How Canary Works

Effective Date: May 27, 2026

Canary is a personal safety app that lets you designate trusted contacts — friends or family — who receive an SMS alert if you trigger an emergency or miss a scheduled safety check-in. Messages are transactional, one-to-one, and sent only when user activity requires it. Canary does not send marketing, promotional, or automated broadcast messages of any kind.

Step-by-Step Message Flow

1. Setup — Adding Trusted Contacts During onboarding, you manually select up to 3 trusted contacts from your phone. Before completing setup, you are shown a confirmation prompt and required to acknowledge that each contact has agreed to receive emergency SMS alerts on your behalf. Contacts are not added without this acknowledgment.

When a new contact is added, they receive an invitation SMS and must reply YES before they are enrolled as a trusted contact:

[Name] wants to add you as a trusted contact on the Canary safety app. You’ll only be texted if they need help or miss a check-in. Reply YES to consent, or STOP to decline. Msg&data rates may apply. Learn more: https://canaryprevents.com/how-it-works

2. Safety Check-In At a scheduled time, Canary prompts you to confirm you’re safe. If you respond, no message is sent to your contacts.

Once they reply YES, they receive this confirmation: “You’re confirmed as a trusted Canary contact. You’ll only be texted if your contact needs help or misses a check-in. Reply STOP anytime to opt out.”

3. Alert Trigger If you miss a check-in or manually trigger an emergency alert, Canary sends an SMS to each of your designated trusted contacts:

Canary Alert: [Name] may need help. Check on them: https://canaryprevents.com/alert/abc123 — Reply STOP to opt out.

Messages include a link to a secure alert page with the user's last known status and, if enabled, location information.

Consent and Opt-In Process

All recipients are individually selected by the app user. The opt-in flow works as follows:

  • The Canary user selects a contact to invite as a trusted contact

  • The designated contact receives an invitation SMS explaining what Canary is and asking them to reply YES to consent, or STOP to decline

  • Only after the contact replies YES are they enrolled and eligible to receive future safety alerts

  • Recipients can opt out at any time by replying STOP

Canary does not add contacts automatically, does not send unsolicited messages, and does not use purchased or third-party contact lists.

SMS Program Details

Message type Transactional safety alerts only

Sent to User-designated trusted contacts

Trigger User action (missed check-in or manual alert)

Message frequency Varies based on user activity

Rates Message and data rates may apply

Opt out Reply STOP to any message

Help Reply HELP or email support@canaryprevents.com

Mobile number sharing We do not share, sell, or disclose mobile numbers to third parties

Example Messages

Invitation message (sent when a contact is selected):

Alex wants to add you as a trusted contact on the Canary safety app. You’ll only be texted if they need help or miss a check-in. Reply YES to consent, or STOP to decline. Msg&data rates may apply. Learn more: https://canaryprevents.com/how-it-works

Opt-in confirmation (sent after replying YES):

You’re confirmed as a trusted Canary contact. You’ll only be texted if your contact needs help or misses a check-in. Reply STOP anytime to opt out.

Alert message (sent when check-in is missed or alert is triggered):

Canary Alert: Alex may need help. Check on them: https://canaryprevents.com/alert/abc123 — Reply STOP to opt out.

Opt-out confirmation:

You have been unsubscribed from Canary alerts. You will not receive further messages. Reply START to resubscribe.

Help response:

Canary sends safety alerts only when your contact needs help. For support visit https://canaryprevents.com or email support@canaryprevents.com. Reply STOP to unsubscribe.

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