Privacy/Safety Concerns as a Psychologist

[Childdoconeday]

A colleague recently brought this up, so I thought I would share. Do any of you have concerns regarding your safety when sites such as Mylife or whitepages exist? I was alarmed to see that my information (addresses up to 5 years ago, family relative information, age, phone numbers) were all listed for everyone to see! It makes me feel concerned.

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[WisNeuro]

Meh, people can google your NPI number at will with associated info. You can protect things to an extent, but some info will always be public knowledge.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Some things are simply not worth stressing about imho. This day and age this is simply the cost of living in modern society.

 

[Groupthink]

Some things are simply not worth stressing about imho. This day and age this is simply the cost of living in modern society.

Passive attitudes like this till the fields for further destruction of our rights to privacy. It is imperative that we maintain an active perspective towards change. Technology is new, and just because our privacy is currently compromised does not mean that we have to exist in a world where technology and privacy are mutually exclusive.

Personally, I am concerned. I bought a house a few years back, and a couple weeks in I had clients coming in congratulating me on the house purchase. I asked them how they knew, and they said that it was listed in the local newspaper. (On another note, who would have thought that Gen Z reads the newspaper?)

 

[Pragma]

Passive attitudes like this till the fields for further destruction of our rights to privacy. It is imperative that we maintain an active perspective towards change. Technology is new, and just because our privacy is currently compromised does not mean that we have to exist in a world where technology and privacy are mutually exclusive.

Personally, I am concerned. I bought a house a few years back, and a couple weeks in I had clients coming in congratulating me on the house purchase. I asked them how they knew, and they said that it was listed in the local newspaper. (On another note, who would have thought that Gen Z reads the newspaper?)

They can look it up on Redfin and see what you paid for it too.

Side note - I often do this after going to someone’s house!

 

[bcliff]

(On another note, who would have thought that Gen Z reads the newspaper?)

I bet the WISC-IV is happy to hear this.

 

[psych.meout]

I bet the WISC-IV is happy to hear this.

Information in WAIS-IV can make one downright misanthropic.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Passive attitudes like this till the fields for further destruction of our rights to privacy. It is imperative that we maintain an active perspective towards change. Technology is new, and just because our privacy is currently compromised does not mean that we have to exist in a world where technology and privacy are mutually exclusive.

Personally, I am concerned. I bought a house a few years back, and a couple weeks in I had clients coming in congratulating me on the house purchase. I asked them how they knew, and they said that it was listed in the local newspaper. (On another note, who would have thought that Gen Z reads the newspaper?)

I'm all about privacy and advocacy for it, when possible. But to have an inter-connected world means this information is out there. House sale? Try house value, layout, property lines, past tax values, outstanding state tax debts, car type, etc. It doesn't take long for me to pull that from a GIS site and tax records if I want. There is also Zillow, Redfin, etc and a 1000 other similar services. It's simply the world in which we live. I'm not saying don't be proactive about protecting yourself and your privacy, but some folks take it to extremes. I know psychologists who won't have themselves listed on their house (list spouse only) to keep that info private. I get the idea of it, BUT... that just seems extreme to me and likely of limited utility if someone really cares. And really, I'm not willing to live in that space for my life given both the extremely low rate of risk-related outcomes (op def: things actually happening).

Also- good for Gen Z! lol

 

[Cantab109]

FYI- You can often email the site and request to have your information taken down. This has worked with sites that had my personal information (like whitepages) and housing purchases/layout.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

There have been a few similar threads in the Psychiatry forum, in which members detailed some of the steps they took to safeguard their privacy as much as was feasible/practical (e.g., emailing individual sites as Cantab109 mentioned).

 

[Ollie123]

Agree that some balance is needed...its certainly very difficult/impossible to remove yourself from all public records these days. That said, anyone who was truly motivated to find you has always had ways to do so...its just they are slightly more accessible now than before. I think area of practice also needs to be a consideration. If I was doing forensic evals for the prosecution, child custody evals or some other higher-risk area, it would probably be worth it to take some additional precautions (like having home listed in spouse's name). Generalist outpatient psychotherapy? Obviously anything can happen, but I'd be a little less worried.

