What happens during a prison video call: the security selfie, face recognition, why a call pauses, managing participants and making the most of your time.
You’ve prepared everything and now it’s time for your video call with your loved one in prison, a secure hospital or a secure training centre. This guide walks you through exactly what happens during your call, how to handle face recognition technology and how to make the most of your precious time together.
Join the waiting room up to 10 minutes before your scheduled call time. The waiting room opens around 10 minutes before your booking, giving you time to complete the security selfie and make any last-minute technical adjustments. It’s better to be early than late.
If you’re late, you can still join, but you’ll lose part of your allocated time. Calls end at the scheduled finish time regardless of when you connect. Very late arrivals of 10 or more minutes may be considered a no-show, which can impact your future booking privileges.
When you open the app at your call time, navigate to “Upcoming Calls”, select your scheduled call and tap Join Call when the button becomes active. You’ll then enter the virtual waiting room.
In the waiting room, you’ll complete your security selfie verification and wait for your contact to be ready on their end. The Connect button will be grey initially and turns purple when both sides are ready to connect.
Only the main participant (account holder) takes the security selfie. You must complete this every time, before each call. Additional participants do not need to take selfies. This verifies your identity and ensures you’re the approved person making the call.
For successful selfie verification, your face must be clearly visible with even lighting and no harsh shadows. The lighting shouldn’t be too dark (face recognition won’t work) or too bright (washed out features).
Position yourself looking directly at the camera, facing it straight-on rather than at an angle. Fill most of the frame with your face and keep your device steady without shaking.
Your full face must be visible from forehead to chin. Move hair away from your face, remove glasses if they create glare and take off sunglasses, hats or face coverings. A neutral expression is preferred.
Avoid covering part of your face with your hand, letting hair fall across your face, looking away from camera, making extreme facial expressions or creating shadows that obscure your features. Don’t have anything covering your face at all.
Common rejection reasons include poor lighting (too dark or too bright), your face being partially obscured by hair, hands or objects, not looking directly at the camera, glare from glasses or the image being too blurry because you moved while taking it.
If this happens, adjust your lighting, move hair away from your face, look directly at the camera, hold your device steady and try again. If you’re still having trouble, move to a different location with better lighting, face a window for natural light, remove glasses temporarily, ask someone to help hold the device steady, ensure you are the only person visible, or check our Technical Troubleshooting guide for more tips.
Once both sides are ready, the Connect button becomes active, changing from grey to purple. Tap Connect and your video will start, and you’ll see your contact appear on screen.
In the first moments, give a few seconds for video and audio to sync. Wave and say hello, adjust the volume if needed and check that you can both see and hear each other clearly.
On screen, you’ll see your contact’s video displayed large as the main video, a preview of yourself small (usually in a corner), the time remaining showing a countdown of your call duration, the end call button in red to disconnect, a mute/unmute button to control your microphone (use sparingly) and a camera toggle to switch between front and rear camera if needed.
Purple Visits uses advanced face recognition for security and safeguarding. It continuously monitors who is visible on the call, ensures only approved participants are present, detects if unauthorised people appear in frame, pauses calls automatically if issues are detected and resumes automatically once resolved.
This technology is used to protect vulnerable individuals, ensure compliance with establishment rules, prevent unauthorised access to calls, safeguard everyone involved and meet required security clearance standards.
Your call will pause automatically for several reasons. Face-related issues include if your face is partially covered by hair, hands or a scarf or if someone unauthorised appears in frame. becomes distorted, lighting becoming too bright where your features wash out, shadows covering significant portions of your face or backlighting creating a silhouette effect.
If you have additional participants, calls pause when additional participants are not fully visible, partial faces like someone hiding behind another person can also cause the video call to pause.
Environmental factors that cause pauses include someone walking behind you in the background, pets jumping into frame, children not on the approved list appearing or mirrors or reflections showing additional people.
Think of professional news anchors sitting calmly and steadily, facing forward while looking at camera, with minimal movement, well-lit and clearly visible and maintaining professional, composed posture.
Apply this to your call by sitting still with natural movements (avoiding excessive fidgeting), facing forward while looking at the camera or screen rather than away, keeping hair back by tying back long hair or keeping it behind your ears, staying in frame without leaning too far forward, backward or to the side, maintaining good lighting without moving around to areas with different lighting and sitting upright in a comfortable but not slouched position.
This is not to say you can’t move around, however be mindful that this is a secure video call and due to the security features treating the call like a facetime call may cause interuptions that can be frustrating.
If your call pauses, don’t panic as it’s normal. The video freezes temporarily, an on-screen message explains the issue (with “Face not detected” or “Additional person detected” being common), but the call does not end, it just pauses.
When this happens, read the on-screen message as it tells you what’s wrong. Fix the issue by moving hair away from your face, adjusting lighting if too dark, ensuring all participants are visible or removing unauthorised people from frame. Wait patiently as the call resumes automatically and stay in position once it resumes.
The call automatically resumes once your face is clearly visible again, lighting is adequate, all participants are properly positioned and no unauthorised people are in frame. Remember that pauses do count toward your total call time, so minimize them by following best practices. Good preparation with proper lighting, positioning and clear views is key.
