Last Updated: October 27, 2022 6:41 PM EST

At Crisis Text Line, our goal is to help people in crisis. It’s brave to reach out for help and we want you to feel supported in this process—that includes understanding how we handle the data you share with us.  Here is an overview of some of the main points of our Terms of Service & Privacy Policy:

• What Data We Collect. When you reach out to us for support, we keep a record of your conversation, and we may automatically collect the phone number or username and the mobile carrier you use to contact us.
• When & Why We May Share Data That Identifies You. We may share information that identifies you if necessary to help you or someone else at imminent risk of death, or if we are legally required to do so.
• When & Why We May Share Data That Does Not Identify You. We may use and share anonymous and anonymized data with third parties for any reason. For example: We may share anonymized data with academics for research or aggregated data about crisis trends with partners or the public to inform and improve public health. And if you choose to fill out a post-conversation survey, we may share anonymized excerpts of your survey feedback to raise awareness of our service.
• Deleting Your Data. You may ask us to delete all of your data (including your conversation records and contact information) by texting or messaging the word “DELETE” to us.
• Protecting Your Data. We rigorously safeguard your data in various ways, including by using encryption, access controls, intrusion detection, and other methods.
• Contacting Us Through Third-Party Services. If you reach out to us through a third-party service (such as WhatsApp), their policies control what they do with your data, while this policy controls what we do with your data. 

For further detail, please review the terms below. You may skip to specific areas of the terms quickly by clicking on the links above.

If you would like to view our terms of service and privacy policy in Spanish, click here.

If you are looking for the UK terms of service, click here.

If you are looking for the Canada terms of service, click here.

If you are looking for the Ireland terms of service, click here.

If you are in danger or need emergency help, call 911 or your local authorities.

 

SCOPE; ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS

At Crisis Text Line (“CTL”, “we”, or “us”), our goal is to support people in crisis. We are here to support you in your journey to reaching a calmer and safer state of mental well-being. We also try to equip you with tools to help you get to a calmer and safer state of mental well-being if you face a crisis in the future.

Before using or accessing our website or the text messaging-based crisis support services operated by CTL (the “Services”), regardless of whether you reach out via text message/SMS, WhatsApp, or webchat, please read the following. By accessing or using the Services you agree to these Terms of Service (“Terms of Service”) and our privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”; and together with the Terms of Service, “Terms”) described below.

These Terms govern your access and use of the Services, describe what information we collect through the Services, and explain how we use, transfer, and store that information. These Terms will inform you if and to whom we disclose any of that information, and what choices you have in how we use that information. We hope that knowing how and why we use data will help you make an informed choice about using the Services. If you don’t agree to these Terms, you may not use the Services.

You may contact CTL by email at info@crisistextline.org with questions about these Terms. (Emails will be addressed by our customer service team. If you are in crisis and want help from one of our trained volunteer crisis counselors, please text us — we do not provide crisis counseling support via email.) You can find a list of other crisis lines, hotlines, and other support resources at CrisisTextLine.org/referrals. If you no longer wish to receive messages from CTL, you may opt out at any time by texting the word STOP. You may opt back in by texting the Services again.

CONSENT; CHANGES TO TERMS

We care about you and we want to be thoughtful about the Terms and how CTL works. So, these Terms may be changed from time to time. Any changes will be effective immediately upon our posting them to our website at crisistextline.org. Continuing to use the Services after we’ve changed the Terms will mean that you accept the revised Terms.

Each time that you start a conversation with CTL, you’ll receive an automated reply text message with a link to our current Terms so you may review them before continuing to use the Services. Using the Services after receiving those text messages will mean that you accept the Terms then in effect.

NATURE OF THE SERVICES

Our Services are intended to empower you to stay safe and healthy during a crisis. However, please remember that your use of and participation in our Services does not create or imply an attorney-client relationship, a doctor-patient relationship, a therapist-client relationship, a therapist-patient relationship, or any other sort of confidential relationship. CTL is not a substitute for professional health care, mental health treatment, psychiatric care, or therapy of any kind. If you believe you are experiencing a medical emergency, you should immediately call your doctor or 911. And, if you are experiencing a clinical or long-term issue, you should consult a medical professional.

Additionally, to protect the privacy and safety of our volunteers, you agree to not communicate with our volunteers outside of the Services. If you have questions, comments or feedback for us, please email info@crisistextline.org. (Note: We do not offer counseling via email. If you need support to help deal with a personal crisis, you can reach one of our trained volunteers by either: texting HOME to 741741; or contacting us via WhatsApp at (443) SUP-PORT for English or (442) AYU-DAME for Spanish; or reaching out to us via webchat.)

