Case Study
Crisis Text Line with for-profit company is a WTF
Crisis Text Line, a prominent nonprofit mental health hotline, ended its data sharing relationship with a for-profit spinoff, Loris.ai within days after public outcry. A January Politico report detailed how Loris leveraged Crisis Text Line insights and anonymized user data in order to sell companies customer service optimization software. FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr sent a letter to Crisis Text Line and Loris “requesting that they cease their practice of sharing—and monetizing—the data they obtain from confidential text messages of people reaching out for mental health counseling and crisis interventions.” Crisis Text Line issued a statement ending the data-sharing relationship with Loris and updated its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy in late January.