ReYou Chat-line Privacy Policies

Privacy Policy: ReYou, iCALL’s Crisis Chat-line

Before using or accessing our chat-based crisis support service, please read the following. By accessing or using the service you agree to these terms of service and our privacy policy described below.

• 1. Nature of service/Scope

iCALL’s ReYou is a suicide prevention chat line for youth, that aims to provide psychosocial support to youth (i.e. an individual between 18-24 years of age) in distress, especially those in crisis situations. Individuals in need of psychosocial support can interact with the service that will be responded to by trained counsellors who can provide support in vulnerable situations and work to create a “safe space” where users can openly talk about their concerns, comfortably and without any judgement. The counsellors will help clients to develop an action plan so that they have the skills to manage their distress. The counsellors are professionals who are also trained to handle situations of crisis. We believe in the quality of work, thus our counsellors also go through supervision.

These terms describe the information we gather through the service, how we use and store it, as well as how you can access and use the service. These terms will inform you if and to whom we disclose any of that information. As a part of iCALL’s ethos, we wish to be transparent about how and why we use data collected through the service. You may not use the service if you disagree with these terms.

2. Consent

Each time that you start a conversation with iCALL’s ReYou, you’ll be informed about our current terms briefly, which you can also refer to in-depth on the website. Using the service after receiving those messages will suggest that you accept the terms then in effect.

3. Collection of personal information

“Personally Identifiable Information” is data that can be used to uniquely identify you, like your age or location. During your use of the chat line, you may be asked to provide personally identifiable information, including phone number, age, gender, and location.

In respect of each chat conversation, we will collect the following additional data:

1. Technical data associated with your messages (such as the IP address and message timestamps);
2. A record of your conversation with the trained counsellor. The primary aim is to  maintain continuity of conversation if you choose to use the service again;
3. Logs of any action that we are required to take if there is deemed to be an imminent risk (such as harm or threat) to you or to someone else, safeguarding issues arise, or disclosure to third parties is otherwise required (see the sections titled “CONFIDENTIALITY AND DISCLOSURE TO THIRD PARTIES” for more information);
4. Any notes that the counsellor makes in relation to your conversation. This would be helpful for the counsellor to understand the type of concern a user presents and in case referrals are required;
5. The content of the feedback form, if you choose to complete one.

At the end of your text conversation, you will be invited to complete a feedback form. This form includes questions relating to your experience of using the service and questions that help us to understand more about our clients. Completion of the feedback is entirely optional.

We take our user’s privacy very seriously. Thus, the data obtained will be completely anonymized (i.e., without any personally identifying details) and de-identified prior to use for research purposes. This will ensure that none of the data is linked back to you/any one person.

4. Use of personal information

We may use personal information to understand the needs of the clients and provide them with better service. Additionally, we use personal information to perform activities necessary to carry out iCALL’s chat service. These include:

1. Contacting or referring the client to emergency services;
2. Collecting feedback so that we can investigate and manage responses in relation to complaints regarding the service (if any), and also confirm the impact the crisis counsellor had on a client’s life;
3. Providing crisis support, i.e. providing clients with the service and managing information in case they decide to use the service again;
4. Conducting and promoting crisis and suicide prevention research; producing statistics and metrics that will help us better understand and analyze the impact of our crisis service;
5. Evaluation and assurance activities to ensure the delivery of quality service and achieve continuous improvement in service delivery.
5. Storage of data

We retain and store the following types of data after our conversation with you.

• Your personal data,
• the record of all the messages that you exchange with us, and
• any responses provided to the feedback form. The feedback form will be offered to you at the end of your chat and you can choose to opt-out.

For research, we anonymize the data that is extracted from our conversations with you, which means no personally identifiable detail will be linked to the data. This anonymized data will be retained indefinitely. This data is independent of the chat record and cannot be attributed to you. We keep this data as it helps us to improve our own service and it contributes to our data set.

