Child Safety
Please read this page carefully. It governs your use of the Listeners Connect platform.
Listeners: Talk to Someone and Listener Partners maintain a zero-tolerance policy toward Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE) and Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). Any such content, conduct, or attempt results in immediate account termination and reporting to law enforcement.
1. Scope
These child safety standards govern two separate applications published on Google Play by Listeners, both operating on the same emotional support and relationship guidance platform: Listener Partners and Listeners: Talk to Someone
Listener Partners
The partner application. Verified listeners and experts use it to receive and respond to support requests from users.
Listeners: Talk to Someone
The user application. Adults seeking emotional support use it to hold private one-to-one conversations with listeners and experts.
These standards apply in full and without variation to both applications, and to every user, listener, expert, moderator, employee, and contractor operating on or through either of them. Where a requirement applies specifically to one application, that application is named.
These standards are published in compliance with the Google Play Child Safety Standards policy, the Apple App Store Review Guidelines, and applicable Indian law, including the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, Section 67B of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
2. Prohibition of Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE)
Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation is strictly and absolutely prohibited on Listeners: Talk to Someone and on Listener Partners. The following are banned without exception:
Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) in any form — images, video, audio, text, drawings, animation, or computer-generated or AI-generated depictions of minors in a sexualised context.
Sexualisation of a minor, including sexualised descriptions, roleplay, requests, or commentary involving any person under 18 years of age.
Grooming — building trust, rapport, or emotional dependency with a minor for the purpose of sexual exploitation or abuse.
Sextortion — threatening to expose intimate content of a minor in order to obtain money, further content, or compliance.
Solicitation of a minor for sexual purposes, or attempting to arrange contact or an in-person meeting with a minor for such purposes.
Child trafficking and child sex tourism, and the advertisement, promotion, or facilitation of either.
Requesting, sharing, or linking to CSAM, including links to off-platform services or groups where such material is exchanged.
Endangering a minor, including sharing personal or identifying information about a minor in a manner that places that minor at risk.
For the purpose of these standards, a "minor" or "child" means any person under 18 years of age, regardless of the age of majority in that person's jurisdiction.
These prohibitions apply to every surface of both applications — private conversations, voice and text sessions, profiles, usernames, display pictures, biographies, uploaded media, and payment notes.
3. Minimum age and age enforcement
Listeners: Talk to Someone and Listener Partners are both 18+ applications. Persons under 18 years of age are not permitted to create an account or use either application in any capacity.
On Listener Partners (partner application)
Every listener and expert completes an onboarding verification process that includes confirmation of adult age before they may accept any conversation.
Listeners and experts are contractually required to end a session and report immediately if they have any reason to believe the person they are speaking with is under 18. Failure to do so is grounds for removal from the platform.
Listeners and experts receive child safety guidance at onboarding covering the identification of grooming behaviour, age-misrepresentation signals, and the reporting process.
On Listeners: Talk to Someone (user application)
Every user must confirm at registration that they are 18 years of age or older.
Any account identified or reasonably suspected as belonging to a minor is suspended immediately and permanently terminated following review.
Applying to both applications
Attempts to circumvent our age requirements — falsifying age, using another person's identity documents, or re-registering after termination — result in a permanent ban across both applications and, where warranted, referral to law enforcement.
Data associated with a terminated account is handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable law.
Neither application is directed at children. Neither is distributed in a child-directed category, and neither participates in any family or child programme on any app store.
4. How we prevent CSAE on our platform
We operate layered preventive and detective controls across both applications:
Age gating at registration on Listeners, and adult-age verification during onboarding on Listener Partners.
Automated safety checks. Automated systems screen profile content, usernames, and message traffic for terms, patterns, and behavioural signals associated with CSAE and grooming, and escalate matches for human review.
Human moderation. A trained safety team reviews all escalated content and all user reports from both applications. Reviewers are trained to recognise grooming behaviour, age-misrepresentation signals, and CSAE indicators.
In-app reporting available on every conversation and every profile in both applications (see Section 5).
