Child Safety Standards
YAPPP · Last updated 20 September 2026
YAPPP arranges meetings between people in the real world. That is exactly the kind of service that has to be explicit about child sexual abuse and exploitation, so this page states our standards, what the app does to uphold them, and how to reach a person about it.
Our position
Child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) is prohibited on YAPPP without exception. Specifically, we prohibit:
- Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in any form, including photographs, drawings, and computer-generated imagery.
- Sexualising, or describing in sexual terms, anyone under 18.
- Grooming — building a relationship with a minor, or with someone presenting as one, in order to abuse or exploit them.
- Using YAPPP to arrange, offer, solicit or advertise contact with a minor for a sexual purpose, whether the meeting is on the app or elsewhere.
- Trafficking, or the sale or advertisement of a minor for any purpose.
This applies to everything on the service: profile photos and names, activity titles and notes, messages, and conduct at an activity someone found here. There is no tolerance threshold and no warning step. An account used for any of the above is removed.
YAPPP is for adults
You must be 18 or older to use YAPPP. This is stated in our Terms of Use and is a condition of holding an account, not a recommendation. We do not knowingly permit anyone younger to register, and an account we learn belongs to a minor is closed and its data deleted.
If you believe a minor is using YAPPP, report it — the same way as anything else below — and say so. We treat those reports ahead of the queue.
How the app is built to reduce the risk
These are properties of the software as it is shipped today, not plans.
| What | Why it matters here |
|---|---|
| There is no direct messaging | An adult cannot open a private conversation with another user. The only messaging is inside an activity, visible to everyone admitted to it, and it closes twelve hours after the activity ends. There is no private channel to groom someone in. |
| Profiles are not browsable | YAPPP has no directory, no search for people, no follower lists and no public profiles. You cannot go looking for a particular person, or for a category of person. You see who is coming to something you are also coming to. |
| Hosts control the door | A host can require approval before anyone joins, and sees who is asking before deciding. Until someone is admitted, the activity's exact location is withheld and shown only approximately. |
| Report on everything | Every profile, activity and message carries a report action. Nothing has to be screenshotted or emailed for us to act on it. |
| Blocking is mutual and total | Blocking someone removes both of you from each other's map entirely, in both directions, including in any conversation you were both part of. |
| Live location is never published | The app does not track anyone or share a live position. Location is used to centre a map and is rounded before it leaves the device. |
How to report
In the app
Open the profile, activity or message and choose Report. Tell us what you saw. Reports reach a person — during the pilot, within 24 hours.
By email
Write to chiranjeev@yappp.in. Use this if you no longer have the
app, if you are reporting on behalf of someone else, or if you are a parent,
guardian, school, or law enforcement.
Please do not attach suspected CSAM to an email. Forwarding it is itself unlawful in most jurisdictions, including India. Describe what you saw and where, and we will retrieve it ourselves.
What we do about a report
A person reviews every report. Where a report concerns child safety we act immediately rather than in turn. In practice that means:
- The content is removed from the service.
- The account responsible is suspended, and terminated if the report is substantiated. We do not restore these accounts.
- We preserve the material and the associated account records so they are available to law enforcement, rather than deleting them and losing the evidence.
- We report the matter to the relevant authorities, as below.
- We tell the person who reported it that it was received and closed. We do not share the outcome for another person's account.
Reporting to authorities
YAPPP complies with the child safety laws that apply to it and reports apparent child sexual abuse material to the appropriate national and regional authorities.
YAPPP is operated from Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Our obligations arise principally under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 (POCSO), the Information Technology Act 2000, and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021. Reports are made to India's National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal at cybercrime.gov.in and to local police where a specific child may be at risk. Where a report involves a person outside India, we additionally report to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline.
We respond to lawful requests from law enforcement for records relating to these reports, and we preserve those records on request.
Point of contact
The designated point of contact for child safety and CSAM prevention at YAPPP
is reachable at chiranjeev@yappp.in. This address is monitored
and is the right one for Google, for law enforcement, and for anyone raising a
child safety concern about the service.
Changes
These standards are published, and any change to them is published here. We will not narrow them quietly.