TextNow

TextNow is a virtual phone service that provides free calling and texting over WiFi.

5.1/10

How we calculate ratings →

Handling

Does the policy allow personally-targeted or behavioral marketing? Yes, but you may opt-out

4/10

Does the service allow you to permanently delete your personal data? Yes, using an automated mechanism

5/5

Does the service allow third-party access to private personal data? Yes, all parties specified (including non-critical service providers such as advertisers)

3/10

This may come in the form of outright data sharing or by using local third-party analytics software (such as Google Analytics, which collects a plethora of user information).

Note that whether the policy allows sharing aggregated user data does not affect this question.

If the personal data is encrypted when it passes through the third-party, it does not count as third-party access (as the data is inaccessible to that party).

If personal data has been made public by, for example, posting it to a blog, it does not count as private personal information (and is therefore not considered by this question).

Score

Yes

The policy allows sharing personal data with third parties (not just critical service providers), and does not explicitly list the third parties.

Yes, all parties specified (including non-critical service providers such as advertisers)

30%

Yes, not all parties specified (but only to critical service providers)

70%

Yes, all parties specified (only to critical service providers)

80%

100%

Citation

"Latitude/longitude coordinates and general physical location or movements from IP address and Wi-Fi access."

Our partners may link the hashed or obfuscated personal information we share with them to the cookie stored on your browser or device, and they may collect information such as your IP address, browser or operating system type and version, and demographic or inferred-interest information.

Name, User ID (alias), email address, Phone Number, IP address, device ID, advertiser ID, device type, settings and operating system.

Your payment information may be share with such third parties as needed for billing purposes and to prevent fraud.

When does the policy allow law enforcement access to personal data? When reasonably requested

3/5

Score

Always

This includes cases in which law enforcement either runs the service or has a known backdoor into (or relationship with) the service.

Not specified

When reasonably requested

60%

Only when required by a court order or subpoena

80%

N/A (no personal data to share)

The service would have no personal data to share with law enforcement.

100%

Never (special legal jurisdiction)

The service operates in a jurisdiction in which sharing data with law enforcement is never required.

100%

Citation

"The governments, courts, law enforcement, and regulatory agencies of which are able to obtain disclosure of your information through the laws of the United States or the laws of Canada."

Transparency

Does the policy outline the service's general security practices? Somewhat

1/3

Is the policy's history made available? Only the date it was last modified

3/5

Does the policy require users to be notified in case of a data breach? Not necessarily

0/7

Will affected users be notified when the policy is meaningfully changed? Yes

5/5

Collection

Does the service collect personal data from third parties? Yes

0/10

Is it clear why the service collects the personal data that it does? Yes

10/10

Does the service allow the user to control whether personal data is collected or used for non-critical purposes? On an opt-out basis, but only for some non-critical data/uses

3/10

Some services allow users to opt-out or opt-in to of non-critical collection or use of personal data, such as collecting data for personalized advertisements.

Score

On an opt-out basis, but only for some non-critical data/uses

30%

On an opt-out basis, for all non-critical data/uses

60%

On an opt-in basis

60%

N/A (no data used for non-critical purposes)

100%

Citation

"We “do not track” you across third party websites. However, we do track you as per this Privacy Policy, and further some of our third party advertisers may also track you across other websites or online services."

To learn more about interest-based advertising in general and to opt-out, please visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices. To opt-out of the use of your mobile device ID for targeted advertising, please see http://www.aboutads.info/appchoices.

You may opt-out of providing your location information to us when you are using mobile devices. If you do not want us to use your location information as described in this Privacy Policy, you should turn off the location services for the mobile application located in your mobile device settings.

Does the policy list the personal data it collects? Yes, exhaustively

10/10

Score

The policy does not claim to not collect personal data, but it also doesn't provide any meaningful insight into the types of personal data it collects.

Only summarily

The policy uses overly vague language to provide a summary of the types of collected personal data.

30%

Yes, generally

All general categories of collected personal data are listed, though not all types of personal data are explicitly mentioned (for example, the list might use a phrase like 'such as' when listing types of personal data).

70%

Yes, exhaustively

All types of collected personal data are listed specifically

100%

N/A (no personal data is collected)

100%

Citation

Name, User ID (alias), email address, Phone Number, IP address, device ID, advertiser ID, device type, settings and operating system.

Telephony log information (telephone log records) (e.g.calling-party number, receiving party number, forwarding numbers, time and date of calls and messages, duration of calls, routing information and types of calls).

Messages (including voice, text, audio, video, pictures and videos) and contacts.

Credit card number

Records of purchases of our Services.

Information about your interaction with the TextNow application and advertisements.

Latitude/longitude coordinates and general physical location or movements from IP address and Wi-Fi access.

Notes

Also collects data from third party sources. See "Third Parties" section.

Last Updated

October 23, 2022

Sources

Source #1 ↗ Source #2 ↗

Contributors

kelplover, doamatto