Last Updated: April 17, 2026, 7:28 PM EST

At Crisis Text Line (CTL), our goal is to help support people in crisis. We want you to feel supported and to know what we do with the information you share with us. Here is a short summary of some of the main points of our Volunteer Terms of Service & Privacy Policy:

• What Data We Collect. We keep a record of any data that you voluntarily provide to us, including through your application, training, the Platform, our Community forum, and surveys. We also keep a record of conversations that you take with texters, and communications that you have on our Platform.
• When & Why We May Share Data That Identifies You. We may share information that identifies you with third parties (i) with your consent, (ii) if necessary to help prevent death or serious injury, or (iii) to meet legal requirements. 
• When & Why We May Share Data That Does Not Identify You. We may use and share anonymous and anonymized data with third parties (such as researchers, partners, or the public) to inform public health, improve or raise awareness of our service, or for any other reasons. 
• How You Can Request Deletion of Your Data. You may ask us to delete your data (including your contact information) by emailing your request to legal@crisistextline.org.
• How We Protect Your Data. We take many steps to protect your data, including encryption, access controls, intrusion detection, and other methods.

For further detail, please read the full policy below.

SCOPE: ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS

Before logging in with your credentials at Home.CrisisTextLine.org — whether to use or access our platform (“Platform”) to provide text messaging-based crisis support services operated by CTL (“Services”) to texters, to access our community forum (“Community Forum”) to interact with other community members, or for any other purposes — please read the following. This policy applies to all CTL volunteers (“Volunteers” or “you”); being a Volunteer with CTL requires you to agree to the terms of this policy (“Terms”) as more fully described below.

These Terms govern your conduct in performing activities as a Volunteer, describe what information we collect from you, 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 volunteering for CTL. If you don’t agree to these Terms, you may not be a Volunteer with CTL.

You may contact CTL by email at info@crisistextline.org with questions about these Terms. (Emails will be addressed by our customer service team.)

CONSENT; CHANGES TO TERMS

Any changes to these Terms will be effective immediately upon our posting them to our website or the Platform. Being a Volunteer with CTL requires you to consent to these Terms.

COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

Personally identifiable information (“PII”) is data that can be used to uniquely identify you, like your full name or home address. During your time as a Volunteer with CTL you may be asked by staff to provide PII in connection with your volunteer activities on our behalf. While we may collect PII, we will not share it with any third parties except as noted in these Terms. CTL uses the information it collects about you to, among other things, vet applicant Volunteers, operate and improve the Platform, contact and respond to you, and as detailed more fully below.

WHAT INFORMATION WE COLLECT

The data we collect from you is that which you voluntarily provide to us, including through your application, training, communications and information provided via the Platform, post-conversation surveys, and other surveys and interactions in connection with your volunteer activities on behalf of CTL. The UserID you use on the Platform is not PII, but can map to PII.

• Website

When you use our website, we may automatically collect your IP address and other information about the device you are using (in addition to the non-identifiable information discussed later in this policy). You may also choose to provide your email address to opt in to receive emails from us, and may provide other information such as when applying to become a volunteer.

We use cookies, pixels, and other similar technologies and analytics tools to help us understand our website traffic and usage (as more fully described later in this policy). As part of providing their services to us, these tools may also collect or receive your IP address and other online identifiers when you use our website.

HOW WE MAY USE YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

We may use and share the PII that we collect from you through our application, training, communications, products, and Services, including our conversation simulator, amongst our employees, agents, and service providers in order to help us operate, analyze, research, develop, deliver, audit, maintain, and improve our products, content, advertising, communications, and the Platform. If you provide feedback, that feedback may also be shared with CTL staff. We may also anonymize and share your de-identified feedback with the public and with other Volunteers, because your message may give Volunteers and others the energy to keep supporting people in crisis and inspire others to join or support CTL.

WHEN WE MIGHT SHARE PERSONALLY IDENTIFYING INFORMATION WITH THIRD PARTIES

We may disclose PII we collect from you to third parties either with your consent or 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, including but not limited to Volunteers and staff; (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 (F) to operate the Platform or its infrastructure systems properly.

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

HOW WE MAY USE NON-IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

In connection with your volunteer activities on behalf of CTL, we also collect, use, and share non-PII, which is data that cannot be directly used to identify or contact you, such as conversation volume, length of conversation, hours spent on the Platform, and other related data. We may also anonymize PII that we collect from you so that it cannot be used to identify you or to contact you, by removing or replacing personally identifiable information from it, making it non-identifiable.

We may use and share non-identifiable data with third parties for any reason. Some reasons are described below. 

• Feedback

If you provide feedback to us in a survey, we may also ask for your permission to share a non-identifiable version of your feedback with the public — without your name, PII, or any identifying details, of course. Your message may give other volunteers the energy to keep supporting people in crisis and inspire others to join or support CTL. 

• Research

We share some anonymized data with researchers at universities and other institutions through a formal process with contracts in place. We do this to contribute to insights and discoveries that may benefit people in crisis. For more details, read about our Data Philosophy.

• Improving Our Services

To help us improve our Services, we may collect and analyze technical information through third-party applications and services (such as Amplitude, Storygize, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager, and/or pixels). These applications and services collect data about how people use our Services, which may include your operating system, Internet browser, mobile device, or screen resolution. The data they collect may also include usage information, such as whether you have reached out to us before, the number of our website’s visitors, or which links were clicked. This information may be collected in the form of cookies, local browser storage, or similar features, and may be used to market our Services to you (such as to recruit you to become a volunteer with us, or to donate to us).

