The Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999 made 9-1-1 the primary emergency service number in the US. It also required all wireless telecoms to provide access to the 911 network regardless of a phone having a current carrier contract.

This made every phone in the US that connect to a antenna a potential 911 device. We leveraged that hallmark act to create our program, which re-employs old or forgotten-about devices (in working condition) into dedicated 911 access phones that can be hidden and left charged, to be used only in the event of an emergency.

We accept all portable devices (cellular phones, tablets, laptops) in any condition. As our secondary mission is to promote ecological harmony, we work with a number of certified e-waste recyclers, to which we send the devices that we receive, but are unable to enter into our program.

We will not accept large items such as old TVs, desktop computers and monitors, and other consumer electronics that we do not have the capacity to package and ship. Please refer to your local landfill way station for guidance on where to recycle these devices close to you.

This happens all the time and is fairly easy to manage. Most, if not all, device providers allow cloud removal of your locked device. It’s generally as simple as logging in from a browser and removing the device from your device list.

For more information please refer to the manufacturer of the device.

If for any reason you need your device back, please reach out to us as soon as possible. When a device is received by us, it is stripped of all identifying characteristics (Sim Card, operating system, protective case, etc). Once a device is cleared and catalogued, it will be unrecoverable.

Over the last 20 years, Secure the Call has worked to build a robust network of service providers and police departments that distribute our devices, for free, to those at high risk of harm. We have partnerships with service providers across the country and we are adding more every day. Our goal is to ensure that anyone who needs a dedicated emergency phone can find one, for free, to ensure help is never out of reach.

Protecting your personal data is a top concern of ours. The best way to protect your data before sending it to us is to remove your operating system lock and to do a factory system reset.

However, if you are unable to or forget to do either of those recommendations, we take our own steps to protect your data. All phones that we receive are factory reset, by us, upon receiving them. Sim Cards are removed and destroyed onsite. We take your privacy seriously and understand that it is only through your trust that we are able to continue to provide this service.

Absolutely! Any devices donated to Secure the Call will get recycled in one way or another. Re-use is the first tenet of recycling, and as such, any device we distribute to one of our community partners is kept out of a landfill and put back to use as a phone. The devices that are not able to be employed as a Secure the Call device (broken devices, devices that are too old to function, etc) are first assessed for whether we can use any parts to refurbish other devices we have. We have relationships with phone repair specialists who restore good devices with minor issues such as broken screens, and we harvest parts from unusable devices to accomplish this. Last, if a device is deemed unusable, or if its left over from part harvesting, we send it to one of the certified e-waste specialists we work with to ensure the phone is properly handled and disposed of in accordance with international best practices.