RISKS; USE OF SERVICES

You assume all risk for use of the Services. Neither CTL nor any of our employees, volunteers, agents, service providers, or any other entities with whom CTL has contracted shall have any liability for or in connection with (1) actions taken or not taken by you or a third party, during, after, or as a result of your use of the Services, or (2) the unavailability of the Services. You agree to indemnify us and hold us harmless for damages arising out of (A) your use of the Services, (B) your breach of these Terms, (C) your violation of the law, (D) claims asserted by third parties that you are in breach of these Terms or (E) information provided by you to CTL. Additionally, in no event will CTL be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, exemplary, or indirect damages.

The Services are provided on an “as is” basis and “as available” basis. CTL and its service providers expressly disclaim all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including, without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Without limiting the above, CTL and its service providers make no warranty that CTL will (A) meet your requirements; (B) be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free; or (C) meet your expectations. The foregoing disclaimers of liability apply to all damages or injury, including those caused by any failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect or delay in operation or transmission, whether for breach of contract, tortious behavior, including negligence, or any other cause of action.

PROHIBITED USES; RIGHT TO TERMINATE ACCESS

You agree to use our Services only for lawful and legitimate purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You agree not to use the Services:

• in any way that violates any applicable federal, state, local, or international law or regulation;
• for the purpose of exploiting, harming, or attempting to exploit or harm minors in any way;
• to threaten, harass, or otherwise inappropriately abuse CTL, its employees, partners, agents, contractors, volunteers, or others;
• to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use, or re-use any content which does not comply with these Terms;
• to “spam,” gather or attempt to gather personal information belonging to users or others for the purposes of spamming, marketing, selling to third parties, or otherwise abusing CTL, our Services, or our users;
• to impersonate or attempt to impersonate another person or entity;
• to engage in any other conduct that restricts or inhibits anyone’s use or enjoyment of the Services, or which, as determined by us, may harm CTL or users of the Services, or expose them to liability;
• to copy, adapt, decompile, reverse engineer, attempt to discover the source code of or make derivative works of the Services or any portion of the Services; or
• to otherwise attempt to interfere with the proper working of CTL or the Services.

CTL reserves the right to terminate your access to the Services if you violate these Terms, including doing anything on the list above. CTL further reserves the right to terminate the Services or your access to them for any other reason, at our sole discretion.

CTL may unilaterally terminate your access to the Services. We also may adjust your access if we determine that you’d be better served by a different kind of support.

THIRD PARTY SERVICES

You may contact us through a third-party website, application, or service (“Third Party Service”), including WhatsApp. If you contact us through a Third Party Service, (A) both CTL and the third party that runs the Third Party Service may have access to the content of the messages you share, and (B) your information may be shared between us and that third party. For example, we and the third party may exchange your location information to contact emergency services in an emergency.

Moreover, these Terms only apply to you and CTL, describing how we collect, use, transfer, and store information you provide to us. We are not responsible for, and make no representations regarding, the policies or practices of any Third Party Service. If you contact us through a Third Party Service, you are subject to these Terms as well as the terms and policies of the Third Party Service. We encourage you to review the terms and policies of any Third Party Service you use to contact CTL, to understand how that third party collects, uses, transfers, and stores data. If you do not wish to be subject to a Third Party Service’s terms or policies, please do not contact CTL or our Services through a Third Party Service; instead, you may contact CTL by texting us at 741741 from anywhere in the US.

COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

“Personally Identifiable Information” is data that can be used to uniquely identify you, like your full name or home address. During your use of CTL you may be asked (but never required) to voluntarily provide Personally Identifiable Information, including but not limited to your name or home address. We will only ask for this if we believe it would help us to better serve you.

While we may collect Personally Identifiable Information, we will not share it with any third parties except as noted in this Privacy Policy.

CTL uses the information it collects about you to, among other things, operate and improve the Services, contact and respond to you, fulfill your requests (including but not limited to referrals to other services) and as detailed more fully below. We may also use automated processes to help us determine how best to prioritize and/or address your crisis. (We use technology to help those in most immediate need first.)

PURPOSES FOR PROCESSING DATA

Our lawful purposes for processing your data include consent (where you have given consent), contract (where processing is necessary to deliver the Services as you requested by texting us), protecting your vital interests, performing tasks carried out in the public interest, and the legitimate interests of CTL (namely, to help texters like you stay safe and healthy in a crisis). In short, we collect information so we can provide you and others like you with better Services, helping move more people in crisis to reach a calmer, safer state of mind.

Where we rely on your consent to process personal data, you have the right to withdraw or decline your consent at any time by texting DELETE, as described below. Where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object. Please contact info@crisistextline.org to reach our customer support team. (Note: We do not provide counseling services via email. If you are in crisis and looking for help from one of our trained volunteers, please text us at 741741 from anywhere in the U.S.)

WHAT PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

When you choose to message us to use our Services, we may automatically receive and collect (i) the phone number that you text or message us from, (ii) your mobile service provider, and/or (iii) your IP address.

