Apple is Reportedly Developing Mental Health Monitoring Using iPhone data

While the iPhone 13 and Apple Watch 7 didn’t arrive with capabilities to track any new health metrics, future iPhones might be able to monitor something far more subtle: your mental health. A new report has emerged stating that Apple and its partners are in the early stages of this work, so it’ll likely be a few years at least before the company adds mental health monitoring features to the iPhone. Though, there’s no guarantee the research will lead to such features at all.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, the digital tools — ultimately algorithms — aim to collect user data on mobility, physical activity, sleep patterns, typing behavior, and more to reliably detect signs of specific conditions. Other measurements could include facial expression analysis and heart and respiration rates. All of the processing would take place on the device, with no data sent to Apple servers.

This appears to be a continuation of Apple’s recent partnerships with the University of California, Los Angeles, and pharmaceutical company Biogen Inc. The three-year UCLA project, codenamed “Seabreeze,” studies stress, anxiety, and depression; Biogen’s “Pi” project—announced in January and launched this week—covers mild cognitive impairment, the Journal says.

Apple’s health work has traditionally focused on its smartwatches, which let wearers track their sleep, check their heart rate, start a mindfulness session, record their menstrual cycle, even set up a handwashing timer. but this work turns the spotlight on iPhone data, the Journal notes, citing “people familiar with the plans.”

The goal of these sorts of detection tools, the Journal reports, is to enable professionals to intervene early and prevent adverse outcomes. It’s like giving someone a front-row seat to your brain’s activity, without having to pay for therapy. If successful, Apple’s algorithms would run on devices without sending data to the company’s servers, according to documents seen by the Journal

Some previous studies have indicated people with certain conditions use devices differently than other folks. It’s not yet clear whether developers can build algorithms that can detect mental health conditions reliably and accurately. Still, there’s no smoke without fire. Health has been a growing focus for Apple over the past few years, so there is a chance features based on this research will eventually emerge.