Child safety standards

Last updated 14 September 2026

HoodShare prohibits child sexual abuse and exploitation absolutely. This page is the published statement of that, of what we do about it, and of how to report it — Google Play requires it to be readable without signing in, and it should be readable without signing in regardless.

Throughout, CSAE means child sexual abuse and exploitation: sexual abuse material depicting a minor, the sexualisation of a minor, grooming, sextortion, trafficking, and any other sexual exploitation of a person under 18.

HoodShare is for adults

You must be 18 or over to hold a HoodShare account. That is a condition of the Terms of Service, not a suggestion. HoodShare is not designed for children, is not directed at children, and carries no features intended for them.

If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we close it and delete what it holds.

What is prohibited

None of the following may be uploaded, listed, written, sent or linked to anywhere in HoodShare — in an item's photographs, its title or description, a household or neighbourhood name, a profile name or picture, or the message attached to a borrow or join request:

Child sexual abuse material, in any form and to any degree.
Content that sexualises a minor, including drawn, generated or otherwise synthetic depictions.
Using HoodShare to contact, groom, solicit or arrange to meet a minor for any sexual purpose.
Advertising, trading, soliciting or linking to any of the above, however obliquely it is worded.

There is no warning and no second chance for any of this. It is not a content-standards problem to be weighed against someone's history on the service.

Reporting it

In the app. Open the menu on any listing and choose Report this item, or Report the household that owns it. A request to borrow something from you carries a flag beside it, for the note attached to it. Child safety is the first reason offered in all three.

The report records what you were looking at, taken from our own copy of it rather than from anything you have to describe — so it still means something after the content has been deleted. You may add as much or as little as you like; nothing beyond the reason is required, because being made to write about a photograph twice is a reason not to report it.

By email. hoodshare@codecrox.com reaches the same person, and is the route if you have no account, cannot reach the app, or would rather not use it. Say what you saw and where.

Either way, the household you report is never told who reported them, and there is nothing for them to reply to.

If a child is in immediate danger, contact the police first. HoodShare is not an emergency service and cannot intervene. In the United Kingdom that is 999, or the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000; elsewhere, your local emergency number.

What happens to a report

A person reads every one. Reports of CSAE are handled ahead of everything else in the queue, and we aim to act on them within 24 hours of receipt.

The content is removed from the service, and remains preserved out of public view for as long as any investigation or legal obligation requires.
The account is terminated, together with any other account we can identify as belonging to the same person.
The matter is reported to the relevant authority. In the United States that is the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC); in the United Kingdom, the National Crime Agency's CEOP command and, where appropriate, the Internet Watch Foundation; elsewhere, the corresponding national body. Where the law requires a report, one is made whether or not the reporter asks for it.
We cooperate with law enforcement requests that are properly made, and we do not notify the reported account that a report has been made about it where doing so would prejudice an investigation.

We will not tell you what action was taken against another person's account. That is not evasion — it is what the data protection law that covers your account covers theirs.

What we do not claim to do

Honesty here is more useful than reassurance. HoodShare is a small service and it says so:

There is no automated scanning of uploaded photographs. HoodShare does not run hash-matching against known CSAM databases such as PhotoDNA, and does not claim to detect this content before somebody reports it. Detection is by report, which is why the report action sits on the content itself rather than in a settings screen.
There is no pre-publication review. An item appears to the households that can see it as soon as it is listed.
There is no direct messaging. The only free text one member can send another is the note attached to a borrow request or a request to join a neighbourhood, and it is capped in length. This is a deliberately small surface, and it is smaller than it would be if HoodShare had a chat feature.

These limits are stated so that nobody relies on protection that is not there. Should any of them change, this page changes with them.

Point of contact

Child safety matters, including requests from law enforcement and from platform or regulatory bodies, go to hoodshare@codecrox.com, which is read by the operator of HoodShare. Please put child safety in the subject line so it is not read in turn with everything else.

The Terms of Service set out the rules for the service as a whole and the 18-or-over requirement. The Privacy policy describes what HoodShare holds and who can see it. Deleting your account explains how to remove yours and what goes with it.