Category Archives: Uncategorized

Security – Your information locked up tight

Emotion and journal entries can be very sensitive information. For the same reason we say “I’m fine” to most people, when we really are not, we don’t want notes, journal entries or emotion logs to fall into random hands. Security has been important to WeFeel from day one, and it exists on two sides: your phone and our cloud.

On your end, your entries are as secure as you want them to be. The first layer depends on what you use to make your phone or tablet secure. Does it take a fingerprint, pattern, or password to get into your phone? You have control of the security for your phone or tablet. You might want to consider updating the security of your phone if this is something that concerns you. One of the updates we are considering is adding an optional layer of security by letting you choose if a 4 digit pin is required to log and view entries. If that is something you want to see, let us know in the comments. You could push it up the priority list for development.

On our end of things there are multiple layers of security. The first one is that your information cannot be retrieved to a phone, tablet or computer without the same 3^rd party authentication you originally set up. We support Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft authentication, and you choose which one you want to use. The next level is an optional pass phrase you can set up when you create your account that will double encrypt your files. That means that even if someone was able to guess who you authenticated with AND was able to get your username and password, they would still need to know your secret pass phrase to get your data. But it has to be something you won’t forget, because unlike your password to your email or other logins, we can’t retrieve it for you.

The last layer of security is our cloud. WeFeel uses the Microsoft cloud to store our data. Microsoft’s servers have a level of security and privacy that complies with storing other sensitive data, like medical records. Your data can only be accessed by you (and those you have shared with)* and it requires a long string of “dna” to find that data and send it back to you. We don’t use your email address or other identifiable information to mark your record in the cloud, which means even if someone was able to get past all the security we have in place and access the data they couldn’t identify you.

To find out even more about our security, check out our Tech and Security pages.

Customize it to make it all yours

Nobody should have to fit into a preformed box. With WeFeel you can customize what you track and when you are reminded to track those things

Every day the number of apps available grows, and that includes the number of apps related to mental health. There is no regulation on mental health apps, but in April 2016 the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry published a commentary that gave some guidelines that care providers can use when evaluating apps for use in treatment. This framework is called ASPECTS, and the C stands for customization.

WeFeel is designed as a tool for use in a wide variety of mental wellness and care situations. Customizing what you can track is a key component to the flexibility that WeFeel offers. In addition to the six core emotions, individuals can add an additional 6 custom items to track. This provides flexibility to meet the needs of a wide variety of situations. For example,

You can enter up to 6 custom items to track

• in addiction recovery treatment individuals can track the intensity of their cravings.
• in marriage counseling each partner can track how connected they feel to their spouse
• for patients with bi-polar or manic/depressive disorder, they can track mania and depression independent of other emotion
• new mothers with post-partum depression can track how postive they feel toward their baby or motherhood
• those seeking treatment for generalized anxiety can track their anxiety separate from other fear emotions
• individuals suffering from depression can track other symptoms like lack of energy or tiredness, insomnia, guilt, and persistent pain
• and more…

The field is wide open to what can be tracked and each item that is tracked can also have its intensity tracked – just like the custom emotions. Once these custom items are tracked WeFeel has the power to show a correlation between a custom item and location, social situation, activity, or the core emotions captured.

Setting custom and random reminders in App Settings

Not only can you customize what you track, you can customize when you are reminded to track it. That puts the power back into your hands to track emotions and custom items from regular interactions (like a specific class at school, a regular work meeting, the daily commute, or end of the day). You can set up to 3 custom reminders along what those reminders say. For example, at 10 am a reminder can pop up to ask “How was Mr. John Doe’s class?” You can also set the number of random “How do you feel?” reminders from zero up to 10 times per day.

Customization is a key component of WeFeel that makes it a useful tool for many different care situations. From parents and couples to professional counselors and paid care providers, WeFeel offers a new tool that will improve communication and understanding.