Telmate , a service used by incarcerated inmates at US prisons to communicate with their friends and loved ones , has exposed a database containing tens of millions of call logs , private messages , and personal information about inmates and their contacts . The database was exposed on the web without a password or any other authentication required to access it . Comparitech security researcher Bob Diachenko on August 13 , 2020 discovered the unsecured database and immediately reported it to Global Tel Link , the company that owns and operates Telmate . The company , to its credit , responded within two hours and secured the database an hour later , but it ’s possible that other unauthorized parties accessed it prior to Diachenko ’s disclosure . Telmate makes GettingOut , a service and app for iOS and Android that facilitates monitored inmate communications via voice and video calls , text and photo messages , and voicemail . ;