We use fitness and health tracking apps to gauge how many calories we burn and how much sleep we get at night. Now there’s an app that monitors your mental health.

Startup Ginger.io analyzes smartphone behavior for signs of depression, schizophrenia, and other mental health issues, using your phone’s motion accelerometer and global positioning to measure where, how, and when you move. It records how long you spend idling and talking or texting as a means of gauging distress.

So how exactly does this work? MIT News interviewed the founder, Anmol Madan, about the ways Ginger.io can tell when a user’s smartphone behavior signals mental turmoil. “If someone is depressed, for instance, they isolate themselves, have a hard time getting up to go to school or work, they’re lethargic and don’t like communicating with others the way they typically do,” Madan says. “Turns out you see those same features change in their mobile-phone sensor data in their movement, features, and interactions with others.”

The opt-in program reminds users to reach out for human contact when it notices they haven’t talked to anyone all day, and can also alert doctors and relatives to downswings if they’re unable to make contact themselves.

While Ginger.io presents lifesaving benefits to individuals suffering from serious mental health issues, the thought of others monitoring your activity so closely—and making assumptions based on it—feels a tad creepy.

What do you think? Does Ginger.io seem like a good idea, or is this app too close for comfort?

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