Privacy Policy
Effective date: May 25, 2026
Parla Live, Inc. ("Parla," "we," "us," or "our") operates the Parla web application, dashboard, public profile pages, and related services (collectively, the "Platform"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard information in connection with the Platform — both for the politicians who hold accounts and for the voters they reach.
We do not sell your personal data. We do not show advertising and we do not accept political advertising. We do not share contact information with third parties for marketing.
1. What Parla Does
Parla is a civic communication platform for the United States. Elected officials, candidates, and their campaigns ("politicians") use a web dashboard to reach voters in their district or state by SMS. Voters do not create Parla accounts; a campaign provides or sources its voter contact list, and Parla processes that list solely to deliver the campaign's messages and to honor opt-outs. Recipients can respond by donating to the campaign, volunteering, RSVPing to events, or pledging to vote. Donations route directly through a regulated third-party payment processor to the politician's own connected merchant account. Parla does not hold, process, or take a fee on donation funds.
2. Information We Collect
2.1 Voter Information (Provided or Sourced by Campaigns)
For voter data, Parla acts as a service provider to the campaign. A campaign supplies Parla with the voters it intends to contact (or sources them through Parla's data partners). Parla processes this data only to deliver that campaign's messages and maintain opt-out records — never to contact voters for any other campaign, and never sold. The campaign is responsible for having a lawful basis to contact each recipient.
| Data | Purpose | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Phone number | Deliver the campaign's SMS and honor STOP / opt-out | Yes |
| SMS consent / contactability status | Maintain a TCPA-relevant record that a recipient may be contacted, and suppress opt-outs | Yes |
| First and last name | Personalize the campaign's message | Optional |
| Preferred language | Translate message text to the voter's language | Optional |
| Audience segment and district / zone | Determine which voters receive a given message | Optional |
| Support score | Prioritize outreach (provided by the campaign's data source) | Optional |
2.2 Politician Account Information
| Data | Purpose | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | Account creation, login, billing, and account notices | Yes |
| Full legal name, title, role, and jurisdiction | Display on messages and on your public profile; manual verification of your office by Parla administrators | Yes |
| Plan tier and billing data | Service provisioning, annual billing, tax, and audit purposes (handled by our payment processor) | Yes, for paid plans |
| Connected merchant account identifier | Route donations directly from voters to your campaign account (Parla does not hold funds) | Yes, for donation features |
| FEC committee ID (federal candidates) | Match contributions to your authorized committee for FEC reporting | Optional |
| Standing campaign strategy (issues, geography, audiences, phase, tone, goals) | Configure how the Platform's automated features generate message proposals for your approval | Optional |
2.3 Identity Verification
Parla verifies a politician's office, jurisdiction, and authority to publish on the Platform through manual review of public records and a verification conversation conducted by a Parla administrator. We do not require government-issued photo ID uploads from politicians as part of standard onboarding. From time to time we may request additional documentation in connection with billing, FEC compliance, or dispute resolution; any documentation you provide is handled under this Policy and the Terms of Service.
Parla does not collect biometric data and operates no mobile application. Identity verification is limited to the manual office-verification process described above.
2.4 Usage Data
- Messages delivered, and (where available) opened or clicked
- Actions taken: donations initiated, volunteer sign-ups, RSVPs, pledge-to-vote submissions
- Plan and billing status
- Browser or device type, OS version, IP-derived approximate location at the country/state level only
- System logs (request paths, error stacks, IP at the moment of error) retained for security and debugging
2.5 Location Data
We determine the relevant U.S. state or jurisdiction from a campaign's voter data (for targeting) and from a politician's stated office at signup. We use coarse network/IP geolocation only to enforce U.S.-only access. We do not track movements or collect continuous or precise location data.
2.6 Data We Do Not Collect
- Precise GPS coordinates or continuous location tracking
- Biometric identifiers of any kind
- Contacts, address book, or social-graph data
- Browsing history outside the Platform
- Social media account credentials
- Donation payment details (card numbers, bank accounts — these go directly to the payment processor)
3. How We Use Your Information
- Authentication: Verify politician identity (email-based) and enforce account integrity.
- Message delivery: Route and deliver a politician's messages to the targeted voters in the correct jurisdiction by SMS (and email where supported).
- SMS compliance: Maintain consent and contactability records and honor STOP / opt-out keywords as required by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and carrier registration rules (10DLC).
- Translation: When a voter's preferred language differs from a message's source language, we send message text only to an LLM translation service. No name, phone, email, location, or account identifier is included.
- Automated message assistance: For politicians who configure a strategy, the Platform uses automated tooling, including large language models, to generate message proposals from public news and the politician's standing-rules input. No message leaves the Platform until the politician explicitly approves it. See Section 4.5.
