UPCOMING LEGAL UPDATES
An explanation of the changes ahead with a list of the new legal documents for review at the bottom.
A CLEARER SOUND OFF — EFFECTIVE OCTOBER 5, 2026
An open letter to everyone in the Sound Off community — the Veterans and Service Members who seek support here, the Counselors who provide it, and the Peer Supporters who have walked the same road.
Sound Off exists for one reason: so that anyone who has served can talk to someone — anonymously, without cost, without a record following them — before a hard season becomes a crisis. That mission hasn't changed. But over the past year, working with our outside counsel and our Mental Health Advisory Council, we have rewritten the documents that govern this platform so they describe that mission with complete clarity.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
On October 5, 2026, an updated set of platform documents takes effect: our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Informed Consents, and the agreements for our Counselors and Peer Supporters. All of them are published on this page today, so you can read them without hurry. Starting October 5, everyone — Persons Seeking Help, Counselors, and Peer Supporters — will be asked to accept the updated documents in the app. Acceptance is a simple tap.
WHY WE'RE DOING THIS
The new documents say plainly what Sound Off has always been: a platform for NON-MEDICAL counseling and peer support.
The support you find here is psychoeducational, preventative, solution-focused, and short-term. It is not medical care, not psychotherapy, not diagnosis, not treatment. And nothing on the platform involves prescribing.
We say this proudly, not apologetically — because it is exactly why Sound Off works. We combine anonymity with skilled, human, non-medical support. When we name what we do honestly:
- Persons Seeking Help keep the promise that matters most: talk to someone without creating a medical record, a diagnosis, or a bill.
- Counselors know exactly where the ceiling of care sits here, which frees them to work fully up to it and to say plainly when someone needs something beyond it.
- Peer Supporters can do what peers do best: show up as someone who has been there, without pretending to be something else.
We've also updated crisis resources throughout (call 988; veterans press 1, or text 838255), retired the term "Clinician" in favor of "Counselor," and — out of an abundance of caution, even though our platform is designed so protected health information never reaches us — adopted HIPAA-grade data protections, fully effective January 1, 2027.
LINKS TO UPDATED LEGAL DOCUMENTS
If anything is unclear, write to us at info@sound-off.com. A real person answers.
To this whole community: thank you. You built the thing these documents describe. We just wrote it down.
William NegleyCEO, Sound Off, Inc.