Charity Promotes Covert Surveillance App For Suicide Prevention

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday October 30, 2014 @10:32AM from the keeping-an-eye-on-things dept.

VoiceOfDoom writes Major UK charity The Samaritans have launched an app titled "Samaritans Radar", in an attempt to help Twitter users identify when their friends are in crisis and in need of support. Unfortunately the privacy implications appear not to have been thought through — installing the app allows it to monitor the Twitter feeds of all of your followers, searching for particular phrases or words which might indicate they are in distress. The app then sends you an email suggesting you contact your follower to offer your help. Opportunities for misuse by online harassers are at the forefront of the concerns that have been raised, in addition; there is strong evidence to suggest that this use of personal information is illegal, being in contravention of UK Data Protection law.

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Re:I Think I'm Gonna Kill Myself by davester666 · 2014-10-30 17:04 · Score: 3, Funny

posting on slashdot is enough to have a person declared mentally incompetent and take away their freedom? who knew?
was this always the case, or only post-beta?

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