Its not ideal, but this isn't something I lose sleep over.

 

[ClinicalABA]

A colleague recently brought this up, so I thought I would share. Do any of you have concerns regarding your safety when sites such as Mylife or whitepages exist? I was alarmed to see that my information (addresses up to 5 years ago, family relative information, age, phone numbers) were all listed for everyone to see! It makes me feel concerned.

I have never felt concerned with clients having access to such information. While there may be some specific population with who you need to be more careful (my gut says something like certain forensic populations, though I say that due to representative heuristics and not empirical evidence), in general the clients we work with are not a risk for inappropriate boundary crossing related to access to our personal info/data.

I also can't resist given a little laugh at at your saying "...when sites such as...whitepages exist." In those pre-historic times before websites existed (or at least could be accessed quickly and cheaply), a client could have probably asked to use the phone book in the clinic waiting room and found the addresses of most of the clinician by looking at actual pages that were white! I had an ex-client from my days working as non-licensed staff in a brain injury rehab facility call me on my home phone once, having gotten my number from the phone book. After making sure everything was ok and that he had access to appropriate services, I kindly asked him not to call me at that number again, and he didn't. You all are probably not looking up and contacting your physicians, kids' teachers, etc. at home, for the same reasons our clients don't do that to us- it's obviously not appropriate given the nature of the relationship. I think you will find that as you progress in your career you will find that your clients, even one's with whom you have really strong clinical relationships, really do see you as "just" their therapist- nothing more- and would not consider crossing boundaries by contacting you out of session in non-professional settings.

 

[BuckeyeLove]

Brief career, only ever worried twice. After I did my first death penalty mitigation case, I was worried. Not about the dude, but the family on the other side. Got some mean looks and that was the worst. The worst was a personality disorder cluster A dude who I did a parenting eval on and recommended parenting classes. Got random private phone calls for 4 months after that case.

 

[deleted343839]

Agree that some balance is needed...its certainly very difficult/impossible to remove yourself from all public records these days. That said, anyone who was truly motivated to find you has always had ways to do so...its just they are slightly more accessible now than before.

Agreed. Public records have never been easier to access, but aside from social media (which you should be locking down anyway) the details one can easily find out about you are not much different than they were was decades ago. It's really not the casual snoops I'm concerned about anyway.

I think you will find that as you progress in your career you will find that your clients, even one's with whom you have really strong clinical relationships, really do see you as "just" their therapist- nothing more- and would not consider crossing boundaries by contacting you out of session in non-professional settings.

For the most part I think this is a safe assumption, but stalking and other major boundary violations are also not unheard of. There is a small literature on stalking by patients, though it mostly focuses on psychiatrists. Again, though, this is a kind of violation that pre-dates the Internet.

 

[PsyDr]

A few thoughts:


1) I’ve been serisouly assaulted a few times. All of them have been from severely impaired people who couldn’t begin to find their way to a grocery store, let alone my house.

2) If you really wanted to assault/murder someone, wouldn’t you go to the place where you know they’ll be for 40hrs a week on a set schedule? Logistically, it’s just easier.

3) I do know some psychiatrists and psychologists that have been stalked by patients. They were not dangerous, but had more erotic/romantic transference stuff. It sucked, and had lots of law enforcement involvement for years.

4) There are options for removing stuff from public databases.

5) There is one state in the nation that allows for anonymous ownership of an LLC, which can then own other LLCs. LLCs can own houses.

6) An older forensic psychologist once advised me that I should never try to hide success. I think there’s something to be said to be comfortable with yourself.

7) It’s not a bad idea to have something about not looking you up on social media and such in your informed consent.

8) Calling patients out on this stuff isn’t a bad idea. “Patient, the only way you would have known that is if you spent time investigating my private life. This relationship is a professional one, and just like you deserve the boundary of me relying upon science; I deserve the boundary of having my private life to remain private.”

 

[WisNeuro]

7) It’s not a bad idea to have something about not looking you up on social media and such in your informed consent.

I make it easy on them, I don't use social media.