Child Safety Standards

ClassMates is a study app, and many of the people who use it are children. We have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE). These standards apply to everyone on ClassMates: students, teachers, parents and guardians, moderators, admins and our own staff.

What is never allowed

• Child sexual abuse material of any kind, including drawings and AI-generated images.
• Sexualising a child in words, images or video.
• Grooming: building trust with a child in order to abuse or exploit them. This includes asking a child for photos, for secrets, to meet in person, or to move to another app.
• Sextortion: threatening to share images or information unless someone sends photos, money or anything else.
• Asking a child for sexual content, or sending sexual content to a child.
• Sharing sexual images of anyone under 18, even if they agreed or took the image themselves.
• Trafficking or exploiting a child for sex.
• Helping, encouraging or linking to any of these.

If someone has shared an image of you, or is pressuring you, it is never your fault. Tell a trusted adult and report it.

How ClassMates is built to protect children

• No private messages. Chat happens only in groups.
• Checked before anyone sees it. Guardian AI checks every message, shared note, flashcard deck, file and link before the group sees it. If it can't check something, a person looks first. Images are checked too.
• Contact details are held. Phone numbers, personal e-mail addresses and social media names aren't posted, which makes it harder to move a conversation off ClassMates.
• Warning signs go to a person, urgently. Signs of grooming, or requests for sexual content, are held and sent to a person as an urgent case.
• AI never decides. It can flag and hold content, but only a person can remove content or restrict an account.
• Age rules. Everyone must be at least 13. Younger students need a parent or guardian to approve their account before they can join groups. We work out age from the birth year, assuming the birthday hasn't happened yet this year.
• No directory of members. Nobody can browse a list of children. People who share only open community groups see display names, never full names.
• No made-up teachers. Choosing "Teacher or tutor" gives no teacher powers. Only a school gives teacher roles, and adults can't hold a teacher role in the open community.
• Organisations are checked. We review every organisation before it can add students.
• Calls are limited. Where calls are turned on, they happen only between people who already share a group, and only when someone chooses to join. In the open community, a child and an adult can never call each other. Nothing is recorded.
• Quiet hours. Children in the open community have quiet hours on by default.

How to report

In the app:

• To report a message, touch and hold it (or right-click it in a browser), then choose Report message.
• To report a person, open the group's Members, touch and hold their name, then choose Report.
• Reports are confidential. A person reviews every one, and the person reported isn't told who reported them.

Without the app, or if you're not a ClassMates user: contact our child safety point of contact (below).

Please don't forward, save or screenshot abusive images, even to report them. Report the message instead.

If a child is in immediate danger, contact the police straight away. In Sri Lanka, children can also call 1929, the National Child Protection Authority's helpline. It's free, open 24 hours, and speaks Sinhala, Tamil and English.

What we do when CSAE is flagged or reported

1. It's held. Content Guardian AI flags is held before anyone else sees it.
2. A person reviews it. Every report and every flagged case goes to a person: the school's moderators and safeguarding lead, or our own safety team for groups outside a school. Urgent cases go straight to the safeguarding lead.
3. A person decides. People decide what happens: removing content, pausing or closing accounts, and involving the right adults. AI never makes these decisions.
4. We preserve evidence. We keep the case record and the content involved under strict access controls. Every time a moderator reveals who was involved, it's logged. An account involved in an open case isn't deleted until the case is closed. TBD-OWNER: the preservation period and process for CSAE evidence, as confirmed by legal counsel (today, files blocked by a safety check are kept for 30 days and safety records for 3 years).
5. We report to the authorities where the law requires it. TBD-OWNER: which authorities ClassMates reports to, and under which laws, as confirmed by legal counsel.
6. We support the child. A student who may need help sees their school's support contacts. We never show them AI-written advice.

Child sexual abuse material is never put back, even on appeal.

Our child safety point of contact

Write to hello@classmates.lk with "Child safety" in the subject line. It goes to our designated child safety point of contact. TBD-OWNER: the name or role of the designated child safety point of contact.

The law

We follow the child safety laws that apply to us, and we cooperate with the authorities. TBD-OWNER: the laws ClassMates is subject to for child safety, as confirmed by legal counsel.

See also our Community Guidelines, Safety Centre and Privacy Policy.