6. How we protect your personal information

Considering the sensitivity of the concerns shared by the clients, we ensure to protect clients’ data at every stage of counselling. We rigorously safeguard your data in various ways, including by using encryption, access controls, and other methods such as:

• Security precautions, including administrative, technical, and physical measures, to protect your personal identifiable information from loss, theft, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction.
• We store all information on our servers and the access is restricted to only a team of counsellors pursuant to the practices described above.

iCALL takes appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorised disclosures of information and your personal details will not be disclosed to any third-party entity beyond the mentioned exceptions (refer to confidentiality). However, it is impossible to ensure absolute security due to unforeseen circumstances and activities on the Internet beyond our control.

7. The ways in which you can protect yourself

Always be careful and responsible regarding your personally identifiable information, both online and offline. As an online client, you will have the option to opt out of having your data stored when speaking with the counsellor. You can also take necessary precautions to maintain the safety and confidentiality of the conversations on your device. Secondly, if you wish to share that you are utilising iCALL’s chat service with somebody, we advise you to share this information with someone you completely trust.

8. Confidentiality

iCALL Psychosocial Helpline respects and seeks to preserve the confidentiality of people who use our service. Our counsellors and staff also have an obligation to confidentiality. They will only use and disclose any information provided to them within the rules set by iCALL. No identifying information or discussion between you and the service is disclosed to an external third party except in the exceptional circumstances outlined below.

1. 8.a Disclosure to third parties
• We do not disclose personal information to another person or organisation (including police, emergency services, and other government agencies). We only disclose some details you share with us in a limited number of circumstances, such as
  • A situation where we perceive there to be a serious and/or significant and/or imminent risk of harm to the health or safety of another living being or the public or self. In such situations, we may have to contact emergency services or other first responders.
• Unless otherwise required by law, we will not disclose sensitive information you share while using the service to parents, legal guardians, or other individuals.
• While we will always endeavour to get your consent before we contact a third party, in situations where we are under a legal obligation or where you might appear to be in imminent distress, we will have to pass on the information without consent.
9. Prohibited uses

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:

1. In any way that violates any applicable federal, state, local, or international law or regulation;
2. To threaten, harass, or otherwise inappropriately abuse iCALL, its employees, partners, agents, contractors, volunteers, or others;
3. Unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, or obscene material or content of any kind is prohibited.
4. To send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use, or re-use any content which does not comply with these Terms;
5. 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 iCALL, our Services, or our users;
6. To impersonate or attempt to impersonate another person or entity;
7. To engage in any other conduct that restricts or inhibits anyone’s use of the Services, or which, as determined by us, may harm iCALL or users of the Services, or expose them to liability;
8. To copy, adapt, decompile, reverse engineer, attempt to discover the source code of or make derivative works of the service or any portion of the service; or
9. To otherwise attempt to interfere with the proper working of iCALL’s chat line or the services.

iCALL reserves the right to terminate your access to the service if you violate these terms, including doing anything on the list above. iCALL further reserves the right to terminate the service or your access to them for any other reason  that can potentially violate/pose harm, at our sole discretion.

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

10. Minors’ Use of the Service

iCALL’s chat service is not directed and not intended to be used by persons under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect or solicit any information from anyone under the age of 18. However, since the platform is built to address the mental health concerns of young people, we are aware that people younger than the age of 18 might access the service. In such cases, we encourage you to disclose your age, so that we can better address your concern and cater to your needs accordingly. It would also be helpful if you inform or take help from a trusted adult (parent, sibling, trusted adult, etc) while using the service.

We take children’s privacy seriously and encourage users and their parents to review our terms to understand our information collection practices. Additionally, if you’re aware that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 18 please let us know by contacting us and we will delete that information.

Furthermore, we will always think carefully about whether we need to break confidentiality if we are a young person aged under 18. We may need to break confidentiality and engage with a third party in the following circumstances:

• We believe that your life is in imminent danger;
• We believe that you or someone else is at risk of significant harm;
• You are a young person, aged under 18, who is being hurt, abused or neglected;
• You tell us, or we suspect that you have committed or are about to commit a serious crime; and/or
• You tell us that you are endangering the safety of another person.
11. Complaint/Grievance

If you wish to contact us about a privacy matter or are concerned about the way we have handled your personal information, you can lodge a written request or complaint with our Officer at either of the following addresses:

Email Address: icall.zoomcares@gmail.com

Once we receive your concern/complaint, our team will get in touch with you regarding possible solutions.