LOS ANGELES (KNX) - Crisis Text Line, a popular mental health support line, came under fire from the public after Politico published a report claiming the nonprofit shared personal information with its for-profit spin off, Loris.ai.
The report also alleged that Loris.ai “pledged to share some of its revenue with Crisis Text Line” and that the Crisis Text Line held an ownership stake in Loris, and that two even shared the same CEO for a year and half.
Crisis Text Line responded to the report via Twitter, claiming Politico “cherry-picked and omitted information about [the Crisis Text Line’s] data privacy policies.”
“We do not sell or share personally identifiable data with any organization or company. Our personally identifiable data scrubber is overinclusive,” the nonprofit tweeted. “Experts in the fields of data and mental health have praised our data ethics, policies and practices.”
Tim Reierson, a former Crisis Text Line volunteer, started a campaign aimed at reforming Crisis Text Line’s data ethics. Reierson, who was interviewed in the Politico report told both the outlet and KNX In Depth he was fired by the company in August after he started to raise awareness about the company’s data ethics.
The company’s general counsel disagreed, telling Politico that Reierson was fired because “he violated Code of Conduct.”
“No, I did not violate the Code of Conduct,” Reierson reiterated on KNX In Depth. “I was terminated because I shared an opinion paper that I prepared which outlined my concerns. I tried to work for reform inside the company and it became clear to me that this model, this financial model was entrenched.”
Reierson said he was upset when he discovered what the company was doing.
“If you sat in the space where the person is distraught and you walk them through, help them find their way…that is a highly personal, sensitive moment,” he explained. “And the idea of taking that information and using it to build some other kind of software for profit…it just kind of made my stomach hurt when I found out about it. It just felt wrong.”
Reierson did say the company does provide a terms of service and privacy agreement, but that it came up before the person could be connected with a volunteer. Even then, he said, only one person pointed it out two
“Only one ever said, ‘Hey, what is this? I can’t possibly deal with this term of service,’” Reierson said. “And they bailed out of the conversation.”
He said his biggest issue was the lack of consent, let alone asking for it. “It would just be inappropriate to ask for consent at that moment.”
Reierson said he feels service that the Crisis Text Line provides is vital, but changes need to be made. “The ethics surrounding the data are just unacceptable.”
Listen to the full interview in the audio above.
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