Child Protection Policy

1. Purpose

To set out our rules and current practice for protecting children (anyone under 18) from abuse, exploitation, neglect and harm on the hangel platform and in activities organised or promoted by hangel. We apply zero tolerance to child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE).

2. Scope

• hangel.org, the hangel iOS and Android apps and Oda meeting rooms,
• events and volunteering activities organised by the International Social Benefit Association itself,
• the Association's employees, volunteers, super-admins and anyone working on its behalf.

For activities organised by other organisations on the platform (NGOs, clubs, brands), that organisation is primarily responsible for children's safety; hangel, as the intermediary platform, applies the measures in this policy.

3. Principles

1. The best interests of the child come first in every decision.
2. Any content or behaviour that sexualises children, depicts abuse (real, drawn or AI-generated), grooms, blackmails or facilitates exploitation is prohibited.
3. Suspicion is enough; the person reporting does not need proof.
4. Abuse content is never downloaded, copied or forwarded; it is only reported.
5. Evidence is preserved and passed to the competent authorities.

4. Roles and responsibilities

• Board of Directors: approves this policy and decides on serious incidents.
• Super-admins (reports section): review child safety reports with the highest priority, decide, close accounts where needed and record official referrals.
• Organisation administrators: take their own safeguarding measures in activities with children and report incidents both to the authorities and to hangel.
• The Association's own volunteers and employees: are never alone with children and do not set up personal communication channels with a child.

5. How it works at hangel today

• Age: People under 16 cannot register. Age is checked against the date of birth not at sign-up but when an age-dependent feature (such as blood donation, volunteering or marketing consent) is switched on. 16–17-year-olds use a limited mode with a parental consent declaration: blood donation features and marketing messages are switched off. An account found to belong to someone under 16 is closed.
• Messaging: Users cannot send private one-to-one messages to each other; people can write only to organisations, organisation administrators and the hangel team. Organisation administrators reply to people who wrote to them; approval and rejection messages for volunteering applications are also sent on the organisation's behalf.
• Oda: Participants under 18 are in safe mode; they cannot take part in post-meeting profile sharing and do not appear in other people's lists. The chat filter is on for everyone.
• Reporting: Posts, messages, profiles, events and volunteering listings have a "Report" option; in Oda chat every message has a report button. A report with the reason "Child safety":
  • is flagged with the highest priority,
  • automatically hides the content from the public until the review is complete,
  • immediately notifies the super-admins who can see the reports section (personal notification settings do not mute this notification).
• Decision: If there is a violation, the content stays hidden, is not deleted and is kept as evidence with no public access; the account can be closed. If there is no violation, the content is published again.
• Official reporting: Child abuse content is reported to the Information and Communication Technologies Authority's İhbar Web hotline, the General Directorate of Security or the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office in Türkiye; for incidents outside Türkiye, to the competent authority of that country or to NCMEC's CyberTipline. The referral is recorded on the report.
• Blocking: Users can block a person or an organisation account (Settings → Blocked accounts).
• Public standards: hangel.org/child-safety

6. Not yet in place and our goals

• Age is checked against the date of birth the person declares; it is not verified with an identity document. Parental consent is also based on a declaration. The age of someone who does not use an age-dependent feature may be unknown.
• In the server-side access rules, the people to whom organisation administrators can start a message are not limited to those who wrote to them or applied to their organisation. Our goal is to enforce this limit in the rules as well.
• We do not use automated scanning that recognises known abuse images (hash matching); detection relies on user reports.
• We cannot verify whether organisations run criminal record or similar checks on volunteers who work with children. Our goal is to ask organisations to declare their safeguarding measures on listings that involve contact with children.
• Child protection training is not yet delivered regularly.

7. How to raise a concern

• In the app: "Report" → "Child safety".
• If you cannot access the app: info@hangel.org (subject "Child safety"), with a link to the content.
• If a child is in danger right now, first call 112 or the emergency number of the country you are in.

8. Review

At least once a year, after every confirmed child safety incident and whenever app store (Apple, Google Play) rules change.

9. Related documents

hangel.org/child-safety · Participant and Vulnerable Group Safeguarding Policy · Age Limit and Parental Consent Policy · Content Moderation and Takedown Policy · Existing "Protection of Children's Personal Data" and "PSEAH and Safeguarding Policy"