Child safety standards

Our standard

Pidge has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE). Content or conduct involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of a child is prohibited absolutely. Where we find it, the account is removed and the matter is reported to the National Crime Agency. There is no warning and no appeal.

The same standard is stated inside the app, in terms every user accepts before they can use it.

Pidge is for adults only, and this is checked

Our first and strongest protection is that children cannot create an account. Pidge is restricted to students at the University of Cambridge, and every account must clear two independent gates before it exists:

• A @cam.ac.uk email address, enforced by the database itself rather than by the app, so it cannot be bypassed by a modified client.
• Government photo identity verification through our identity provider, confirming the person is 18 or over. The age test is run against the date of birth on the document. A verified date of birth is then frozen and cannot be edited afterwards.

The verified result is written only by a signature-checked message from the identity provider, never by the app, so a modified client cannot mark itself verified. An account that has not passed both gates is not shown to anyone, is shown no one, and cannot pidge, match, message, or take part in Formals. Those rules are enforced by the database, not by the app.

Preventing CSAE content

Every photograph is screened automatically before it is stored. Images are checked for explicit and violent content, and anything reaching or exceeding a suggestive-sexual threshold is refused and never written to our storage, whoever appears in it. The check fails closed: if the screening service is unavailable the upload is rejected rather than allowed through unchecked. Every decision, including approvals, is logged so the thresholds can be audited.

Because that threshold sits below explicit content, material of this kind is refused a step earlier than a detector aimed only at abuse imagery would catch it.

Reporting a child safety concern to us

Any user can report any profile or conversation from inside the app, without contacting us first. Underage is one of the listed reasons, alongside inappropriate content and harassment. Reporting a live conversation preserves a copy of it, so evidence is not lost when the chat expires.

Users can also block anyone at any time. Blocking is immediate and does not require a report.

Anyone may report a concern directly to admin@pidgeapp.com, whether or not they have a Pidge account.

What we do with a report

Reports are reviewed within 24 hours. Where a report concerns a child, or content involving a child, the account is suspended on receipt rather than at the end of the review.

Confirmed CSAE results in permanent removal of the account and its content, and a report to the National Crime Agency.

Reporting to authorities

We report CSAE content to the National Crime Agency, in accordance with the Online Safety (CSEA Content Reporting by Regulated User-to-User Service Providers) Regulations 2026.

When a report is made we record the report reference and preserve the content, the information submitted, whatever we relied on to judge it, and the associated user data. The reference is retained for five years and the supporting material for one year, as those Regulations require. Preserved material is exempt from our normal deletion schedule, including where the user deletes their account, which we do not block, because refusing a deletion request would itself signal that a report has been made.

We can also comply with a Data Preservation Notice from Ofcom, and will stop the routine deletion of any material named by one.

Point of contact

Questions about these standards, or about our CSAE prevention practices, should go to admin@pidgeapp.com, which reaches Thomas Thomson directly.

If you believe a child is in immediate danger, contact the police on 999. Concerns about child sexual abuse online can also be reported to the National Crime Agency CEOP Safety Centre, and to the Internet Watch Foundation.

See also our terms of use and privacy policy.