Privacy Policy

1. Who this policy covers

This policy covers three groups of people. It is written so that each group can find what applies to them:

People asking about a listing, and sponsors: family members, friends and others who write to us about listing someone, and who may pay for the listing.
People who write: people outside who look through profiles, write letters, or use Letter Relay. (We also call them "correspondents.")
The person inside: the person whose profile is listed.

InsideLines is operated by Bridge Unity Network, Inc., doing business as InsideLines. We are a listing platform. We are not affiliated with any corrections agency, jail, court or government body, and we do not act for any of them. We are a sister brand of StayCloser. The two services keep separate records.

2. What we collect

From people asking about a listing, and sponsors

Your name, your email address, your phone number if you give it, and how you know the person inside.
What you tell us about the person inside so we can start: their full legal name, their register, DOC or booking number, their facility and state, their date of birth, and how we can reach them to ask for their agreement.
Who is paying and how. Card details go to Stripe, never to us. We keep only Stripe's reference numbers, the last four digits of the card, and whether the payment went through.
Every message you send us, and every message we send you, as a record.

From people who write

Your name, your email address, and what we need to confirm you are 18 or older. If we use a picture of your ID for that check, we keep only the result (confirmed, date, how) and delete the picture within 30 days.
Your interests and languages, if you use Match Suggestion or sign up for our emails about new profiles.
If you use Letter Relay: the letters you send and the replies you get, kept only long enough to pass them on (see section 6), plus the date and status of each one.
Any safety report you make, and the fact that you made it. We keep your identity as the reporter private.

About the person inside

Data used only for checking, never published: full legal name, date of birth, full register, DOC or booking number, their written agreement, and the facility messaging ID or mailing address we use to reach them.
Data that is published: the first name they chose, their age, their facility and state, and whether it is a federal prison, state prison or county jail. Also the date they went in, the earliest release date, the checked charges summary and sentence (or the "Charges pending — not convicted" line), their bio, interests, languages, and the photos they chose.
Our checking records: which public sources we looked at, when, what they showed, and the reviewers' notes. We only add to this record. We never edit it.

3. Conviction information and agreeing

The convictions, sentence and release date on a profile come from official public records: the court's judgment, the federal or state prison lookup, or, for a jail with an open case, the court docket. These are public documents. We publish a plain-language summary of them only after the person inside has agreed in writing to be listed, having been told exactly what the profile will show.

We do not use news stories, arrest reports, indictments or dropped charges. If a case is still open, we say "Charges pending — not convicted" and never hint at guilt. If a summary is wrong, we fix it within one business day of being told.

We look at registry websites only to confirm that an offense we are showing matches the record. We never use them to find, flag or harass anyone, and we do not copy registry text onto a profile.

4. Photos

We publish photos only with the listed person's agreement, and only after we have looked at them. We do not publish photos that show other adults, any child, ID documents, places that can be recognized, or anything a facility does not allow. A photo sent by a sponsor is treated as sent on the person's behalf. The person inside can ask us to take down any photo at any time.

Who	What they can get	What they never get from us
People who write	The published profile. The person inside's facility mailing address or messaging address (for example, CorrLinks), only after the writer asks for it, and only where the facility's rules allow. Letter Relay users do not need it at all.	Full legal name, date of birth, register/DOC/booking number, the written agreement, our checking sources, payment or sponsor information, or other writers' details.
The person inside	Letters relayed to them, exactly as the writer wrote them, with a relay note showing the writer's first name.	A writer's home address, email or phone (unless the writer put it in their own letter). The identity of anyone who made a safety report.
Sponsors	Only what they gave us, plus the public profile and the status of the listing.	Anything else about the person inside without that person's written request. Any writer's details.
Companies that work for us	Stripe (payments), our web host, our email provider, our database provider, and the facility messaging companies we must use to reach the person inside. Each gets only the data it needs to do that job.	Anything for their own use. We do not let them sell or reuse your data.
Facilities, courts, law enforcement	Only what the law requires us to hand over. The owner of InsideLines decides each case and writes it down.	We do not offer up information. We do not confirm or deny that a person is listed if someone asks.

We do not sell personal data. We do not share it with advertisers or data brokers.

Remember: facility messaging systems and facility mail are read and kept by corrections staff. Anything relayed through them can be seen by the facility.

6. How long we keep things

Relayed letters (the text or scan of each one) are kept for 90 days after we pass them on, then deleted. Paper originals are shredded at the same time. We keep the dates and status of each relay, without the content.
Account records (profile data, the written agreement, our checking log, inquiry and message logs, writers' accounts, and payment records) are kept for the life of the listing plus 2 years, then deleted or made anonymous. From the day a profile comes down, its public page says only "no longer listed."
ID pictures used to confirm age, if any, are deleted within 30 days. The result stays with the account record.
Payment data lives with Stripe, under Stripe's rules. We hold only reference numbers.
If we need a record to settle a dispute, a safety matter or a legal duty, we keep that record until the matter is closed.

7. Your choices and requests

Write to [email protected] for any of these. We answer within 30 days, and we confirm who you are before we hand anything over.

See what we have about you. A person inside can ask through the facility's messaging system or by mail. We reply the same way with a plain list of what we hold and the profile text. A person who writes gets their account details, their relay dates and status, and their match records by email.
Fix something. Mistakes on a profile are fixed within one business day. The bio, interests, photos and first name change on request. The charges, sentence, release date and facility change when the record changes.
Take a profile down. The person inside can change their mind at any time, in writing, no questions asked. We also take profiles down within 30 days of release.
Close a writer's account. We stop all contact and introductions. Records are kept for the period in section 6, then deleted.
Stop emails. Every newsletter or marketing email has an unsubscribe link. Service emails (about your listing, a payment or a relay) keep coming while you have an active listing or subscription.

A sponsor can ask for the data they gave us and the public profile. They cannot ask for other data about the person inside without that person's written request.

8. If you are a victim

If a person listed here committed a crime against you or your family, and you find their listing, write to [email protected]. We take the profile down the same day a person reads your message. We will not ask you to prove anything. We will not tell the listed person who contacted us. The matter stays private between you and the two people at InsideLines who handle it. The person who paid gets a refund without being told why.

9. Cookies and site statistics

This site does not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels or outside analytics scripts. Our web host, Cloudflare, may set the cookies it needs to serve the site safely. It may also count visits in a way that does not identify anyone (page views, country, browser type) through Cloudflare Web Analytics, which does not use cookies and does not follow people across websites. Our payment pages are run by Stripe and covered by Stripe's privacy policy.

10. Security and where data lives

Account records are kept in a database that only the InsideLines roles who need them can open. Payment details never touch our systems. The login details for our relay accounts with facility messaging companies are kept in a password vault and never shared with writers or sponsors. Our systems and the companies we use are in the United States. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach ever affects your data, we will tell you, as the law requires.

11. Changes and contact

We may update this policy. The version and date at the top change when we do. We announce a major change on the site before it takes effect.

Privacy questions and requests: [email protected].
Safety concerns, and take-down requests from victims: [email protected].
See also our Terms of Service and Safety page.

The short version