# Myra — Crisis Response Protocol
**This page is the published protocol required by California SB 243 and New York
GBL Art. 47.** It describes what the app does when someone expresses thoughts of
suicide or self-harm.
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## What we do
Every message a user sends is screened before anything else happens — before the
message counts against any limit, and before the AI companion sees it.
Screening has two layers:
1. **A phrase list** covering explicit statements about suicide and self-harm.
2. **A meaning-based classifier** for messages that express distress without
using those phrases, because people in crisis frequently do not use them.
If either layer indicates risk, the app responds **directly, out of character**.
The AI companion is not involved and does not generate the reply. The user
receives a fixed message and a list of crisis support services localized to
their region.
## What we do not do
- **We never charge for it.** A crisis message consumes no message allowance and
is not affected by whether the user pays for anything. This cannot be
configured off.
- **We never let the character handle it.** The companion is not asked to
counsel anyone. The response comes from the app.
- **We never store the message content in our safety logs.** We record that a
crisis response was shown, and when. The text is not copied into the safety
record.
## What we tell the user
> Hey — thank you for telling me. I'm an AI, and what you're feeling deserves
> real human support. Please consider reaching out to someone you trust, or a
> crisis line — they're free, confidential, and available now. I'm still here to
> talk too. ❤️
Alongside it: crisis lines for the user's region, plus an international
directory and a reminder to use local emergency services in immediate danger.
## Limitations, stated plainly
Automated screening is not a clinical assessment. It will sometimes respond to
messages that were not about crisis, and it may not recognise every message that
is. It is tuned deliberately to over-respond rather than under-respond.
**Myra is not a counselling service, a crisis service, or a substitute for
professional care**, and the app says so during onboarding and in the ongoing AI
disclosure.
## Resource verification
Every crisis line shipped in the app is checked against the operator's own
published information before release, and carries a `verified` flag recording
that check.
**An unchecked line cannot reach a user.** The lookup filters on that flag
before returning anything, so a region whose line has not been verified shows
the international directory and the local-emergency-number reminder instead of
an unconfirmed national number. This is enforced in code, not by process.
**The application refuses to start — in every environment — if the
international fallback is ever empty or unverified**, because that is the one
condition under which a user in crisis could be shown a card with no way to
reach anyone.
An unverified *regional* line is deliberately **not** treated as a startup
failure. It is logged loudly and tracked as a release-checklist item. A backend
that refuses to start cannot serve the crisis card at all, so blocking a deploy
over a degraded-but-safe condition would reduce safety rather than increase it.
## Contact
Questions about this protocol: boonyboonapp@gmail.com
_Last reviewed: 20 July 2026_