THIRD PARTY SERVICE PROVIDERS

We use certain third party service providers that enable us to provide, maintain, or improve the Platform. The software provided by these service providers helps us engage in conversations with texters, collect data sets to share internally and externally to advance the mental health sector, and conduct background checks. For example, we may use service providers to vet the criminal histories of applicants seeking to become Volunteers, or to store data collected from Volunteers during the application and training process as well as generate data from post-conversation surveys and conversations between Volunteers and texters.

Our use of service providers necessarily means that (A) both CTL and the service providers may have access to the content of your information and (B) your information may be shared between us and those service providers. We are not responsible for, and make no representations regarding, the policies or practices of any service provider. We encourage you to review the terms and policies of any third party service providers you use, to understand how that third party collects, uses, transfers, and stores data.

OUR PURPOSES FOR PROCESSING YOUR DATA

Our lawful purposes for processing your data include consent (where you have given consent), contract (where processing is necessary to deliver the support you requested by reaching out), protecting your vital interests, performing tasks carried out in the public interest, and the legitimate interests of CTL. In short, we collect information so we can provide better Services, helping people in crisis to reach a calmer, safer state of mind.

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

CTL cares about you and the security of your PII. We take reasonable security precautions, including encryption, administrative, technical, and physical measures, to protect your PII 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 party service providers to access those servers pursuant to the practices described above. However, perfect security does not exist anywhere. Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that your PII 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.

HOW LONG WE MAY STORE YOUR INFORMATION

CTL retains data for the purposes described above. We keep data we collect from Volunteers indefinitely, so that we may continue to use it to improve our Services, and communicate with you regarding your volunteer activities on behalf of CTL, among other reasons within the scope of these Terms. 

HOW YOU CAN REQUEST ACCESS, DELETION, OR CHANGES TO YOUR INFORMATION

You may request access to or changes to PII 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 PII. 

We will try to process deletion requests quickly. We may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive, require unreasonable technical effort, or are otherwise impractical, or which would conflict with a law enforcement matter. Additionally, we will decline to process deletion requests if we believe it is necessary to: (A) comply with the law, a subpoena, court order, government request, or other legal obligations; (B) protect the interests, rights, safety, or property of CTL, its employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers; (C) enforce our Terms or Privacy Policy; (D) comply with legal obligations associated with a sale, merger, or change of control of CTL or its affiliates, or (E) to address fraud, security, technical issues; or (F) to operate the Services or their infrastructure systems properly.

Volunteers cannot request deletion of the content of texter transcripts; we will use reasonable efforts to de-identify counselor portions of transcripts if you request deletion of your data, subject to the exceptions identified in this policy. If your data have already been anonymized, and your non-identifiable information has been shared, we will not be able to take back non-identifiable information that has been used or shared with others. We may continue to use and share non-identifiable data according to this Privacy Policy.

NATURE OF THE SERVICES

The Services we offer are intended to empower texters to stay safe and healthy during a crisis. Your participation in our Services via our Platform and/or other volunteer activities for CTL does not create or imply any sort of employment relationship with CTL. Additionally, to protect the privacy and safety of our texters and Volunteers, you agree to abide by these Terms, our Code of Conduct, and any other applicable policies as enacted or amended from time to time by the org. If you have questions, comments or feedback for us, please email info@crisistextline.org. 

RISKS; USE OF SERVICES

You assume all risk for use of the Platform. Neither CTL nor any of our employees, Volunteers, agents, service providers, or any persons or other entities with whom CTL has contracted shall have any liability for or in connection as a result of your provision of the Services, use of the Platform, or other volunteer activities you perform on behalf of CTL. You agree to indemnify us and hold us harmless for damages arising out of (A) your improper provision of the Services, use of the Platform, or performance of other volunteer activity on behalf of CTL, (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 shall CTL be liable for any special, incidental, consequential, exemplary, or indirect damages.

The Services and the Platform 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 render the Services, use our Platform, and/or perform other volunteer activities on behalf of CTL only for lawful and legitimate purposes and in accordance with these Terms and any and all applicable CTL policies. You agree not to render the Services, use the Platform, and/or perform other volunteer activities on behalf of CTL: 

• in any way that violates any applicable federal, state, local, or international law or regulation or CTL policy;
• 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, subcontractors, crisis counselors, users, 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 the Platform, 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 Platform or the Services or any portion of the Platform or the Services; or
• to otherwise attempt to interfere with the proper working of CTL, the Platform, or the Services.

CTL reserves the right to terminate your access to the Platform if you violate these Terms, our Code of Conduct, other applicable policies, or applicable laws or regulations. CTL further reserves the right to terminate your role or access to the Platform for any other reason, at our sole discretion. 

GOVERNING LAW; INTERNATIONAL USERS

CTL’s staff, volunteers, and contractors are primarily located across the United States, and may not be licensed in your state, trained in, or subject to your state’s law. 

The Services are primarily operated in the United States. If you are outside of the United States, any information you provide will be collected in or transferred to the United States. Your information may be accessed by CTL employees, volunteers, agents, contractors, and service providers located inside or outside of 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.

These Terms, the Services, and our provision of the Platform are governed solely by, and shall be interpreted according to, the laws of the State of New York without giving effect to its 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 Platform is 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 Platform 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, together with our Volunteer Code of Conduct, constitute the entire agreement between you and CTL, superseding any other oral agreements or understandings. 

CONTACT US

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, 225 West 34th Street, Floor 9 — PMB#9135, New York, NY 10122.

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