Child Safety Standards

Last updated: 2026-04-27 · Effective date: 2026-04-27

1. Our commitment

Whispers is built and operated in Yerevan, Armenia, and is published worldwide. We comply with the standards set by the Google Play Store, the Apple App Store, the EU Digital Services Act, the United Kingdom Online Safety Act, the United States PROTECT Act and 18 U.S.C. § 2258A reporting obligations, and any other applicable law in the jurisdictions where we operate.

We are committed to preventing the use of our service for any form of child sexual abuse, exploitation, grooming, sextortion, or distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

2. Strict 18+ age gate

Whispers is only available to users 18 years of age or older. There are no exceptions:

• Registration requires a date of birth. The server calculates age from DOB and rejects any registration where the calculated age is under 18 with HTTP 403 "You must be at least 18 years old to use Whispers.".
• Submitting a false date of birth is a violation of our Terms of Service and grounds for immediate permanent account termination and device ban.
• If we become aware that a user is under 18, we delete the account and add the device to our ban list to prevent re-registration on the same device.

3. Prevention measures

We design Whispers to be unfriendly to predators in three concrete ways:

3.1 Anonymous identity by design — and limits to that anonymity

• We collect no real names, email addresses, or phone numbers. There is no profile picture-search or contact import. This makes targeted approach by an outside predator practically impossible.
• However, anonymity is not a shield for offenders. We retain device IDs, IP addresses (30-day operational logs), and internal account metadata sufficient to comply with valid law-enforcement preservation orders and legal process.

3.2 Content rules and bidirectional blocking

• The Terms of Service strictly prohibit nudity, sexually explicit content, sexual solicitation, harassment, doxxing, hate speech, and sexual content involving minors.
• Any user can block another user with two taps. The block is bidirectional: blocked users cannot message, react to, comment on, or vote in the blocker's polls.
• Direct messages start with a chat-request flow. A stranger must ask before they can send any message; the recipient can accept or reject. Senders cannot bypass this gate.

3.3 Profanity and content filters

• Multilingual profanity filter (English + Armenian) applied at username registration and at every post and comment submission.
• Spam-pattern detection rejects garbage and repeat-character submissions.
• Image and video uploads are server-side resized and EXIF / GPS metadata is stripped before storage.

4. Detection

We detect potential CSAE through three channels:

• User reports. Every post, comment, group post, and chat thread carries a "Report" action. Users can also tap any avatar and "Report user". Reports are queued in our admin moderation queue.
• Auto-hide threshold. Five reports against a single piece of content automatically hide it from public view pending moderator review.
• Moderation review. Our admin team reviews flagged content. Suspected CSAE is not reviewed by general moderators — it is escalated to the senior compliance contact who has the legal training to handle the material safely and to file the required NCMEC CyberTipline report.

5. Response and escalation

When we identify content that meets the legal definition of CSAM, or behaviour that constitutes grooming, sextortion, or solicitation of a minor:

1. The content is removed immediately from public view and quarantined for the legal hold period required by reporting obligations.
2. The originating account is permanently terminated, all of its content is deleted, and the device ID is added to our banned-devices list to prevent re-registration on the same handset.
3. A CyberTipline report is filed with NCMEC (United States National Center for Missing & Exploited Children) under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A within 24 hours of confirmation.
4. Where the offender's jurisdiction is identifiable, we cooperate with the relevant national hotline (e.g. Internet Watch Foundation in the UK, Interpol's Crimes Against Children unit, the National Crime Agency, Europol's EC3, the Armenian Police Department for Combating Cybercrime). We respond promptly to lawful preservation requests, subpoenas, and emergency disclosure requests.
5. We preserve relevant metadata (IP logs, device ID, account history) for the period required by the receiving agency, even if the offender attempted to self-delete during the investigation.

We do not negotiate with offenders. There is no path to account reactivation after a confirmed CSAE termination.

6. How users and the public can report

If you encounter content on Whispers that involves or appears to involve a child, you can reach us through any of the channels below. Reports are reviewed daily; CSAE-tagged reports are reviewed immediately.

• Inside the app: tap the 3-dots menu on any post, comment, or chat thread → Report. Add a brief reason; "child safety" or "CSAE" in the reason text routes the report to the immediate-review queue.
• Email: turn.on.everywhere@gmail.com with the subject "Child safety report — Whispers".
• Telegram: @Whisperssupport.

If a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first (e.g. 911 in the United States, 112 in the European Union and Armenia, 999 in the United Kingdom). After contacting emergency services, please also send the report to us so we can preserve and remove the content.

7. External resources

8. Safety contact and law-enforcement liaison

9. Changes to this policy

We may update these standards as our service evolves and as the legal landscape changes. Material changes will be announced in the app and at https://whispersyvn.com/child-safety. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the latest revision.

10. Related documents

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service
• Delete account