When Secrets Are No Longer Safe: The Vastaamo Hacking Incident

Sat Jan 17 2026 15:49:01 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)

Meri-Tuuli Auer shares her traumatic experience after a hacker published intimate therapy records online. This incident raises urgent questions about mental health privacy and security.

Meri-Tuuli Auer, a victim of the 2020 Vastaamo hack, details her emotional turmoil after a hacker leaked her therapy notes online. This unprecedented incident affected thousands in Finland, leading to national outrage and discussions on data privacy. Despite her distress, Auer found strength in confronting the situation and has since authored a book about her experience.

A soon as Meri-Tuuli Auer saw the subject line in her junk folder, she knew it was no ordinary spam email. It contained her full name and her social security number - the unique code Finnish people use to access public services and banking.

The email was full of details about Auer no one else should know.

The sender knew she had been having psychotherapy through a company called Vastaamo. They said they had hacked into Vastaamo's patient database and that they wanted Auer to pay €200 (£175) in bitcoin within 24 hours, or the price would go up to €500 within 48 hours.

If she did not pay, they wrote, your information will be published for all to see, including your name, address, phone number, social security number and detailed patient records containing transcripts of your conversations with Vastaamo's therapists.

That's when the fear set in," Auer, 30, tells me. "I took sick leave from work, I closed myself in at home. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want people to see me."

She was one of 33,000 Vastaamo patients held to ransom in October 2020 by a nameless, faceless hacker. They had shared their most intimate thoughts with their therapists including details about suicide attempts, affairs and child sexual abuse.

In Finland, a country of 5.6 million people, everyone seemed to know someone who had their therapy records stolen. It became a national scandal, Finland's biggest-ever crime, and the then Prime Minister Sanna Marin convened an emergency meeting of ministers to discuss a response.

But it was already too late to stop the hacker.

Before sending the emails to Vastaamo's patients, the hacker had published the entire database of records stolen from the company on the dark web and an unknown number of people had read or downloaded a copy. These notes have been circulating ever since.

Auer had told her therapist things that she didn't even want her closest family members to know - about her binge drinking, and a secret relationship she'd been having with a much older man.

Now, her worst fears had come true.

But instead of destroying her, the hack made her realise she was far more resilient than she could have ever imagined.

Auer's flat, on the outskirts of Helsinki, looks joyful. Barbie memorabilia fills her shelves and there's a pole-dancing pole in the centre of her living room. But don't be fooled by how things seem on the surface, Auer says. She has struggled with depression and anxiety for most of her life.

I'm outgoing and very confident and I love being around people, Auer says, but I get that inkling that they all think I'm stupid and ugly, and that my life is a continuum of mistakes.

Entering the spotlight after such a public breach of privacy was not easy, but Auer decided to confront her fears head-on, ultimately choosing to share her story and publish a book about her journey. Her resilience serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of addressing mental health not just in the confines of therapy, but in the broader societal context of privacy and security.