The Use of Digital Phenotyping in Mental Health Services: Opportunities, Ethical and Legal Issues

The widespread use of smartphones, mobile devices, wearable technology, and the increase in time online has provided the opportunity to collect data about users continuously. Several sectors such as health, economy, and entertainment have benefitted from the digital traces left by users due to the tight interactions on digital platforms. Today, it is likely to determine and predict users' moods, behavioral patterns, habits, and personality traits with the use of digital traces that are processed using artificial intelligence techniques. Such use of digital data offers new opportunities for mental health services. Today with this method, it is possible to obtain simultaneous data on the course of the psychological disorder and create a complete and more holistic picture of the disorder by accessing data that can not be obtained from self-report assessment techniques. This new approach, which is called digital phenotyping, can improve the objectivity in diagnosis. Studies have proven digital phenotyping’s potential to determine disorders' recurrence risk and make psychometric predictions. The studies have indicated the promising future of digital phenotyping in mental health services since the initial discussions by Jain et al. in 2015. It is reported that digital phenotyping can be used to diagnose and follow certain mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia at an early stage. However, ethical concerns such as privacy, autonomy, data security, and data confidentiality are among the critical issues surrounding the use of digital phenotyping. This paper includes essential information about the digital phenotyping method, discussions about the practical, legal and ethical concerns regarding the use of digital phenotyping in mental health services, and suggestions for future research. Keywords: Digital phenotyping, mental health, smartphone, digital data, mental health services