- Payments: Facilitate donation routing so contributions go directly to the politician's connected merchant account; manage politician annual billing through a regulated third-party processor.
- Analytics: Pseudonymous usage events to improve the product (see Section 4.4).
- Security and audit: Maintain an internal audit log of administrator actions, message approvals, and automated agent runs for security, regulatory, and dispute-resolution purposes.
4. Third-Party Services
We use a small set of trusted, regulated third-party service providers to operate the Platform. We share only the data necessary for each provider to perform its function.
| Category | Data Shared | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | Email, name (politicians) | Account creation, login, session management |
| Payments | Connected merchant account identifier (politicians); annual billing details | Politician annual billing; donation routing direct to politicians' merchant accounts |
| SMS delivery | Phone number, message text, opt-out keyword responses | Deliver SMS and process STOP / opt-out messages, under the carrier-registered 10DLC campaign for political messaging |
| Email delivery | Voter or politician email address; transactional message body | Secondary message delivery; account, billing, and verification notices |
| Translation | Message text only — no user identity | Auto-translate message text to a voter's preferred language |
| Automated message assistance | Politician's standing strategy and public news context — no voter personal data | Generate message proposals for the politician's review and approval |
| Product analytics | Pseudonymous usage events | Product improvement, funnel diagnostics, and aggregated reporting — no advertising |
| Cloud infrastructure | Account, message, audit-log data | Secure hosting, database, and API delivery |
| File storage | Profile photos and other user-uploaded assets | Asset storage and delivery |
All service providers are bound by data processing agreements. A current list of sub-processors is available upon written request to privacy@parlalive.com.
4.1 SMS Delivery and TCPA Consent
Parla sends SMS on behalf of campaigns through a regulated SMS delivery provider operating under a registered 10DLC political-messaging campaign. The campaign is responsible for ensuring it has a lawful basis — such as prior express consent or an established relationship — to contact each recipient under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Every recipient can opt out at any time by replying STOP to any Parla SMS; opt-outs are honored automatically and suppressed across future sends. Replying HELP returns help information at no extra cost. Message and data rates may apply; message frequency varies.
4.2 Payments and FEC Compliance
Parla uses a regulated third-party payment processor to enable politicians to receive donations directly from voters. When a voter initiates a donation, they are routed to the processor's secure payment flow. Parla does not receive, hold, or process donation funds, and Parla charges no transaction fee on donations. Donations go directly to the politician's connected merchant account. This structure is intentional: under FEC regulations at 11 CFR 100.52, a payment processor that charges a fee for facilitating contributions may be treated as making an in-kind contribution to the recipient committee. By routing donations direct and waiving all fees, Parla avoids that classification.
Politician plans are billed as a one-time annual payment by card or bank/wire transfer; Parla stores no payment method for recurring charges. Parla does not store credit-card numbers, bank-account details, or any payment-instrument data; that information is handled by the payment processor.
4.3 Translation
When a voter's preferred language differs from a message's source language, we send the message text to an LLM translation service operating under a data processing agreement. Only message text is transmitted. No personally identifying information (name, phone, email, location, or account identifier) is included in translation requests, and the translation provider is contractually prohibited from using the text to train its general models.
4.4 Analytics
We use a privacy-respecting product analytics provider to understand how the Platform is used — message delivery, action conversions, funnel drop-offs, dashboard engagement. Analytics events are linked to a pseudonymous identifier rather than a name or contact information. We do not sell analytics data, do not run advertising, and do not use analytics to profile anyone for any purpose other than improving the Platform and producing aggregated business metrics.
4.5 Automated Message Assistance (AI)
For politicians who configure a standing strategy, the Platform periodically generates message proposals using automated tooling that includes large language models and public-news lookups. Inputs to that tooling are limited to: (a) the politician's strategy configuration (issues, jurisdiction, audiences, tone, goals), (b) the politician's own approved-message history, and (c) publicly available news within the politician's jurisdiction. Voter personal data is not shared with the automated message tooling. All proposals are queued in the politician's dashboard for explicit human review; no message is sent until the politician approves it. Politicians may turn this feature off by clearing the strategy field; doing so disables proposal generation for that account.
Where required by law, this section provides notice that messages you receive may be drafted or refined by automated tooling under the politician's editorial direction. The politician — not Parla — is responsible for the content of each message they send.
4.6 Tier Classification from Public Records
For some plans, we may consult publicly available demographic data about the jurisdiction a politician serves to determine which plan tier applies. Only the jurisdiction name (e.g., city and state) is queried; no personal data is sent to any public-records source. The result is used solely to determine the applicable plan tier.
