Child safety standards

Last updated 24 October 2026

Child safety contact: safety@councilwhat.com

Council has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE), including child sexual abuse material (CSAM), grooming, sextortion, and any sexualisation of children. This page says what Council does to prevent it, how to report it, and who to contact.

1. Who can use Council

Council is for people 16 and over. It asks for a date of birth after an account is made, and a date that makes someone younger is refused and not kept. If we learn an account belongs to someone under 16, we close it.
People aged 16 and 17 can ask questions and read answers, but can't answer other people's questions, add photos or videos, receive anonymous messages, or buy paid extras. Their questions and stories are marked as written by a young person for administrators only, never publicly; their questions are never shown to search engines, and pictures shared of either carry none of their words.
On a question asked by someone under 18, administrators can see who answered, so that anyone who speaks to a young person can be held to account.
Council never asks people under 18 about their faith.

2. What is never allowed

Council's terms of use forbid, without exception:

any sexual content involving anyone under 18, real or drawn, written or pictured;
grooming: building contact with a young person in order to abuse or exploit them;
sextortion, or threatening to share intimate images of anyone;
asking a young person for images, personal details or contact off Council;
sharing, asking for or pointing to CSAM anywhere.

Breaking these rules ends the account at once, with no warning and no appeal, and is reported to the authorities.

3. How Council prevents it

Everything posted and sent, including anonymous messages, is checked automatically as it goes, and anything that may break the rules is held back until a person has looked at it.
Photos and videos can be added only by adults, and only when uploads are switched on. Before a file is stored, the details it carries about where and when it was made are removed.
There is no private chat between strangers. The only private messages are anonymous messages sent to someone's own link, and only adults can receive them.
Rate limits stop one person from sending many messages quickly, and the apps can be required to prove they're genuine before anyone signs up, posts or sends a message.

4. How to report

In the app or on the website: use Report on any question, answer, reply, story or anonymous message. Reports reach administrators straight away.
By email: write to safety@councilwhat.com. Say what it is and where (a link is best). You don't need an account.
If a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency number first.

5. What we do with a report

We remove the content, close the account, and keep what the law requires us to keep for the authorities.
We report child sexual abuse material and exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the United States, and to the authorities and hotlines that the law where it happened requires.
We cooperate with law enforcement requests made under the law.

6. Contact

Our designated contact for child safety, who can speak to Council's practices against CSAE and receive notices about it, is reached at safety@councilwhat.com.