Mental health data privacy is the foundation of trust in digital care. When someone opens up about anxiety, grief or a difficult relationship, they share some of the most personal information there is. Therefore, any platform that supports mental wellbeing has to earn that trust, and keep earning it.
At Eternilink, privacy is not a setting we add at the end. Instead, it is a design principle that shapes every feature from the start. In this article, we explain how we protect sensitive data, which principles guide our choices, and what control you keep over your own information.
Why mental health data privacy needs extra care
Many legal frameworks treat health information as sensitive, or “special category”, data. There is a good reason for this. If exposed, it can affect a person’s relationships, work and sense of safety. For example, the European Union’s data protection rules set stricter conditions for processing health data. Similarly, Saudi Arabia’s Personal Data Protection Law places extra duties on organisations that handle it. We treat these obligations as a minimum, not a ceiling.
The stakes are high, too. According to the World Health Organization, mental disorders affect hundreds of millions of people. Stigma still stops many of them from seeking help. As a result, strong privacy can make the difference between reaching out and staying silent.
Our guiding principles
- Collect only what is needed. We ask for information only when it serves a clear purpose for you.
- Clear, informed consent. You should always understand what we collect, why, and who can see it, in plain language.
- You decide what to share. Reflections, mood check-ins and session notes belong to you. Sharing them with a therapist stays your choice.
- Protection in transit and at rest. Encrypted connections carry data between your device and our services. In addition, we apply security controls where data is stored.
- Least-privilege access. Within our team, only people who need personal data to run the service can access it.
- No selling of personal data. Your wellbeing information is not a product, so we never sell it to advertisers or data brokers.
Mental health data privacy and AI
Our AI companion, Neyla, makes these questions even more important. Conversations with an AI can feel informal. Consequently, it is easy to forget that they create data. We design around this in three ways. First, we make it clear that you are talking to an AI. Second, we limit how we keep and use conversation data. Third, nothing you tell Neyla reaches a therapist unless you choose to share it.
A person should never have to choose between getting support and keeping control of their own story.
Your rights, in practice
Privacy only matters if you can act on it. Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:
- access a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
- correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
- ask us to delete your data;
- withdraw your consent at any time;
- object to or restrict certain types of processing.
To use these rights, simply write to privacy@eternilink.com. You will find full details in our Privacy Policy. For the patient registry, see our Patient Registry Privacy Notice.
Privacy in immersive environments
Virtual reality adds its own questions. For instance, headsets can capture movement and details of the room around you. Our approach stays the same: we use only what an experience needs, we explain it clearly, and we avoid collecting data just because it is available. To learn how our sessions work, read Inside a VR Therapy Session.
An ongoing commitment to mental health data privacy
Security is never finished. Threats change, laws evolve and our platform will grow. That is why we review our practices regularly and tell our users when something important changes. Do you have a question about your data, or an idea to help us do better? Then contact us or write to our privacy team directly.
Want to see privacy-first mental wellbeing in action? Join the waitlist for early access.