Child Safety Standards

1. Our commitment

GraceHub has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE). Any content or conduct that sexualises a child results in immediate removal, permanent account termination, and a report to law enforcement.

GraceHub is a church administration app used by congregations that include children and young people. Youth ministry is one of the places children are most at risk, so the standards below are not a formality. They are how the product is built and how we run it.

These standards are published in compliance with Google Play's Child Safety Standards policy and Apple's App Review Guideline 1.2, and are aligned with South Africa's Children's Act 38 of 2005, the Films and Publications Act, and the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act.

2. What is prohibited

The following are absolutely prohibited on the platform:

• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM), in any form, including generated or edited imagery.
• Sexualisation of a minor, including sexualised commentary about a child.
• Grooming: building a relationship with a child for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
• Sextortion, or soliciting sexual imagery from a minor.
• Trafficking of minors, or advertising a minor for sexual purposes.
• Sharing a minor's personal information, images or location in a way that puts them at risk.
• Any adult contacting a child on the platform for a purpose outside legitimate, supervised church ministry.

3. How the product prevents harm

• Accounts are not self-service. A church administrator creates every account, so there is no anonymous sign-up and every user is a known member of a real congregation.
• There is no public discovery, no open search for strangers, and no way for a person outside your church to contact you. Messaging is confined to the members of your own church and your own groups.
• Church administrators control which members appear in the directory and who may message whom, through the platform's role and permission settings.
• Pastoral, care and counselling records are restricted to the members of staff the church has explicitly given that permission.
• Any image uploaded through the app is attached to an identified account, and is visible to the church administrators responsible for safeguarding.

4. How to report

There are three routes, and all of them are monitored:

• In the app: open the ⋯ menu on any conversation, care request, group or comment, or hold a single message, and choose Report, then select “Child safety”. Child-safety reports are escalated ahead of everything else and reach our safety team directly, not only the church.
• By email: safety@grace-hub.co.za reaches our safety team directly.
• To your church: any church administrator or safeguarding officer can escalate to us.

You can also block the member involved immediately, from their profile or the conversation, without waiting for us to act.

5. How we respond

• Child-safety reports are triaged ahead of all other reports and aim to be actioned within 24 hours.
• Content that appears to be CSAM is removed immediately and preserved for the authorities rather than destroyed.
• The account is suspended pending review, and terminated permanently where the report is substantiated.
• We report to the South African Police Service and, where the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has jurisdiction, to NCMEC's CyberTipline.
• We notify the church's leadership so its own safeguarding process can run alongside ours.
• We keep a record of the report, our findings and the action taken.

6. Point of contact

Our designated child-safety point of contact, for users, churches, regulators and Google Play, is:

Child safety contact

Ntokozo Shabalala, safety@grace-hub.co.za

Company

AI Soft (Pty) Ltd, 332 Boundary Road, North Riding, Johannesburg, Gauteng, 2169, South Africa

If a child is in immediate danger, contact the police (10111 in South Africa) or the Childline South Africa helpline on 116 first. Report to us afterwards.