Why Samaritans should withdraw its ‘Radar’ app for monitoring tweets

Samaritans, an enormously well-respected suicide prevention charity, has launched an app which it says should "help support people struggling to cope and ultimately save lives". But the app is causing upset among those it is designed to help, and some have now called on the Samaritans to withdraw it

It works like this: people can link the app to their Twitter accounts, allowing them to anonymously monitor every single person they follow for signs of potential mental distress or suicidal intent.

As of the middle of this week, some 4,300 people had signed up to use the app, equating to the effective surveillance of over 1.9 million Twitter accounts without either the knowledge or consent of those being surveilled.

It works via an algorithm which automatically scans tweets for certain keywords such as “suicide” or “I hate myself”. If these are detected in an individual’s tweet, an email alert is sent to followers who have signed up to the app asking them if they are concerned about it.

Any action then taken by the individual who receives the alert – who may be a friend or a complete stranger – is entirely up to them. Samaritans has said it does not see the tweets at all.

Some people initially greeted the app positively. What could possibly be wrong with wanting to reach out to people you follow on Twitter if they needed help at a desperately low, or potentially life-endangering, point in their lives?

But soon after came many blog posts from people who had themselves lived with mental health distress, or who knew others who had, appealing to Samaritans to withdraw the app as it was making them feel unsafe.

Some indicated their intention to close or lock their Twitter accounts to private, as they felt they could no longer use it safely to connect and share with a community of people with similar issues and concerns.

One person, a survivor of sexual abuse, locked their account and said they felt shocked and upset by the app. They felt like a “lab rat”.

The potential for it to become a handy aid for online bullies, trolls, abusive ex-partners and even unscrupulous employers seeking to monitor the mental health of their staff has been highlighted.

Engaging with the app, even to test it, feels wrong. Anyone who has ever tweeted something in distress or who has received quiet support and friendship from a network of followers online knows this in their bones. It crosses what it is often referred to as “the creepy line” when it comes to surveillance.

Barrister Fergal Crehan, who specialises in privacy and data protection law, said the most disturbing thing about Samaritans Radar "is that it makes a crude mental health diagnosis and tells everyone but you".

Writer and information policy activist Adrian Short set up an online petition to ask Samaritans to withdraw the app. Even if the project had originally been built in good faith, it was not being run in good faith any longer, he said.

“Relationships built on trust, or even simple neutrality, now become covert, deceitful and potentially antagonistic.”

While privacy and, indeed, legal concerns about how this sensitive personal information is being processed are central, Dr Paul Bernal, lecturer in IT and media law at the University of East Anglia said it was not primarily a story about privacy.

Vulnerable people who might potentially be the kind to contact the Samaritans needed autonomy. “They want that autonomy – and the Samaritans, in their non-online form, respect that absolutely,” he wrote.

Samaritans condemned the bullying or harassment of anyone using social media. But it persisted in its belief the app would “help support people struggling to cope and ultimately save lives”.

It is currently “in discussions” with the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK – the equivalent of our Data Protection Commissioner – on the legal concerns.

The charity needs to gracefully admit that the app, as designed, is misguided and it needs to withdraw it as soon as possible.

Update: Samaritans announced on the evening of Friday, November 7th 2014 that it had decided to suspend the Samaritans Radar app "for further consideration".

Elaine Edwards is an Irish Times journalist