Incognum

Legal

Acceptable use policy

Short and concrete on purpose. A vague list is a list that gets enforced arbitrarily.

  • Updated 10 October 2026
  • 6 sections
  • 6 min read
  • Written for this service

The short version

The summary is here to save you time, not to replace the text. Where the two disagree, the sections below are what applies.

1What this service is for

In shortKeeping your real number out of other people's databases. That is the normal case and we do not treat it as suspicious.

We want to be explicit about this, because every other provider's policy is written as if the customer were the threat. These are all ordinary, welcome uses:

  • Signing up to a service without giving it your real number. Marketplaces, dating apps, delivery, ride-hailing, forums, crypto exchanges, anything that demands a number and then loses it in a breach.
  • A second number for work, or for a country you sell into, so customers reach a local line and you keep your own.
  • A disposable number for a transaction — a classified ad, a rental, a one-off deal — that you release afterwards.
  • Getting away from someone. If you are changing numbers because of an ex-partner, a stalker or a harasser, that is exactly the case this product is good at, and there is nothing to explain to us.
  • Automating your own verification flows through the API, at a human scale.

We do not ask what a line is for, we do not profile usage, and we do not flag an account because it ordered several numbers. The limits below are about harm, not about privacy.

2What ends a line immediately

In shortFour categories. No warning, no refund, and the access key goes with the line. These are reported to the competent authorities.

Nothing below is negotiable, and none of it gets a grace period:

  • Anything involving a child. Sexual content involving minors, grooming, or contacting a child in any context. Reported, every time, with everything we have.
  • Fraud against a person. Impersonating a bank, a delivery company, a tax office, a relative in trouble; romance and investment scams; intercepting someone else's verification codes; taking over an account that is not yours.
  • Threats, harassment and stalking. Threats of violence, repeated unwanted contact, doxxing, using a line to locate or intimidate a person, swatting.
  • Terrorism and violent extremism. Organising, financing or promoting it.

In these cases the line is released at once, the access key is closed, the balance is forfeited, and we preserve what we hold for the authorities. section 5, « How we enforce this » explains what « what we hold » means in practice — it is not much, and it is still enough to matter in these cases.

3Bulk, automated and application messaging

In shortNot allowed. It is not a moral rule: mass sending from a retail line gets the whole carrier range blocked within hours, for every customer on it.

A retail number is provisioned for person-to-person traffic. Carriers watch for anything else and react by blocking the range, not the sender — which takes down every other customer with a number in it.

So the following are refused, and cut when detected:

  • Marketing or promotional SMS of any kind, including to people who asked for it. That traffic belongs on an A2P route with a registered sender ID, which is a different product from a different kind of provider.
  • Sending the same or near-identical message to many recipients, however it is spread out.
  • Transactional notifications from your product to your users: alerts, one-time codes, order updates.
  • Automated mass account creation — hundreds of signups from a pool of our numbers into one platform. One person protecting their own accounts is normal; a farm is not, and it is what gets our ranges on rejection lists.
  • Reselling numbers as your own service, or renting out access to a line, without a written agreement with us.

If you have a legitimate volume use, tell us in a support ticket before you start. Sometimes the answer is a proper arrangement; sometimes it is honestly « we are not the right provider ». Either beats being cut mid-campaign.

In shortSome things are legal in one country and not in the next: recording a call, using a foreign number for business, gambling. That part is on you.

We sell numbers in 47 countries and cannot know the law that applies to you. A few areas where the rules differ sharply and where the responsibility is yours:

  • Recording a call. Some countries require both parties to consent, some only one. Our lines do not record calls, but voicemail is a recording and how you use it is governed by your local law.
  • Using a local number from abroad for business. Some regulators restrict presenting a national number without local presence, especially for landlines.
  • Regulated activity. Gambling, financial advice, pharmaceuticals, adult services — a number does not change whether the activity is licensed where you operate.
  • Evading a sanction or an export control. Not allowed, whatever the number is used for.

When a carrier or a numbering authority tells us that a use breaks the rules of that country, we have to act on it, and we will tell you which rule and which country. See the terms of service on suspension.

5How we enforce this

In shortEvidence, not accusations. Suspend before terminate where there is doubt, say which rule applies, and reverse it when we got it wrong.

We do not read your messages. Enforcement starts from something outside the panel: a report with evidence, a carrier complaint about a range, a court order, or a delivery pattern that is unmistakably machine traffic.

What happens then:

  1. For anything in section 2, « What ends a line immediately », the line goes immediately and we preserve what we hold.
  2. For everything else, we suspend the line and tell you in the panel which rule was hit and what the report said. A suspension is reversible; a release is not, and we would rather be wrong in the reversible direction.
  3. You answer in a support ticket from the panel. A person reads it. If the report was wrong, the line comes back and the days lost are credited.
  4. If it was right, the line is released. No refund of the period or the activation.

We will not, and cannot, hand over an identity we never collected. What we hold is listed in the privacy policy, and it is short. That is a deliberate design and it does not change under pressure — but it also means the four categories in section 2, « What ends a line immediately » get everything we have, without hesitation.

6If one of our numbers is used against you

In shortThere is no public form and no e-mail address. Report it where it happened and to the police; a lawful order gets everything we hold.

We do not take reports through the website: there is no public form and no e-mail address, for the same reason there is no e-mail address anywhere else on it. What works, in order:

  • Report it on the platform where it happened. A messenger, a marketplace or a social network can close the account behind the number within minutes; it is usually the fastest way to make it stop.
  • Report it to the police, with the full number and its country code, the date and time with your time zone, and what happened. A lawful order reaches us through the legal process and gets everything listed in the privacy policy.
  • If you are a customer, open a support ticket from your panel with the number and what happened.

Anything involving a child, an immediate threat to someone's safety or large-scale fraud is acted on the same day it reaches us, without waiting for a formal order. We describe up front, in the privacy policy, what we can and cannot produce, so nobody wastes time on an order for data that does not exist.


This document was last changed on 10 October 2026 and applies from 10 October 2026. Previous versions are kept and sent on request. Customers can ask about any clause through a support ticket in the panel — we answer in plain words, with the clause number.

Any of this a dealbreaker?
Better to know now.

Everything above describes what actually happens. If it fits, a line is live about a minute after you pay.