems, and/or drugs and alcohol use.”
Even if a user does not end up using the Teenspace app, they are opted into marketing activities by signing up for the service, the organizations wrote.
The letter also urged officials to make the contract between the NYC Health Department and Talkspace available to the public.
A spokesperson for Talkspace told K-12 Dive via email that the company does not target marketing to city teens, per its contract with the NYC Health Department. Additionally, Talkspace “quickly” deletes the data of any teen who requests it or who does not complete their registration for Teenspace, the spokesperson said.
Meanwhile, the NYC Health Department said in its Sept. 12 email that it is planning to set up an independent evaluation to review the Teenspace program “and will work in good faith with anyone who brings up their concerns.”
Questions surrounding Teenspace’s data privacy standards for teens signals a broader challenge schools might face when they look for creative ways to address student mental health — particularly through third-party vendors.
Teenspace launched in November 2023 to address ongoing challenges of the youth mental health crisis and a lack of access to affordable care.
Beth Haroules, senior staff attorney at the NYCLU, said it’s obvious how difficult it is to find therapy, that it's hard to connect uninsured children to those services, and that there aren’t enough therapists available. But it is concerning that telehealth solutions like Teenspace don’t provide guardrails to protect student data, she said.
Shannon Edwards, founder of AI for Families, said she hopes the letter will alert school districts to Talkspace’s student data privacy standards, particularly when considering working with Talkspace for similar services.
