[wegs2]

The incidents I know about haven't been publicly exposed. If I spoke about them in specifics, the Institute would retaliate. One I can bring up -- since I don't think it exposes me -- is email.

In essence, if you use an institutional email account (or keep personal data on Athena or otherwise) you can presume administration will read it without permission. If you get into conflict with the Institute, personal emails can come up and be used against you.

MIT has a lot of good people, but "unaffiliated" is a difficult word to use here. The problems come from the very top of the administration. Just because a particular mental health organization is good and built up trust doesn't mean they have the power to not get overruled by the Central Administration later. Until and unless the Institute institutes some real checks and balances, students absolutely should go outside for mental health.

[Thriptic]

I agree that students should seek mental health care off campus. In terms of checks and balances, one nice feature of MIT is that power seems to be very diffuse, to the point where it's actually annoying to try to get anything done at an institute level.

For example, I was at one point affiliated with an org that was dealing with sensitive student medical data and we had enough political power due to who we were affiliated with such that I don't think anyone could have tried to force us to disclose data.

[wegs2]

Power is somewhat diffuse. Ultimately, there are channels for real power. It's a corporation with a small number of officers with signing authority. Ultimately they, in a very real sense, own and control the Institute.

The Institute owns the computers your data lives on. The Institute owns and has keys to the rooms where those servers live. The Institute believes it owns the data too.

What force do you think is needed?

Power at that level is rarely exerted at levels visible to a student or employee -- but it happens. I can't comment on your medical data, but most places, there are discreet channels for what the Institute considered to be more serious issues.