Privacy

Last updated October 7, 2026

What is public

A profile shows what the family wrote for it: the listed person's name, ID number, facility, mailing address, conviction, profile text, interests, messaging app and photos. Prison records like these are public in most states; the profile exists so that writers can find and write to the person.

What stays private

Your name, email address, relationship to the person and the initials you typed are never shown on the site and never sold or shared, except with the companies that run parts of the service for us: Stripe for payment (we never see your card number), our email provider for receipts and notices, and AI screening services that check profile text and photos for the rules before a profile goes up.

Photos

Every photo is re-encoded when it is uploaded. Location data and camera details are removed, and the original file is not kept.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages help families. It uses cookies; you can block them in your browser and the site still works.

Taking it down

A family can take a profile down at any time. A listed person, or someone acting for them, can ask us to remove their profile by writing to hello@prisonpenpalhub.com. We keep a record of payments and of moderation decisions, as the law and payment rules require.