4.7 Aggregated and De-Identified Data
We may create aggregated, anonymized, or de-identified data from Platform usage (for example, total messages sent in a state, average delivery rates, average action conversion rates by tier). This data does not identify you personally and is not subject to the limitations applicable to personal data. We may retain and use this data indefinitely for any lawful purpose, including operating, improving, and marketing the Platform; producing benchmark or industry reports; training and improving the automated tooling that powers the Platform; and sharing with partners, investors, or third parties.
5. Data Security
- All data in transit is encrypted via TLS 1.3
- All data at rest is encrypted by our cloud database and storage providers
- Voter contact data is stored only to deliver a campaign's messages and honor opt-outs, with access restricted to delivery systems and the campaign that provided it
- API access is authenticated through short-lived signed session tokens; administrator access additionally requires a separate access secret
- Rate-limiting and IP-based throttling are applied to authentication, billing, and high-cost endpoints to mitigate abuse
- An internal audit log records administrator actions, message approvals, and automated agent runs for security, regulatory, and dispute-resolution purposes
- Sensitive third-party credentials (payment processor keys, SMS provider keys) are held only in encrypted server-side configuration and are never exposed to client browsers
No system is perfectly secure; in the event of a data breach affecting your personal information, we will notify you and applicable regulators as required by law.
6. Data Retention
| Data Type | Retention |
|---|---|
| Politician account data | Until account deletion |
| Voter contact data | For the duration of the campaign's engagement, then deleted |
| SMS consent and opt-out (STOP) records | Retained for a reasonable record-retention period for TCPA defense (currently 4 years) |
| Message action records (donations, RSVPs, volunteer sign-ups, pledges) | Until account deletion; donation records retained as required by FEC and tax rules |
| Politician billing records | 7 years (tax and regulatory compliance) |
| Audit log (administrator actions, message approvals, agent runs) | 7 years |
| System logs and request error traces | 90 days |
| Pseudonymous usage analytics | 2 years |
7. Your Rights
Depending on your jurisdiction, you may have the following rights:
- Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
- Correction: Request correction of inaccurate personal data
- Deletion: Request deletion of your account and the personal data associated with it (subject to records we are required by law to retain, such as FEC donation records)
- Portability: Request your data in a machine-readable format
- Objection: Object to specific processing activities
- SMS opt-out: A voter may stop messages at any time by replying STOP to any Parla SMS; the opt-out is honored automatically and suppressed across future sends
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@parlalive.com. We will respond within the timeframes required by applicable law.
8. Children's Privacy
Parla is not intended for use by anyone under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we learn that we have collected personal data from a child under 18, we will delete it immediately.
9. Geographic Scope
Parla is available only in the United States (all 50 states and Washington, D.C.). Access from outside the United States is blocked. Your data is processed in the United States.
10. U.S. State Privacy Laws
California Consumer Privacy Act / CPRA
California residents have the right to know what personal information we collect, the right to delete personal information, the right to correct inaccurate personal information, the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information, and the right to limit the use of sensitive personal information. We do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. To exercise any of these rights, contact privacy@parlalive.com. We will respond within the timeframes required by law.
Other State Laws
We aim to comply with applicable consumer-privacy laws in Texas, Washington, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, Montana, Oregon, Florida, Delaware, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Rhode Island, and other states with active privacy legislation. Where state law grants rights similar to those described above for California, those rights are available to you on substantially the same terms by contacting privacy@parlalive.com.
Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA)
SMS sent through Parla are governed by the TCPA. Parla operates under a registered 10DLC political-messaging campaign with its SMS provider, honors STOP / opt-out keywords automatically, and maintains opt-out suppression records. The campaign that sends a message is responsible for ensuring it has the consent or established relationship required to contact each recipient. Disputes regarding SMS consent or delivery may be directed to privacy@parlalive.com.
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
The Platform is not directed to children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The minimum age to create a Parla account is 18.
11. International Users
Parla is offered only in the United States and is hosted in the United States. By using the Platform, you understand and acknowledge that your information will be processed in the United States, where data-protection laws may differ from those of your country of residence. Access from outside the United States is blocked.
12. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes to our practices, the Platform, or applicable law. For material changes, we will provide notice through the app, the dashboard, email, or a banner on the website at least 14 days before the changes take effect; non-material changes (such as clarifications, formatting fixes, or contact-information updates) may take effect immediately. The "Last updated" date at the top of this Policy reflects the most recent change. Continued use of the Platform after the effective date of any change constitutes your acceptance of the revised Policy.
13. Contact Us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise a privacy right:
- Privacy: privacy@parlalive.com
- Support: support@parlalive.com
- Legal: legal@parlalive.com