Child Safety Standards

1. Our Commitment

SyncUp is a service for watching video together with friends. Child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) has no place on it. This page sets out the standards we hold every user to, how anyone can report a child safety concern, what we do when we receive one, and who to contact about it.

These standards apply everywhere SyncUp runs: the website at syncup.tv, the browser extension, and the SyncUp apps for iOS and Android. They apply to every part of the service where a user can reach another user, including room chat, direct messages, display names and profile pictures, voice chat, shared video, and screen sharing.

2. What Is Prohibited

The following are prohibited without exception, and are grounds for immediate removal of the content and permanent termination of the account:

• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in any form, including images, video, audio, drawings, animation, computer-generated or AI-generated depictions, and text
• Sexualising a minor in any way, including sexual commentary about a child, or sexualised display names, profile pictures or room names
• Grooming: building a relationship with a minor in order to sexually exploit them, including attempts to move a minor to another platform for that purpose
• Sextortion: threatening to share a minor's intimate imagery in order to obtain more imagery, money, or any other benefit
• Soliciting, offering, trading, or advertising CSAM, or advertising a minor for sexual purposes
• Trafficking of a minor, or any other real-world sexual exploitation of a minor arranged or facilitated through SyncUp
• Any other content or conduct that sexualises, endangers, or exploits a person under 18

These rules protect anyone under 18, regardless of the age of consent or the age of digital consent where they or the offender live.

3. Minimum Age

SyncUp is intended for users aged 13 and over. We do not knowingly allow anyone under 13 to create an account or use the service. If you are in a country where the age of digital consent under GDPR Article 8 is higher than 13, you need permission from a parent or legal guardian to use SyncUp until you reach that age. This matches section 13 of our Privacy Policy.

If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, we close it and delete the associated personal data. A parent or legal guardian can ask us to do this at any time through the contact routes in section 7.

4. How to Report a Child Safety Concern

Every user can report CSAE from inside SyncUp, on the web and in the mobile apps, without needing to contact us separately:

• In a room, open the menu on a chat message or on a person in the member list and choose Report
• In a direct message conversation, open the menu on a message or on the person and choose Report
• Select the reason "Child sexual abuse or exploitation" and add any detail that helps us find it

Reports filed with that reason go into the same moderation queue as every other report and are prioritised above all other categories. You do not need an account to raise a concern: anyone can also write to us using the contact form or email the child safety contact in section 7.

Reporting does not block the person. If you also want their messages hidden from you immediately, use Block, which works in both directions and takes effect straight away.

If a child is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first. Reporting to us is not a substitute for contacting the police.

5. How We Respond

When we receive a report of CSAE, or otherwise become aware of it, we:

• Review it as our highest moderation priority, ahead of every other report category
• Remove the content from the service
• Terminate the offending account permanently, and any other account we can attribute to the same person
• Preserve the account records, message content, and metadata we hold, so they remain available to law enforcement even though the content is no longer visible to users
• Report the matter to the competent authorities, as described in section 6

We do not warn, suspend temporarily, or otherwise give a second chance for CSAE. There is no appeal process for a termination on these grounds.

We never store, reproduce, or forward suspected CSAM in the course of a review beyond what is strictly necessary to remove it and to preserve evidence for the authorities.

6. Working With Authorities

SyncUp is operated from the Netherlands. Where we identify apparent child sexual abuse material or an offence against a minor, we report it to law enforcement and to the relevant reporting hotline, and we comply with lawful requests for the records we have preserved. We cooperate with valid requests from law enforcement in other jurisdictions through the applicable legal channels.

We comply with the child safety obligations that apply to us, including those under EU and Dutch law, and with the child safety requirements of the app stores that distribute SyncUp, including Google Play's Child Safety Standards policy and the App Store Review Guidelines.

7. Child Safety Point of Contact

Law enforcement, app store reviewers, child safety organisations, and members of the public can reach our designated child safety contact at:

[email protected]

Please put "Child safety" in the subject line so it is routed correctly. Mail to this address reaches the person responsible for moderation at SyncUp. You can also use the contact form, which lands in the same inbox.

8. Prevention and Detection

Alongside reporting and enforcement, we run the following measures:

• A server-side filter blocks messages containing child sexual content terms before they reach anyone else's screen. It is a keyword filter, not a classifier, and it is a first line of defence rather than a substitute for human review
• Blocking is symmetric and server-enforced: it suppresses chat, direct messages, friend requests and presence in both directions, and cannot be circumvented from the client
• Rooms are private by default and joined by code or invite, so a room is not a public space that a stranger can browse into
• Reports are retained as a record of the decision, including a snapshot of the reported message, so an account that deletes itself does not erase the evidence against it

SyncUp is a small, independently operated service. We do not claim to run automated CSAM hash-matching or age verification. We are honest about that rather than overstating our capabilities, and we treat reports and human review as the primary mechanism.