Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

TheLocalRing is operated by Bjola Software Inc. This policy explains the information we process when providing Canadian privacy numbers and email-to-SMS relay service.

2. Information we process

• Account data, including your email address and authentication identifiers;
• Billing records, plan, payment status, Stripe customer and transaction identifiers;
• Phone-number leases, forwarding addresses, settings, and expiry timestamps;
• SMS content, participating phone numbers, timestamps, message status, country, and carrier identifiers;
• Operational data such as IP address, browser information, request logs, delivery failures, and security events.

Stripe handles card details. We do not receive or store your complete card number.

3. Why we use it

We process this information to provide and bill for the service, route messages, authenticate users, operate number leases, prevent abuse, honor STOP and HELP, enforce the Canadian pilot, retain proof that a recipient initiated a conversation, troubleshoot delivery, and meet legal or carrier obligations.

The first reply identifies TheLocalRing as the privacy service. It does not disclose the customer's name, email address, or personal phone number.

4. Service providers

We share only the information needed to operate the service with:

• Twilio for phone numbers and SMS delivery;
• Mailgun for email delivery and reply routing;
• Stripe for payment processing and recurring billing;
• Clerk for account authentication;
• Vercel and our database provider for application hosting and storage.

These providers may process information in Canada, the United States, or other countries where they operate. We do not sell personal information.

5. No advertising tracking

We do not use advertising pixels, cross-site tracking, behavioral profiling, or third-party product analytics. Essential authentication and security cookies may be used to keep you signed in and protect the service. If a landing link contains campaign or referral parameters, a first-party cookie remembers those parameters for up to 30 days so we can associate the signup with that link; it does not follow you across other sites. Infrastructure providers may maintain ordinary security and access logs.

6. Data Retention

SMS bodies stored by TheLocalRing are deleted from our database 30 days after they arrive. A text deliberately held while forwarding was paused during an active lease may be kept until it is delivered; once a lease is released or replaced, its undelivered hold is cleared so the normal retention period applies. Copies already delivered to an email inbox remain subject to that email provider and account holder.

We retain lease and billing records, call history, consent, opt-out, fraud-prevention, and delivery records as reasonably needed for operations, disputes, carrier audits, and legal obligations. These records may contain phone numbers and message identifiers without retaining the message body.

7. Reused numbers

A number is exclusive to one customer during an active pass and its seven-day reservation period. After that it may be reassigned. Stored messages, forwarding addresses, settings, and old reply links remain attached to the prior lease and are not given to the next holder. Future senders who text the public number after reassignment may reach the next holder.

8. Your choices and contact

Subject to applicable law, you may ask to access, correct, or delete personal information we hold, or ask how it has been used. Contact hello@thelocalring.com. We may need to verify your account before acting on a request.