BetterHelp + TeenCounseling: Privacy & Security Findings

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Permanent Disclosure Ledger

The discipline, demonstrated

On behalf of our research partners, we investigate publicly distributed Android and iOS apps: we decompile them, follow their code and data flows, and trace every connection to the servers it reaches. Hundreds of agents work through each app and join the technical evidence into one picture, which our specialists then review and verify.

387+
Android/iOS apps audited
Every app is decompiled at source-code level, not just scanned from outside.
1.04M+
Smali classes read
The full shipped code we have actually read, not an estimate.
262+
Critical findings recorded
Confirmed findings copied to regulators, not theoretical risks.
970+
Weak points found
Third-party tracking we have provably found inside the binary.
567+
Endpoints investigated
Real servers and countries where data actually flows.
132+
SDK instances mapped
Reusable libraries correlated across the entire corpus.
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Showing the report for BetterHelp + TeenCounseling.
OrganisationNotifiedStatusSevIntel (click to expand)StatutesResolvedDisclosureElapsedReport
BetterHelp + TeenCounseling
Private
2026-06-22
94d ago
Waiting
High
Three years after paying 7.8 million dollars to US regulators for sharing therapy-related data with advertisers, BetterHelp's app still starts a tracking system before a person can even see a consent screen, at the exact moment they are deciding whether to trust the app with their mental health. A deeper code check also found that BetterHelp does NOT currently embed Facebook's own tracking software directly, correcting an earlier claim, though a leftover Facebook identifier with no code left to use it was still found in the app's configuration.
com.betterhelp, independently re-verified via a full bytecode trace for this closure, distinct from the separately-listed Regain app. All findings re-scored under CVSS v4.0: a hardcoded Firebase key (MEDIUM, corrected from an original CRITICAL label); Firebase initializing before any consent screen can render, at the moment a person first considers disclosing mental-health information (HIGH via blast-radius escalation); a full ad-attribution stack present three years after the company's 2023 $7.8M FTC settlement over sharing therapy-relevant data with advertisers, now partially but not fully gated behind a confirmed fail-closed consent check (HIGH via blast-radius escalation); a backup-scope gap (corrected to LOW). A bytecode-level sweep of the entire code tree found zero Meta/TikTok/Pinterest/Snapchat SDK classes, a genuine correction to an earlier claim, though a dangling Facebook Application ID with no consuming SDK remains, an open question for the operator. TeenCounseling was named in the original bundled disclosure but is not independently re-verified in this report. Four messages sent across 94 days, zero reply of any kind ever received.
click to expand
GDPR Art. 7GDPR Art. 32
Yes
Closed
Disclosure
94d 00h 00m 00s
Published
PDF

This ledger is updated in real time as companies respond. Silence is public. Severity is scored primarily by CVSS v4.0, we reserve the right to deviate based on blast radius.