Child Safety Standards

Our position

AfriX has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and any form of child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE). The creation, storage, transmission, sharing, solicitation, or trade of CSAM through AfriX is strictly prohibited, will result in immediate and permanent account termination, and where required by law will be reported to the appropriate authorities.

What AfriX is, and where the CSAE risk surface lives

AfriX is a heritage-preservation platform built around a small, closed audience: a user's own family, plus the elders and peers a user nominates as verifiers. There is no public feed, no stranger-to-stranger messaging, no comment thread, and no search-by-face. We state this so users, the public, and reviewers can understand the structural posture before reviewing the controls below.

AfriX does allow users to upload media that is essential to its purpose:

• Profile and family-member photographs — to identify the people in a family tree.
• Audio and video recordings — for the preservation of oral history in elders' own voices.
• Written stories and transcripts — narratives about family members.

Because heritage requires the depiction of family members across generations, photographs and recordings of children may legitimately appear in family records. The controls below are designed to keep that legitimate use case clean of any abuse content.

Standards we adhere to

• We comply with all applicable laws prohibiting CSAM, including reporting obligations under the U.S. 18 U.S.C. § 2258A for service providers that obtain actual knowledge of CSAM, and the equivalent obligations under the laws of the countries where our users reside.
• We do not knowingly allow individuals under the age of 13 to create or hold an AfriX account. Where an account is identified as belonging to a person under the minimum age, the account is suspended and any associated data is deleted in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
• Users between 13 and 18 must have permission from a parent or legal guardian to create an account.
• Children may legitimately appear in family-tree records as relatives of the account holder, but always with additional privacy defaults applied (see “Minor records” below).
• We cooperate fully with law enforcement requests that comply with applicable legal process.
• We follow guidance from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (missingkids.org), the Internet Watch Foundation (iwf.org.uk), and INHOPE (inhope.org).

Detection and prevention

• Closed audience by design. Media uploaded to AfriX is visible only to the people the uploader has explicitly granted access — typically immediate family members, elders, and nominated verifiers. There is no public feed, no algorithmic discovery, and no stranger-to-stranger access to uploaded media.
• Image and media scanning. All uploaded photographs and video are scanned at the point of upload using industry-standard CSAM detection technology before they are made available to any other user. Detected material is quarantined, the uploading account is suspended, and the matter is referred to our trust & safety team and, where required, to law enforcement.
• Identity verification. Account creation requires a verified email address and (in markets where supported) a verified phone number. This raises the cost of disposable abuser accounts.
• Text moderation. We monitor family-tree biographical fields, story descriptions, and written reflections for prohibited content. Accounts associated with prohibited content are reviewed and may be suspended pending investigation.
• Community reporting. Every user with access to a piece of content can report it from within the application; reports are routed to our trust & safety team for triage within one business day.
• Verifier accountability. Elders and peers who verify stories are themselves AfriX users in good standing. Patterns of abuse surfaced through community verifications are reviewed by our trust & safety team.

Minor records — additional privacy defaults

When a family member recorded in a tree is a minor (under 18), AfriX applies the following defaults regardless of the account holder's chosen visibility settings for the rest of the tree:

• Minor profiles are not surfaced in public search.
• Contact information, school information, and current location for minors are hidden from non-family viewers.
• Birth dates of minors may be displayed as year-only, or hidden entirely, in shared views.
• Photographs of minors are visible only to people the account holder has explicitly granted family access; they are not part of any public share link.

How to report

If you believe an AfriX account, story, photograph, or interaction has involved CSAE or CSAM, please report it to us immediately at safety@lightcode.org. Reports are reviewed within one business day. You can include any of the following — we will accept reports without some of these fields:

• The AfriX handle(s) involved.
• The Vault NFT asset code (for example VLT-XXXX) or family-tree share link, if applicable.
• Date and approximate time of the incident.
• A description of what you observed.

How we respond

• Triage within one business day. Reports received at the dedicated child-safety address are routed to the trust & safety team and triaged within one business day of receipt.
• Account action. Where the report is substantiated, the implicated account(s) are immediately suspended and, where the evidence supports it, permanently terminated. Associated data is preserved as needed to support investigation and disclosure to law enforcement.
• Reporting to authorities. Where AfriX obtains actual knowledge of CSAM, we report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline as required under U.S. law (18 U.S.C. § 2258A) and to the equivalent national reporting body where required by local law.
• Cooperation with law enforcement. We cooperate fully with law enforcement requests that comply with applicable legal process, and we preserve relevant data on receipt of a valid preservation request.

Designated point of contact

AfriX's designated point of contact for child-safety concerns, including reports of CSAE/CSAM and requests from law enforcement regarding the same, is reachable at safety@lightcode.org. For general legal correspondence (subpoenas, preservation requests, formal legal process), please use legal@lightcode.org.

Updates to these standards

We update these standards as our service evolves and as best-practice guidance from organisations such as NCMEC and INHOPE evolves. The effective date at the top of this page reflects the most recent publication.