Child Safety Standards

The short version

• CicadaChat is for adults only. You must be 18 or older to use it.
• We have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), grooming and sextortion.
• Anyone can report it from inside the app, in two taps, choosing “Involves a child”.
• When we find it, we remove it, ban the account and report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and to the police where the law requires.
• Our child safety contact is support@cicadachat.com.

1. Our standard

CicadaChat (“we”, “us”) prohibits child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) everywhere in the Service: the chat at cicadachat.com, the CicadaChat Android app and this blog. That includes rooms, private chats, private rooms, profile photos, names, business cards and blog comments. These standards apply to everyone who uses CicadaChat, as a guest or with an account, and they sit alongside our Terms of Service, which forbid the same things.

2. CicadaChat is for adults

CicadaChat puts people in conversation with strangers based on where they are, so it is not a place for children.

• You must be 18 or older to use the Service. This is in our Terms of Service.
• Before the Android app creates any account, it asks you to confirm that you are 18 or over and to accept the Terms. If you say you are under 18, it does not let you in.
• We do not knowingly allow anyone under 18 to use CicadaChat. If we learn that an account belongs to a child, we delete it.

3. What is not allowed

You must never use CicadaChat to:

1. Share, request, link to or store child sexual abuse material (CSAM) of any kind, including drawn, animated, AI-generated or edited images that sexualise children.
2. Groom a child: build a relationship with a minor, or with someone you believe to be a minor, in order to sexually abuse or exploit them, online or in person.
3. Sexualise children, including sexual comments about a minor, or content that presents children in a sexual way.
4. Sextort anyone under 18, or threaten to share intimate images of them.
5. Arrange to meet a child for sexual purposes, or traffic or advertise children for sexual purposes.
6. Find, locate or follow a child, including by using the distances the app shows.
7. Normalise, promote or encourage any of the above.

This applies to everything you post, including attachments and messages to the AI chat bots. The bots are instructed to refuse sexual content, and their answers can be reported like anyone else's.

4. How to report

In the app. Every message and every person can be reported from where you see them:

• On the web, use the flag on a message, or the shield in a private chat.
• In the Android app, long-press a message, or use the shield in a private chat.

Choose “Involves a child” as the reason and, if you can, add a note. Reports go to a person, not an algorithm, and the person you report is never told who reported them. We keep a copy of the reported message with the report, so it can be dealt with even if the sender deletes it. You can block the person at the same time.

By email. Write to support@cicadachat.com with what you saw, the room or chat, the approximate time and the person's name as shown. Please do not attach or forward abusive images of children. Describe them instead.

If a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first. You can also report child sexual abuse material directly to NCMEC's CyberTipline, or to the Internet Watch Foundation.

5. What we do

A person reviews every report. Reports that involve a child are dealt with ahead of everything else. When we find content or behaviour that breaks these standards, we:

• Remove the content. It disappears from every screen it is on straight away, in the app and on the web.
• Ban the account. A banned account is signed out everywhere at once and cannot sign in again, whether with a password, with Google or as a guest. We ban new accounts the same person creates as soon as we find them.
• Report it. We report apparent child sexual abuse material and child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), and to law enforcement where the law requires it or a child may be at risk.
• Preserve evidence. We keep what the law requires us to keep for the authorities, secured and accessible only to the people handling the case, for as long as the law requires.
• Cooperate with the authorities. We respond to valid requests from law enforcement in child safety investigations.

6. How CicadaChat is built to protect people

• Nobody sees your location. Other people only ever see a rounded distance, never coordinates. Photos are re-encoded before upload, which removes the GPS position a camera may have recorded.
• Blocking hides both ways. Once you block someone, neither of you sees the other's messages, and they cannot message you or send you a friend request.
• No contact from strangers into private rooms. Only someone who is already your accepted friend can add you to a private room.
• The AI chat bots never ask for anyone's location, address, phone number or other personal details, they discourage people from posting them, and they decline sexual requests.
• Moderators can act at once. Removing content or banning an account takes effect on every connected screen immediately.

7. Compliance with the law

We comply with the child safety laws that apply to us, including the obligation to report child sexual abuse material to NCMEC and to the relevant authorities. Nothing in our Privacy Policy stops us sharing information with the authorities to protect a child. See who we share data with.

8. Child safety contact

Our designated point of contact for child safety, for the public, for Google Play and for law enforcement, is reachable at support@cicadachat.com. Write “Child safety” in the subject line, and we will treat your message as urgent.