Other than that, the only Personally Identifiable Information that we collect from you through the Services is the stuff you voluntarily provide to us, such as if you provide your email address via our website in order to receive emails from us. Some of the types of Personally Identifiable Information that we may request that you share with us may include your name, age, address, and zip code, particularly if necessary to help a person at imminent risk of death or serious bodily harm, or to make a mandatory report concerning suspected child abuse or neglect.

Additionally, if you choose to take a survey on our website or via a link sent to you following your conversation through our Services, we may ask you about your experience in that conversation. You may choose to keep your responses anonymous.

DONOR PRIVACY

CTL keeps a record of each donor’s giving history for IRS purposes, to analyze giving patterns, make budget projections, and solicit future donations. We do not share our donor file with any other party or organization. For more information, please see our Donor Confidentiality Policy.

HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

We operate the Services together with our volunteers. Any information, including Personally Identifiable Information, that you share with us through the Services may be viewed by CTL staff or volunteers for quality control, to contact emergency services, or to better assist you with your crisis. We may use and share the Personally Identifiable Information that we collect via the Services amongst our employees, volunteers, agents, contractors, and service providers in order to help us operate, analyze, research, develop, deliver, audit, maintain, and improve our products, content, advertising, communications, and the Services. If you provide feedback (such as through an anonymous survey or audio recording), that feedback may also be shared with CTL staff and volunteers. We may also ask for your consent to share your feedback — with your name edited out, of course! — with the public (for example, to potential volunteers), because your message may give volunteers the energy to keep supporting people in crisis and inspire others to join or support CTL.

DISCLOSURES TO THIRD PARTIES

We care about your safety. It’s our goal to support you in staying safe and healthy and to do so in the least invasive way possible. You being alive is what matters most to us. In rare cases, this means we might contact emergency services or other first responders to disclose information you share with us if your messages lead us to reasonably believe that doing so is necessary to prevent a person’s death or serious injury (such as if your messages indicate suicidal thoughts, a plan, access to means, an imminent timeframe, and an inability to safety plan or de-escalate). We understand that this can be disruptive, and it won’t happen unless we think it’s necessary. (Just saying “I’m feeling suicidal” does not necessarily mean we’ll try to send someone.) We may attempt to locate you, but it may not always be possible.

If the content of your messages leads us to reasonably suspect that you are a victim of emotional/physical abuse or neglect and are less than 18 years old or a vulnerable dependent adult, we may ask you for certain Personally Identifiable Information (such as your date of birth, name, and address) to help us file any required report with an appropriate state authority.

Additionally, we may disclose Personally Identifiable Information we collect from you to third parties if we believe such disclosure is necessary: (A) to comply with the law or in response to a subpoena, court order, government request, or other legal process; (B) to protect the interests, rights, safety, or property of CTL, its affiliates, employees, agents, or volunteers; (C) to enforce our Terms; (D) in connection with a sale, merger, or change of control of CTL or its affiliates, or (E) to address fraud, security, technical issues, or to operate the Services or CTL’s infrastructure systems properly.

Note that CTL’s staff and volunteers are located across the United States, and may not be licensed in your state or trained in your state’s law. Other state laws may apply to your communications, and those state laws may not protect your communications to the same degree, or in the same way, as the laws of your state.

NON-PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

When you use our Services, in addition to collecting personally-identifiable data described above, we also collect certain kinds of anonymous non-identifiable data such as the date and time of day you texted in. We may anonymize personal data that we collect from you so that it cannot be used to identify you or to contact you, by redacting — or “scrubbing” — personally-identifiable details from it, such as name, age, or address that you provide. We may use and share anonymous and anonymized data with third parties for any reason, including but not limited to improving our Services, generating support for CTL, or as required by law. 

To see how we use learnings and techniques to put more empathy in the world, read about our Data Philosophy.

• Researchers 

We have a formal process for sharing certain anonymized data with researchers at universities and other institutions. We share such anonymized data with trusted researchers in order to develop insights that enable us to provide better service and support to our texters and other people in crisis. For more details, read about our Open Data Collaborations.

USAGE INFORMATION

We may collect and analyze non-personally identifiable information through third-party applications and services (such as Amplitude, FrontEnd, Storagize, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager) about how people use our Services, which may include our website users’ operating system, Internet browser, mobile device, screen resolution, or general usage information such as whether you have reached out to us before, the number and frequency of our website’s visitors, or which links were clicked. This information, which may be collected in the form of cookies, local browser storage, or similar features, helps us improve our Services. (For information on Google Analytics, please visit http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.)

OUTSIDE REFERRALS

Sometimes, we may refer you to another hotline or program. We will give you their contact info, but we will not give them your contact info. So, it’s up to you if you want to use the referral. If you would like to receive support from other services, please note that different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of Personally Identifiable Information. We don’t control the privacy policies of others. We encourage you to ask questions before you disclose your Personally Identifiable Information to others.

