Child safety standards

Child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) is prohibited. There is no setting, tier, or fictional framing under which any of the following is allowed on Parallel:

• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM), in any form, including images, video, audio, text, and material that is drawn, animated, or generated by a model.
• Sexual or romantic content involving a minor, or involving a character presented as a minor, whether the user writes it or asks a companion to.
• Sexualising a real child, including editing or describing an ordinary image of a child in a sexual way.
• Grooming, sextortion, trafficking, or any attempt to use the app to reach, arrange contact with, or coerce a child.
• Advertising, soliciting, trading, or linking to any of the above, anywhere the app accepts text.

The prohibition covers what a user writes to a companion and what a companion could ever be made to write back. Companions are fictional adults; none is a minor, and none can be turned into one.

Parallel is 18+. Every account gives a date of birth before meeting anyone, and the app is neither designed for nor directed at children. If our screens read the person writing as a minor, the conversation stops and the account goes through re-verification. An account we find belongs to someone under 18 is closed and its data deleted.

Every message is checked by a server-side safety layer before it reaches a companion and again before a reply reaches you. Anything matching the categories above is blocked outright — it is never softened, rewritten, or allowed through in a milder form. Blocking happens on our servers, so it cannot be bypassed by an old build, a modified client, or a different platform.

The screens are tested against a written suite of transcripts on every change to the engine, and a build that fails one does not ship. Every match is written to an audit log that the app itself has no permission to alter or delete.

Every companion message can be reported from inside the iPhone and Android apps: hold down on the message, choose Report, and pick child safety from the list of reasons. A free-text field is there for anything the categories miss. Reports about a suspected minor, or about content involving a child, go to the top of the queue and are actioned the same day.

On the web, or for anything that is not about one particular message, email hello@parallel.you. It reaches the same people.

Suspected child sexual abuse material is removed and the account is terminated immediately, without warning and without appeal. We preserve the material and the associated account records as the law requires, report the incident to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) through its CyberTipline, and cooperate with law enforcement.

We comply with the child safety laws and reporting obligations that apply to us, in every country where the app is available. Where a local regime requires a different or additional report, we make that report as well.

Child safety concerns, including reports from regulators, platforms, and law enforcement, reach a named person here:

hello@parallel.you — Omer Khurshid, Cropple.AI LLC. Mark the subject line Child safety and it is triaged the same day.

The wider safety document — the crisis protocol, everything a companion will never do, and who can read a conversation — is on the Safety page.