Data mining for health: staking out the ethical territory of digital phenotyping

Digital phenotyping uses smartphone and wearable signals to measure cognition, mood, and behavior. This promising new approach has been developed as an objective, passive assessment tool for the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. Digital phenotyping is currently used with informed consent in research studies but is expected to expand to broader uses in healthcare and direct-to-consumer applications. Digital phenotyping could involve the collection of massive amounts of individual data and potential creation of new categories of health and risk assessment data. Because existing ethical and regulatory frameworks for the provision of mental healthcare do not clearly apply to digital phenotyping, it is critical to consider its possible ethical, legal, and social implications. This paper addresses four major areas where guidelines and best practices will be helpful: transparency, informed consent, privacy, and accountability. It will be important to consider these issues early in the development of this new approach so that its promise is not limited by harmful effects or unintended consequences.