RETENTION OF INFORMATION

CTL retains data for the purposes described above. We retain Personally Identifiable Information for seven years, and then scrub it to render it anonymous, so it can no longer be used to identify you personally. We retain non personally identifiable data — including the data we scrub — indefinitely, so that we may continue to use it to improve our Services.

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

CTL cares about you and the security of your Personally Identifiable Information. We take reasonable security precautions, including encryption, administrative, technical, and physical measures, to protect your Personally Identifiable Information from loss, theft, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. We store all information on servers and we only permit approved CTL employees and third parties to access those servers pursuant to the practices described above. However, perfect security does not exist anywhere, including for text messaging/SMS data. Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that your Personally Identifiable Information or communications with CTL will never be disclosed in a manner inconsistent with this policy, and make no representations or warranties regarding the sufficiency of our security measures to prevent unauthorized access or interception by third parties.

YOU SHOULD ALSO PROTECT YOURSELF

Always be careful and responsible regarding your Personally Identifiable Information. We are not responsible for, and cannot control, what others not affiliated with CTL do with information you provide to them. You may also choose to delete CTL conversations from your phone, clear us from your browser history, and not save our number in your contact list to help further protect the confidentiality of your communications with us.

ACCESS/CHANGES TO PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

If you are located within the U.S., you may request access to or changes to Personally Identifiable Information of yours which we have stored by emailing legal@crisistextline.org. You will be asked to verify your identity in order for us to grant you access to or process changes to your Personally Identifiable Information.

If you are located within the U.S., You may request that we delete your Personally Identifiable Information, such as your full name, physical address, zip code, phone number, and texts/message transcripts by messaging the word DELETE to us through the modality (text, WhatsApp, or webchat) you used to reach out to us, after which you will be prompted to confirm your request.

We will make reasonable efforts to process requests promptly, but may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive, require unreasonable technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of you or others, are otherwise impractical, or which would conflict with a law enforcement matter. Additionally, we will decline to process requests if we believe preservation of your Personally Identifiable Information is necessary: (A) to comply with the law or in response to a subpoena, court order, government request, or other legal obligations; (B) to protect the interests, rights, safety, or property of CTL, its employees, agents, or volunteers; (C) to enforce our Terms; (D) in connection with a sale, merger, or change of control of CTL or its affiliates, or (E) to address fraud, security, technical issues, or to operate the Services or their infrastructure systems properly.

CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

California Civil Code Section § 1798.83 permits users of our Services that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to legal@crisistextline.org with “California Privacy Rights” in the subject line, or write us at: Crisis Text Line, Attn: Legal Dept., PO Box 1207, New York, NY 10113.

CHILDREN UNDER 13 YEARS OLD

As a not-for-profit organization exempt from federal income tax under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, CTL is exempt from compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998. However, we take children’s privacy seriously, and encourage users and their parents to review our Terms to understand our information collection practices.

GOVERNING LAW; INTERNATIONAL USERS

These Terms and the Services are governed solely by, and shall be interpreted according to, the laws of the State of New York without giving effect to New York’s conflicts of law rules. CTL and you both consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in the county of New York for any and all disputes arising out of or concerning these Terms. The Services are primarily operated in the United States. If you are located outside of the United States, please be aware that any information you provide will be collected in or transferred to the United States. By using the Services and/or providing us with your information, you consent to the collection and transfer of your information in or out of the United States as described in this policy.

SEVERABILITY; ENTIRE AGREEMENT

If a court finds any provision of these Terms to be invalid or unenforceable, that provision shall be enforced to the maximum extent possible and the remaining Terms shall remain in full force and effect. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and CTL, superseding any other written or oral agreements or understandings.

DISCLAIMER

CTL seeks to support people in crisis, and is not a substitute for professional health care, mental health treatment, psychiatric care, or therapy of any kind. CTL’s Services are not intended as professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. CTL disclaims all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied.

CONTACT US

If you are in crisis anywhere in the U.S. and want to reach one of our trained volunteers, please text us at 741741, contact us via WhatsApp at (443) SUP-PORT for English or (442) AYU-DAME for Spanish, or reach out to us via webchat. Message frequency varies. Message & data rates may apply.

If you have any questions or concerns about our Terms or the privacy and security practices described here, please contact: info@crisistextline.org. You may also mail a request to us at Crisis Text Line, PO Box 1207, New York, NY 10113.

For media inquiries, please email press@crisistextline.org.

CTL Services in Canada are provided by Kids Help Phone and are governed by their terms of service and privacy policy, available here.

CTL Services in the UK are provided by Mental Health Innovations and are governed by their terms of service and privacy policy, available here.

CTL Services in Ireland are provided by Community Creations CLG and are governed by their terms of service and privacy policy, available here.