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Ask HN: Are there tools out there to video chat with anonymity

2 points by sampkola ↗ HN
Context: I am an engineer with computer science background. I am also from a country where mental health is still a taboo subject and counselling is expensive.

Problem: I have some friends who are hesitant to get mental help because of lack of anonymity during the counselling process. This seems like a silly reason to not to be vulnerable with someone but it seemed genuine given the laws around doctor-patient confidentiality in my country. (they are not air tight).

I want to know if there are tools out there that can enable anonymized video conferencing (by use of avatars or by other methods) so that the initial friction to talk to a mental health expert are somewhat reduced.

I am also open to hear any other suggestions on how to convince someone to seek help when mental health is still not a well understood topic in my country. For what it's worth I am from India.

EDIT: fixed formatting and grammar

13 comments

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gostsamo
Jitsi meet plus Tor maybe? It allows for a meeting with just link, it has web client and Tor can provide the IP anonymity.
sampkola
Thanks for the response. IP anonymity is not as much of a concern as compared to facial anonymity.
gostsamo
Turn off the camera.

I think that deep learning algorithms that can transpose one's expressions on another face exist, but they are not widely used and definitely not in commercial applications. The only case where it was done was last year I think when the russian services presented a pretender for an Aleksey Navalni's associate in a video chat with EU members of parliament.

sampkola
Turning off the the camera makes sense. Its not the same as chatting face to face but it's a decent middle ground. I guess some sort of face transfer would be a step up from audio chat but it's really the mental barrier around talking to someone that makes taking the first step hard.
toothpicked
> facial anonymity.

Turn camera off, point it at your shadow or use some censoring/blurring software to cover your face?

sampkola
These are great suggestions. I think there should be a software solution that blurs faces on the webcam feed to create a different virtual feed that can be fed into a browser based video chat tool.

Along the same lines, wearing a mask also protects identity. The only problem is that this is an additional step for someone who is already reluctant to talk to a professional.

phillipseamore
This is something I've thought about as well, though not for security reasons per se, but to lower the barrier to entry and something used as a solution in the beginning but to be discarded as trust is built.

All the parts are known, the same techniques used to put bunny ears on a head can be used to blur or replace faces and it's possible to animate avatars on static backgrounds with the physical movements captured in video. Audio can easily be manipulated to mask a voice (but would need to be randomized to minimize reverting it). Speech-to-text and text-to-speech could be utilized to mask a voice as well, though it introduces some latency and would mask various vocal cues a therapist listens for.

This could also be used to minimize prejudice with a therapist unable to know age or gender for example. But those can be important aspects of analysis as well.

So I've got no ready made solutions for you, but good luck.

sampkola
Thank you for the response. You hit the nail on most aspects that I had in my mind. I agree that whatever the solution (realistic face transfer or any other way to retain facial anonymity by turning off the camera like the other suggestion) it needs to lower the barrier of entry.
raxxorrax
Even with stigma I would suggest getting a recommended therapist with help of your doctor. The results will be better with open cards and I would recommend a medical professional as auditor of therapy and therapists. There probably won't be a technical solution for problems like patient dependence and bad therapists.
sampkola
Thanks for the response. Agreed that it's better the normal way but even a simple consultation requires submitting a phone number to a mediator service. Most of folks are reluctant to submit their phone numbers to a database (which might get hacked given the state of security policies, not to speak of other predatory practices of selling personal data to ad services). Like I said in my post, there is no regulation that protects health data from being sold to 3rd parties and even if there is one, it is not enforced. Unfortunately, data security is currently the responsibility of the patient instead of being the other way around and this adds a huge barrier for the technologically non-savvy.
raxxorrax
Worse that data sharing seems to be a trend even in countries where such data was previously protected. But I think medical professionals are very aware about the importance of confidentiality and maybe speaking directly about that with your doctor might compel him to hide the reasons for your visit. So it remains the best approach to get the best help.
gaws
> I want to know if there are tools out there that can enable anonymized video conferencing (by use of avatars or by other methods) so that the initial friction to talk to a mental health expert are somewhat reduced.

Turn off the camera.