Child safety standards

Our standard

Q Chat prohibits child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) of any kind, including child sexual abuse material (CSAM). This applies to every part of the service: the apps, Q Chat Web, private notes, the website and its support chat. Prohibited behaviour includes:

• creating, sharing, requesting, storing or linking to sexual images or videos of anyone under 18, including drawn, edited or AI-generated material;
• grooming: contacting a child to build trust for sexual purposes, or sexualised conversations with a minor;
• sextortion: threatening to share intimate images of a minor, or pressuring a minor to send them;
• trafficking, or advertising or soliciting a child for sexual purposes;
• any content that sexualises minors, or that normalises or promotes the sexual abuse of children.

The service is not intended for children: users must be at least 16 (13 in the United States where local law allows). See our terms and community guidelines.

How to report

• Report in the app: open the chat menu (⋮ on Android, the chat header menu on iPhone and on Q Chat Web) or the person's profile and tap Report, or long-press a message (use the message menu on the web) and tap Report. Message requests have Report & block, and a group's menu has Report group. Choose Child safety as the reason: these reports are reviewed first.
• What is sent: the reason, any details you add, and, if you leave “Include the last 10 messages” on, the last 10 messages from that person in that chat. For photos, videos and files only the file name, type and size are sent, never the file itself. “Also block” is on by default and stops them from messaging or calling you. The reported person isn't told who reported them.
• Other ways to tell us: message @qchat in the app, or e-mail support@qchat.im. Include the username of the account and, if you can do so safely and lawfully, a description of what happened and when. Never send us images or videos of child abuse; describe them instead.
• If a child is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number or police first.
• You can also report directly to the NCMEC CyberTipline (United States), the Internet Watch Foundation (UK), or a hotline in your country listed by INHOPE.

What we do

Messages on Q Chat are end-to-end encrypted, so we can't scan or read them. We rely on reports and on the information we do hold, including the messages a reporter chooses to include. When we receive a report:

• child safety reports go to the front of the review queue, and we review them normally within 24 hours;
• we suspend and then permanently remove accounts involved in child sexual abuse or exploitation, and revoke their licences without refund;
• we report apparent CSAM and child exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and to the competent law-enforcement authorities, as the law requires;
• we preserve the limited data we hold about the account (see law enforcement) for authorities, and cooperate with valid legal requests;
• we keep the reporter's identity confidential.

Prevention in the product

• No public directory or search: people can only contact you if they know your exact username or scan your QR code.
• Messages from people who aren't your contacts arrive as message requests, with Block, Delete and Accept. Read receipts and typing aren't sent until you accept.
• Blocking is silent and covers messages and calls on all your devices.
• Every one-to-one chat, profile, message, message request and group has a built-in Report option.
• Calls from strangers are relay-only, so they never learn your network address.
• Rate limits restrict how many new people one account can contact per day, which slows down mass contact.

Point of contact

Our designated child-safety contact can be reached at support@qchat.im. This contact is able to speak to our child-safety practices and compliance, and handles reports from users, authorities and app stores.