If you have additional participants, and you all want to be on the call at the same time, arrange strategically by sitting close together but not overlapping, ensuring the camera can see everyone clearly, avoiding people sitting behind others and considering sitting in a slight arc facing the camera.
For best arrangements with 2 people, sit side-by-side both facing camera. With 3 people, position two in front with one centered behind, all faces clear. With 4 people, use two rows of two with all faces fully visible.
Test before the call using your device camera app to check positioning. Can you see everyone’s full face clearly? Is lighting good on all faces? Adjust positioning until everyone is clearly visible.
If this is too much though thats fine, you can pass the device between any of the approved participants without issue, feel free to take turns rather than all trying to fit onscreen if thats getting difficult.
With multiple participants, take turns speaking so everyone can be heard. Allow quieter participants time to talk, don’t talk over each other, be mindful of time and share it fairly and include everyone in the conversation.
For smooth conversation, the main participant can moderate and facilitate. Go around giving everyone updates. Your contact may want to ask each person questions. Be patient as video calls have slight delays and natural pauses help everyone process what’s being said.
If someone leaves the frame thats fine, the call will continue without issue, they can come in and out as they wish. However partial faces may cause the system to pause, so remember, in or out no inbetween.
Typical durations are 30 minutes at most establishments, with 60 minutes at some establishments. Check your establishment’s page for specifics. The time remaining is displayed on screen during the call.
Time starts at your scheduled booking time, not when you connect. Even if you join late, it ends at the scheduled finish time.
Focus on what matters by sharing important news and updates, asking how they’re doing, talking about plans and hopes, expressing love and support and ending on a positive note when possible.
Be present by putting other devices away, focusing entirely on your conversation, making eye contact by looking at the camera, really listening when they speak and cherishing this face-to-face time.
In the final minutes, you’ll see time counting down. Don’t rush and use every moment. Say your goodbyes while you can still see each other, express love and support and let them know when you’ll try to call again.
Calls end automatically at the scheduled finish time with a brief warning before disconnection. Say goodbye before it cuts off and don’t panic if it ends abruptly as this is normal.
Feel free to discuss personal news and family updates, how you’re both doing emotionally, plans for the future, supportive positive messages, daily life and normal conversation, children’s activities and achievements and extended family news.
Don’t discuss specific details about prison security or routine, other individuals in custody (unless your contact mentions them first), anything that could get your contact in trouble, illegal activity or plans, ways to circumvent rules or systems or graphic or inappropriate content.
Remember that calls are monitored for security and safeguarding reasons. This protects everyone involved and is standard practice at all establishments. Focus on positive, supportive conversation.
Calls are monitored by security so any adult content displayed or nudity may be subject to prosecution under the online saftey act 2023. (So please keep it all above board.)
You must not record the video call in any way, take screenshots during the call, use any screen recording software or film the call with another device.
This is prohibited for legal and security requirements, privacy protection for all parties, safeguarding vulnerable individuals and establishment security protocols. Violations will result in your call being terminated without notice and can also result in account suspension.
Instead, be present and enjoy the moment, take mental notes of what you want to remember, write down key points after the call ends and focus on the experience rather than recording it.
Slight delays, brief freezing or minor audio issues usually resolve themselves quickly. Don’t panic or end the call. Wait a few seconds and continue your conversation.
If audio completely stops, video freezes permanently or the call disconnects, wait 30 seconds to see if it reconnects automatically, check your internet connection, try to rejoin the call through your bookings and contact support if the problem persists at our Get Help page.
Technical issues count toward your call time and lost time due to disconnections usually can’t be reclaimed. Document serious issues and contact support afterward. Learn more in our Technical Troubleshooting guide.
At the end of your scheduled time, the call disconnects automatically with a brief warning appearing before disconnection. Say your goodbyes before time expires.
If you need to end early, tap the red End Call button, confirm you want to disconnect, but remember that time used can’t be reclaimed or transferred.
The call booking is marked as completed, you’ll return to the main app screen, your free call allocation is updated if applicable and you can book your next call.
Video calls can bring up strong emotions and this is normal. It’s okay to feel sad when the call ends. Focus on the gift of having seen each other, look forward to your next call and reach out to support networks if you need to talk.
Speak clearly at normal volume, look at the camera when you want to make eye contact, be patient with slight delays in audio, have one person speak at a time to avoid confusion and use facial expressions because they can see you.
It’s okay to show emotion, whether tears or laughter. Stay positive when possible, focus on the present as you’re together right now, express love and support clearly and end on a hopeful note if you can.
Keep tissues handy, have water nearby, sit comfortably as you’ll be there 30-60 minutes, ensure no interruptions by locking doors and place your device on do not disturb mode it also helps to silence other devices and stay calm if minor technical hiccups occur.
After your call, reflect on your conversation, write down anything important you want to remember, think about what you’ll share next time and book your next call by Requesting a Video Call.
If you had technical issues, check our Technical Troubleshooting guide, document what happened, and contact support if serious problems occurred.
For questions about your next call, browse our Frequently Asked Questions, read about Preparing for Your Video Call, or contact us as we’re here to help.
Remember that these video calls are precious opportunities to see and connect with your loved one face-to-face. Follow the guidelines, stay calm if the call pauses briefly and focus on your time together. We’re here to make every call as smooth and meaningful as possible.