Safety and how to use PhoneLess
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number (911 in the US) before anything else. PhoneLess does not contact emergency services for you and is not monitored.
What PhoneLess is
PhoneLess lets you save a small set of emergency contacts in advance and reach them from any web browser, such as a borrowed phone, by entering your own phone number and a PIN you choose. It exists for the moment you no longer have your phone and can’t remember the numbers stored in it.
What PhoneLess is not
- It is not an emergency dispatch, monitoring, or rescue service. No one is sent to help you.
- It does not provide medical advice and does not verify any medical note you add.
- It does not guarantee that the service, your contacts, or an internet connection will be available when you need them.
Keep your card low-sensitivity
Your card opens with a PIN. That makes it usable on a stranger’s phone, but it is not high security. Anyone who learns your phone number and PIN can see what’s on your card. For your safety:
- Add only what you’d be comfortable with a stranger seeing in an emergency. Usually that means first names and phone numbers.
- Do not add home addresses, financial details, passwords, ID numbers, or detailed medical histories.
- Choose a PIN that isn’t easy to guess. Avoid 1234, repeated digits, birth years, or anything someone close to you would know.
How we protect your card
- Your card locks for 24 hours after three wrong PIN attempts.
- We email you whenever your card is opened, someone tries to open it, or it locks. Text alerts are coming soon.
- Your PIN opens your card for viewing only. Changing your card, PIN, or recovery email requires a 6-digit code sent to your email.
- We confirm you own your phone number with a text message code before your card is created.
- The lookup page never confirms whether a card exists for a number unless the correct PIN is entered.
- We limit and screen lookups to block automated guessing.
Know the limits
No security measure is perfect. Two limits are worth knowing:
- Someone close to you could guess a weak PIN. If you get an alert you don’t recognize, change your PIN right away, or delete your card.
- Someone who knows your number could lock your card on purpose by entering wrong PINs, which would block you for 24 hours. If you receive lockout alerts you didn’t cause, contact us at [support@phonelesscard.com].
If you may not remember a PIN
A PIN-based card may not suit anyone who could struggle to recall a PIN under stress. The optional Card+ physical backup card opens by scanning instead of memory. Anyone holding that card can open your emergency card, so keep it as carefully as a key.