10 Total
5 High severity
5 Medium severity
0 Low severity
Summary

This is Headspace's privacy policy explaining how the mental health and meditation app collects and uses your personal data, including sensitive information about your mental health, meditation habits, therapy sessions, and health history. Most importantly, Headspace shares your data — including usage patterns and inferred health interests — with advertising partners, analytics providers, and third-party business partners, and your mental health data may be used to personalise marketing unless you opt out. You can exercise data rights including deletion and opt-out of data sharing by contacting privacy@headspace.com or visiting the privacy settings in your account.

Technical Summary

This document is Headspace's Privacy Policy (effective March 30, 2026), governing the collection, use, and sharing of personal information across its wellness, coaching, therapy, and psychiatry platform, with legal bases including consent, contractual necessity, and legitimate interests varying by jurisdiction. The policy obligates Headspace to provide data access, deletion, correction, and portability rights to users, and requires users to consent to broad data collection including health information, usage behavior, device data, and inferred interests. A notable provision is Headspace's explicit acknowledgment that it operates under HIPAA as a business associate to its Care Provider entities, and that it also maintains a separate Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy and HIPAA Notice of Privacy Practices — creating a multi-layered, context-dependent privacy framework that may confuse users about which protections apply to which data. The policy engages GDPR (EU/UK), CCPA/CPRA (California), HIPAA, Washington My Health MY Data Act, and COPPA, with enforcement exposure spanning the FTC, HHS OCR, state attorneys general, and EU/UK data protection authorities. Material compliance considerations include the breadth of sensitive mental health data collected, the use of that data for advertising and analytics purposes, and the cross-border transfer of health-adjacent data to third-party partners.

Evidence Provenance
Captured April 19, 2026 06:17 UTC
Document ID CA-D-000216
Version ID CA-V-000748
Wayback Machine View archived versions →
SHA-256 92765d24337c337655798edfa3c86ed03e89dce6d38c0cd10fe8dfa6c340f71c
✓ Snapshot stored ✓ Text extracted ✓ Change verified ✓ Cryptographically signed
Institutional Analysis

🔒 Institutional analysis locked

Regulatory exposure by statute, material risk assessment, vendor due diligence action items, and enforcement precedent. Available on Professional.

Upgrade to Professional — $149/mo
Change Timeline
View full version history (0 captures) →
Analyzed Changes

2 changes analyzed since monitoring began.

What changed Headspace updated their Headspace Privacy Policy on April 11, 2026. Change detected: 1 sentence(s) modified. Document contained 360 sentences after update.
Consumer impact Headspace removed two navigational footer links — 'Site Sitemap' and 'Blog Sitemap' — from its privacy policy page. This change does not affect any privacy practices, data collection, user rights, or protections. No action is needed from consumers.
Why it matters This change is purely cosmetic and does not affect any privacy rights, data practices, or user protections. No user action or compliance review is needed.
What changed Headspace updated their Headspace Privacy Policy on March 31, 2026. Change detected: 23 sentence(s) added, 4 sentence(s) removed, 45 sentence(s) modified. Document contained 360 sentences after update.
Consumer impact Headspace reorganized its Privacy Policy to include a clear table of contents with 10 named sections, making it significantly easier for users to locate information about how their personal data is collected, used, and shared. The previous version lacked this structure, which may have made it harder for users to exercise their privacy rights. You can review the updated policy sections — particularly 'Your privacy rights' — to understand what data controls are available to you.
Why it matters Headspace handles sensitive mental health and wellness data, so any changes to how its privacy policy describes data practices carry heightened risk. The structural reorganization improves transparency, but the 45 modified sentences need scrutiny to ensure no material changes to data use were introduced without prominent notice.

Recent Clause-Level Changes Apr 11, 2026

Added (3)
Collection of Sensitive Mental Health Data High

New explicit provision acknowledging Headspace's collection of sensitive mental health information, establishing foundational transparency for health data practices.

GDPR Rights for EU/UK Users High

Addition of dedicated GDPR compliance provision indicates expanded privacy protections for European users beyond previous international data transfer language.

Policy Change Notification Medium

New provision establishes user notification requirements when privacy policy changes, strengthening transparency and user consent management.

Removed (3)
Consumer Health Data Privacy Policy

Removal of standalone consumer health data privacy provision may indicate consolidation into more specific mental health data handling sections rather than elimination of protections.

User Privacy Rights (Access, Deletion, Correction, Opt-Out)

Removal of this standalone provision suggests privacy rights may now be addressed within jurisdiction-specific sections (CPRA, GDPR) rather than as universal user rights.

Employer and B2B Access Programs

Removal of employer/B2B access provision may indicate policy changes to how Headspace handles workplace subscription programs or business customer data access.

Modified (7)
HIPAA Business Associate Status and Dual-Track Data Regime

Previous version referenced basic HIPAA Business Associate relationship; current version explicitly addresses dual-track data regime implications for HIPAA-covered vs. non-covered uses.

Sharing Mental Health Data with Advertising and Analytics Partners

Provision was renamed from generic 'Data Sharing with Advertising and Analytics Partners' to explicitly specify mental health data sharing, emphasizing the sensitive nature of disclosed information.

California CPRA Sensitive Personal Information and Opt-Out Rights

Previous provision addressed general CCPA/CPRA rights; current version specifically targets CPRA's sensitive personal information category and corresponding opt-out mechanisms.

Children's Privacy Restrictions

Provision name and severity level remained consistent between versions with no apparent textual changes.

Cookie and Tracking Technology Disclosure

Provision was renamed from 'Cookies and Tracking Technologies' to emphasize disclosure obligations, suggesting stronger transparency requirements in current version.

3 provisions unchanged.

View full change record →
High Severity — 5 provisions
Medium Severity — 5 provisions

Cross-platform context

See how other platforms handle California CPRA Sensitive Personal Information and Opt-Out Rights and similar clauses.

Compare across platforms →

Applicable Regulations

CCPA/CPRA
California, USA
CFAA
United States Federal
CAN-SPAM
United States Federal
GDPR
European Union
HIPAA
United States Federal