Verified partners. No listener or expert may accept a conversation until verification is complete.
Account verification and fraud monitoring to detect fake accounts, duplicate registrations, and ban evasion across both applications.
Blocking controls. Users and partners can end a session and block another account at any time.
Staff training. Personnel with access to user content receive child safety training covering identification, escalation, and preservation of evidence.
No public content feed. Neither application hosts a public content feed or an open media-sharing surface, which materially limits distribution vectors for prohibited material.
5. How to report a child safety concern
In-app reporting
Any user of Listeners: Talk to Someone, and any listener or expert on Listener Partners, can report a concern without leaving the application:
Open the conversation, or the profile of the account concerned.
Tap the menu icon (⋮) in the top-right corner and select Report.
Choose the reason — including Child safety concern — add any details, and submit.
Feedback and concerns may also be submitted inside either application through the in-app support options or directly from the session menu. At no point is a user required to leave the app to submit a report.
Reporting by email
Concerns may also be sent directly to support@listenersconnect.com, naming the application concerned. Child safety reports sent to this address are routed to our Trust & Safety team and prioritized ahead of all other correspondence. Reports may be submitted anonymously.
Please do not download, save, screenshot, or forward suspected child sexual abuse material. Possessing or transmitting such material is a criminal offence, including where the intent is to report it. Report the account to us and to the authorities, and allow trained investigators to handle the content.
Reporting directly to authorities
India — National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal: cybercrime.gov.in (dedicated category for crimes against women and children)
India — CHILDLINE: 1098
India — National Emergency Number: 112
International — NCMEC CyberTipline: report.cybertip.org
International — INHOPE: inhope.org
6. Our method for addressing CSAM and CSAE reports
Child safety reports from either application are our highest priority and are triaged ahead of every other report category.
Triage. Child safety reports are triaged within 24 hours of receipt.
Immediate protective action. Where a report is credible, the reported account is suspended and the conversation restricted pending investigation — before the investigation concludes, not after.
Investigation. Trained safety personnel review the account, the reported content, and associated activity across both applications.
Removal. Confirmed CSAM is removed from the platform immediately upon identification. We do not require a court order or a request from law enforcement before removing such content.
Enforcement. Confirmed violations result in permanent termination of the account, forfeiture of any pending earnings or balance, and blocking of associated device and payment identifiers to prevent re-registration on either Listeners or Listener Partners.
Preservation. Relevant records are preserved in a secure, access-restricted manner for the period required to support law enforcement action, in accordance with applicable law.
Escalation to authorities. See Section 7.
7. Reporting to law enforcement and authorities
Where we identify or confirm apparent Child Sexual Abuse Material or CSAE conduct on Listeners: Talk to Someone or Listener Partners, we report it promptly to the appropriate authorities. This includes:
Reporting to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) via the CyberTipline.
Reporting to Indian law enforcement through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (cybercrime.gov.in) and to the relevant local police authority, in accordance with the POCSO Act, 2012 and Section 67B of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Complying with our obligations as an intermediary under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, including expeditious removal of such material upon receipt of actual knowledge.
Cooperating fully with lawful requests from law enforcement, including preservation requests and legal process for user records.
8. Child safety point of contact
Child Safety Point of Contact
Trust & Safety Team — Listeners: Talk to Someone and Listener Partners
Grievance Officer (IT Rules, 2021)
Support
This contact is monitored by personnel authorised to discuss our CSAM prevention practices and our compliance with child safety policies, and to respond to enquiries from Google, Apple, NCMEC, and law enforcement agencies. These details are kept current and mirror the contact recorded in our Google Play Child Safety Standards declarations for both Listeners: Talk to Someone and Listener Partners.
9. Compliance and review
These standards are reviewed at least every six months, and immediately following any material change to either application, any confirmed child safety incident, or any change in applicable law or app store policy.
These standards are published publicly and are accessible worldwide without registration, payment, or login.
This document supplements our Community Safety Guidelines, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy. Where any conflict arises, these Child Safety Standards prevail.
Have questions?
Our team is happy to help you.