Mental Health Technology Standards (MHTS) establishes seven publicly accessible requirements for technologies designed to regulate, support or influence emotional and mental states, protecting users from psychological manipulation, unnecessary data collection, barriers to assistance and unsafe forms of engagement.
What Is MHTS?
The Mental Health Technology Standards (MHTS) is an initiative of the IMHI Group. It defines structural and ethical safeguards for technologies intended to regulate, support or influence emotional and mental states.
MHTS was created because no safety standard set specific design safeguards for digital mental-health technology. Existing standards are largely general, addressing app quality, clinical evidence, data protection or medical-device classification, or set high-level service processes; none sets out how these technologies must be designed to protect people using them while emotionally vulnerable. See Gaps in Existing Standards.
Unlike general statements about responsible technology, MHTS sets out specific requirements concerning how relevant technologies are designed and operated. These requirements address:
- Anonymous access without personal information.
- Protection against behavioural surveillance.
- Immediate access to stabilisation during distress.
- The appropriate sequence of stabilisation and interpretation.
- Prevention of dependency-generating design.
- Access to human assistance and emergency services.
- Public accountability for effectiveness and impact.
Each requirement is set out in full in The Seven Standards.
The standards challenge technical and commercial practices that may be commonplace in other digital products but are inappropriate when applied to people experiencing emotional distress. For example, a conventional application may use behavioural tracking to personalise advertising or notifications to increase the frequency of engagement.
In a mental-health application, the same mechanisms can exploit people at their most vulnerable, using their distress to cultivate dependence for commercial benefit, which is profoundly unethical and contrary to their mental-health interests. MHTS establishes boundaries intended to prevent these conflicts.
The underlying principle is straightforward: technology designed to support mental health must prioritise the wellbeing and autonomy of the person using it.
Who It Is For
MHTS is relevant to organisations and individuals involved in designing, developing, evaluating, purchasing or recommending technologies that affect emotional and mental states.
- Technology Developers
- Software engineers, application developers and AI specialists can use the standards to inform technical architecture, data handling and product functionality.
- Product Designers
- UX and UI designers can use MHTS to evaluate whether interfaces are accessible during distress and avoid manipulative patterns of engagement.
- Technology Companies
- Product owners and technology businesses can use the standards to establish internal design requirements and assess whether commercial objectives conflict with user wellbeing.
- Healthcare Professionals
- Clinicians, therapists and other healthcare professionals may use MHTS as an additional consideration when evaluating digital tools intended for people experiencing emotional or psychological difficulties.
- Researchers
- Researchers can examine the standards, their implementation and their relationship to safety, privacy and measurable mental-health outcomes.
- Organisations and Procurement Teams
- Employers, educational institutions, healthcare providers and other organisations can consider MHTS when assessing technologies they intend to make available to employees, students, patients or the public.
- Regulators and Policymakers
- Public authorities and standards organisations may use MHTS as a reference when considering safeguards specifically related to emotional vulnerability and mental-health technology.
Technologies Within Scope
MHTS concerns technologies whose intended purpose or operation involves regulating, supporting or influencing emotional and mental states. Depending on their functionality, relevant technologies may include:
- Digital mental-health support applications.
- Self-guided emotional stabilisation tools.
- Anxiety and stress management applications.
- Digital Psychological First Aid systems.
- AI-powered emotional-support interfaces.
- Mental-health chatbots and conversational systems.
- Digital wellbeing platforms.
- Interactive psychological support programmes.
- Technologies delivering Psychological First Aid teachings, training or certification for public use.
The relevant consideration is not simply whether an application describes itself as a mental-health product. A technology that actively attempts to influence a person's emotional state may raise MHTS considerations even if it is marketed primarily as a wellness, lifestyle or productivity application.
However, the requirements must be interpreted in relation to the technology's intended function.
For example, a tool intended to provide immediate assistance during a panic attack has different operational requirements from a service intended solely to publish general educational articles.
The published standards place particular emphasis on technologies providing stabilisation and support during emotional distress. Organisations should examine the relevant functions of their technology rather than assume that every digital product presents an identical level of psychological risk.
Core Principles
MHTS is founded on seven principles.
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Privacy Without Compromise
A person should not have to identify themselves to receive immediate emotional stabilisation.
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Freedom From Surveillance
A person's emotional difficulty should not become an opportunity for behavioural monitoring, profiling or undisclosed data processing.
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Immediate Accessibility
Someone experiencing distress should be able to access relevant support without unnecessary registration, navigation or procedural barriers.
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Appropriate Intervention
Technology intended to stabilise someone in acute distress should prioritise immediate regulation before introducing reflective or educational demands.
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Independence Over Dependency
The purpose of support technology should be to help people develop stability and independence, rather than maximise repeated engagement.
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Human Support Remains Essential
Digital systems must preserve clear pathways to genuine human support and emergency assistance.
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Measurable Public Accountability
Claims concerning effectiveness and impact should be open to scrutiny through transparent methods and publicly available non-identifiable data.
Together, these principles establish a model in which privacy, safety and accountability are integral to the technology itself.
An Open Public Standard
MHTS is published as an open public standard. Its requirements are publicly accessible, allowing developers, organisations, researchers and individuals to examine them without obtaining private access to the standard.
Adoption is voluntary. Organisations may choose to incorporate MHTS requirements into their development practices, internal policies, technical reviews and procurement decisions.
The availability of a public standard also enables people outside a technology company to understand the safeguards that the company claims to implement.
Publishing a statement of conformance does not itself prove that the relevant requirements have been satisfied. Actual conformance depends on the technology's design, functionality, data practices and operation.
The official requirements are published at: mhts.org
What It Is Not
MHTS establishes a specific set of technology safeguards. It does not replace other responsibilities that may apply to digital mental-health products.
- Not a Clinical Treatment Standard
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MHTS does not prescribe a complete psychological treatment, establish clinical efficacy or determine whether a particular intervention is appropriate for an individual.
Clinical claims require their own supporting evidence.
- Not Medical-Device Approval
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Some digital mental-health technologies qualify as medical devices under applicable regulations.
MHTS does not replace medical-device classification, conformity assessment or regulatory approval.
- Not a Replacement for Privacy Law
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The MHTS prohibition on personal information and behavioural surveillance does not replace applicable data-protection legislation.
Organisations remain responsible for complying with the laws governing their operations.
- Not a Substitute for Professional Care
- A technology's conformance with MHTS does not mean that it can replace medical assessment, psychotherapy, clinical treatment or emergency intervention.
- Not Independent Certification
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The published MHTS resources provide standards and a compliance self-assessment.
Self-declared conformance should not be represented as independent certification or regulatory approval.
MHTS should be understood as an additional set of safeguards focused on ethical design and the protection of people whose emotional states may be affected by technology.