Your Digital Rights

Your right to a free service, without compromising your privacy.
We, at Crisis Text Line, believe in honoring your fundamental rights
when you use our service.

Last Updated: September 27, 2023 4:26 PM EST

If you’re experiencing a mental health crisis—for any reason—you’re not alone. You deserve support and shouldn’t have to worry about your data’s privacy, security, and use. We are committed to doing what’s right—not just what’s required—to ensure your confidentiality is protected and your data is secure. We aim to meet the highest standards for digital rights, data ethics, and privacy for our texters. 

Here’s how we think about your digital rights, how we help in your moments of need, and how we contribute to transforming mental health support —while protecting your data rights every step of the way.

 

Your Digital Rights

We are committed to protecting your data’s privacy, security and use.

In a moment of crisis, you should feel protected, be able to trust the integrity of the support you receive, and not have to worry about your data’s privacy, security and use. We have established your Digital Rights to clearly explain and hold us accountable for upholding these rights when you use our service.

Your right to free support

We are a nonprofit organization committed to your right to free support, protected by your digital rights, to help you feel secure using our 24/7 service. We provide a short-term service which seeks to provide empathetic support to you during a crisis, which we hope will meet your needs. If you need longer term services, we will provide resources to help you find that kind of support elsewhere. Offering a free service requires funding. We are committed to transparently sharing how we are resourced. For more information on how we are funded, please visit our Financials and Partnerships pages.

 

Your right to be anonymous 

Your safety, privacy and confidentiality are essential pillars of our service. We commit to protecting your privacy and your right to have your identity remain confidential, except where necessary for safety or legal reasons. (See our Privacy Policy for more detail.) Data are encrypted, and are de-identified and anonymized in our research database. Texts to 741741 may not appear on phone bills for major mobile carriers to protect your privacy.

Your right to delete your data

As outlined in our Privacy Policy, we commit to providing clear methods by which you can request to access or delete your identifiable conversation data. You can ask us to delete your identifiable data (including conversation records and contact info) by texting or messaging the word “DELETE.”

 

Your right to be informed

You deserve clarity around consent and data usage. We commit to making it clear and easy for you to understand our terms, consent to our service, and to know how we use data. We will continue to invest in opportunities to increase transparency.

 

Your right to share feedback

Feedback can be positive or negative – we want to hear it all, so that we can constantly improve our service. We aim to hold ourselves to the highest standards in our data practices and service, and to provide avenues where you can hold us accountable and share your feedback with us. If you have feedback that you would like to share at any time, please visit us at crisistextline.org/feedback

 

You are not alone – we are on this journey together. 

Together, we have the opportunity to help more people and to tackle the mental health epidemic across our country and world. 

This is just the beginning. As we grow and technology changes, it is critically important that we continue to reflect, evolve and improve on how we hold your digital rights in the highest regard. We aim to clearly describe your digital rights and show you how we protect them, so that it is understandable to you, policymakers and the general public.

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