Responsible use
Responsible use
Public safety technology should be used in ways the communities it serves would recognize and accept. This is how Tellwright decides whom it works with, how its products are built, and what it does when it learns of misuse.
Our view
The decisions about how public safety and national security technology is used belong to the communities agencies serve, the officials those communities elect, and the courts. They do not belong to a software company.
We don’t set policy. We make it possible. Our job is to build products that let every mission partner follow the laws and policies it is given, show that it has, and change course when those policies change. We have held that view since our Responsible Use Framework was published in August 2020, and it guides every decision on this page.
The Responsible Use Framework
The framework sets out commitments in five areas:
- Customer review. We sell only to organizations that pass review by our customer review committee, which considers the customer’s legal authority, oversight, record and intended use. In 2025 the committee reviewed 412 prospective customers and declined 9.
- Controls in the product. Every product logs every search, view and export against a user and a reason. Every product lets the mission partner set retention.
- Training. Every user completes responsible use training before first access and every year after.
- Misuse. When we receive credible information that a product may have been used outside the terms of an agreement, we open a review, and where the facts warrant it we suspend access.
- Transparency. We publish a transparency and responsible use report every year.
The Responsible Use Council
The Responsible Use Council reviews sensitive deployments, applications to the Lawful Access Program, new products and significant new features, and the outcome of misuse reviews. It is chaired by our Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer, Celia Rourke, and its members are our chief executive officer, chief technology officer and general counsel. It meets monthly and whenever a decision cannot wait.
The council’s decisions are recorded and reported, in aggregate, in our annual report.
What we will not do
- Sell to governments subject to U.S. sanctions or arms embargoes, or to any customer our review committee declines.
- Offer facial recognition in Kerbside.
- Allow Murmur to access private messages, private accounts or closed groups.
- Make remote collection available outside the Lawful Access Program.
- Sell data that mission partners entrust to us.
- Comment on, confirm or deny any mission partner’s use of our products. Those questions are for the mission partner, which answers to its own oversight bodies.
Reporting misuse
If you have information that a Tellwright product has been used outside the law or the terms of a mission partner’s agreement, write to responsibleuse@tellwrightsystems.com. Reports are read by the Office of the Chief Privacy and Civil Liberties Officer. We may not be able to tell you the outcome, because we do not comment on mission partners, but every credible report is reviewed and counted in our annual report.
Reports
Our latest report is the 2025 Transparency and Responsible Use Report, published in September 2026. It covers customer reviews, misuse reviews, legal demands for customer data and retention.