Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE) Policy
NAMAVI TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED
Website: https://near-buddy.com
Effective Date: as defined in Section 3.
Last Updated: as defined in Section 33.
1. Title and purpose
These Child Safety Standards set out NearBuddy's standards against child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) and explain how NearBuddy protects against the misuse of the service in relation to minors. NearBuddy has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation of any kind. These Standards apply to every NearBuddy user and to all activity on the NearBuddy mobile application and website, and they should be read together with the NearBuddy Community Guidelines, Terms & Conditions, Privacy Policy, and Account Deletion Policy.
2. Who operates NearBuddy
NearBuddy is operated by NAMAVI TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED, whose registered office is DOOR NO: 13/350, MALIYEKKAL, MADAKKATHARA P O, THRISSUR, KERALA – 680651, INDIA. Contact details, including the designated Child Safety Contact, are set out in Sections 12 and 29.
3. Effective Date and Last Updated
"Effective Date" means the date and time on which NearBuddy first becomes publicly available to users through either Google Play or the Apple App Store, whichever occurs first.
These Child Safety Standards apply from the Effective Date. A later release of NearBuddy on the second store does not create or reset the Effective Date. The initial "Last Updated" date is the Effective Date; if these Standards are later revised, the "Last Updated" date becomes the date of that revision (see Section 33).
4. Adults-only eligibility
NearBuddy is strictly for adults aged 18 or older. A person under 18 must not create or use a NearBuddy account. By using NearBuddy, you confirm that you are 18 or older. You must not misrepresent your age, and you must not help another person evade the 18-or-older requirement. Adults must not create or operate a NearBuddy account for, or on behalf of, a minor.
5. Zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation
NearBuddy strictly prohibits all child sexual abuse and exploitation. This prohibition is absolute and applies to every part of the service, including profiles, photos, public content, and private messages. There is no context in which child sexual abuse or exploitation is permitted on NearBuddy.
6. Prohibited child sexual abuse material
Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is strictly prohibited in every form. You must not create, request, possess, share, distribute, promote, link to, or attempt to obtain child sexual abuse material, and you must not upload or transmit any sexual content involving a minor in any form.
7. Grooming, solicitation, trafficking, sextortion, and exploitation
The following are strictly prohibited on NearBuddy: grooming a minor; the sexualisation of minors; the solicitation of minors for sexual purposes; the trafficking of minors; sextortion; coercion; and any other exploitation of, or sexual conduct directed at, a minor. It is also strictly prohibited to attempt to move a minor or a suspected minor to another communication service, platform, or channel for sexual or exploitative purposes.
8. Prohibited creation, possession, requesting, linking, sharing, or distribution
You must not create, possess, request, link to, share, or distribute child sexual abuse material or any sexual content involving a minor, and you must not help, encourage, facilitate, conceal, or normalise child sexual abuse or exploitation, or attempt to do any of these things. This applies whether the conduct is directed at NearBuddy, at another user, or at any other person.
9. Age misrepresentation and suspected underage accounts
Because NearBuddy is only for adults, honest age representation matters. You must not misrepresent your age or assist anyone in doing so. NearBuddy does not perform identity checks, document verification, biometric age verification, or any form of guaranteed age detection; age is self-declared. If you believe an account belongs to a person under 18, or you have any child-safety concern, please report it in the app (see Section 10) and, where appropriate, contact the designated Child Safety Contact (Section 12).
10. Reporting child-safety concerns in the app
If you encounter a suspected underage account or any child-safety concern, you can report it directly in the app using the Report tool on the relevant profile. The available report reasons include Underage. Reporting is an important safety tool and helps NearBuddy become aware of concerns. Please note:
- reporting an account does not by itself prove that a violation has occurred;
- reporting does not by itself guarantee automatic removal, suspension, or any specific outcome;
- the person you report is not told that a report was submitted or by whom;
- reports may be kept where necessary for review, enforcement, safety, fraud prevention, legal compliance, or cooperation with competent authorities.
11. Blocking suspected or harmful accounts
In addition to reporting, you can block an account at any time. A successful block prevents any further interaction between you and that account and removes both of you from each other's discovery, so you will not be shown to one another again. Blocking is a separate protective tool that you can use immediately, whether or not you also report the account.
12. Designated Child Safety Contact
NearBuddy maintains a designated point of contact for child-safety matters:
Child Safety Contact
NAMAVI TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED
namavitech@gmail.com
You may contact the Child Safety Contact to raise a child-safety concern. For concerns about a specific account, please also use the in-app Report tool (Section 10), which is the fastest way to bring an account to our attention.
13. No proactive monitoring or automated detection
NearBuddy does not claim to proactively monitor every profile, message, image, or interaction, and does not claim to use automated child-sexual-abuse-material detection, scanning, artificial-intelligence moderation, image hashing, continuous review, or a dedicated moderation operation. The absence of proactive monitoring does not make any prohibited conduct acceptable: these Standards apply at all times, and every user remains responsible for following them. User reports and blocks are important safety tools, and NearBuddy may act when it receives credible information or otherwise becomes aware of a violation.
14. User responsibility and reporting
Every user is responsible for complying with these Child Safety Standards and with the NearBuddy Community Guidelines and Terms & Conditions. If you become aware of child sexual abuse or exploitation on NearBuddy, do not engage with it, and report it using the in-app Report tool and, where appropriate, the Child Safety Contact. If a child is in immediate danger, follow the guidance in Section 24.
15. NearBuddy's reserved enforcement rights
Where appropriate, NearBuddy reserves the right to:
- remove or restrict content;
- restrict access to an account;
- suspend an account;
- terminate an account;
- prevent further interaction;
- preserve report, safety, or enforcement records where necessary;
- cooperate with valid lawful requests;
- comply with applicable child-safety reporting obligations; and
- report confirmed child sexual abuse material or exploitation to the appropriate competent authorities where required by law.
These are reserved rights and compliance obligations, not a claim that all violations are detected immediately, that all enforcement is automatic, or that every case receives the same action. NearBuddy does not guarantee a particular investigation time, response, appeal, reinstatement, or outcome, and may act without advance notice where necessary for child safety, legal compliance, user protection, fraud prevention, or protection of the service.
16. Action upon actual knowledge
Where NearBuddy obtains actual knowledge of child sexual abuse material or child sexual exploitation on the service, NearBuddy may:
- remove or disable access to the material;
- restrict, suspend, or terminate the associated account;
- preserve only the records necessary for safety, enforcement, or legal compliance; and
- cooperate with, and report to, the appropriate competent authorities where required by law.
NearBuddy does not guarantee universal detection or immediate discovery of every violation; it acts on the information available to it and in accordance with applicable law.
17. Removal, restriction, suspension, and termination
Consistent with Sections 15 and 16, NearBuddy may remove or restrict content, restrict access, and suspend or terminate an account associated with a child-safety violation. Action taken depends on the circumstances and the information available, and may be taken without advance notice where necessary.
18. Cooperation with competent authorities
NearBuddy cooperates with valid, lawful requests from competent authorities and complies with applicable legal obligations relating to child safety. Where required by law, NearBuddy may report confirmed child sexual abuse material or exploitation to the appropriate competent authorities.
19. Applicable reporting obligations
NearBuddy's reporting and cooperation are carried out in accordance with the obligations that apply to NearBuddy under applicable law. NearBuddy limits any such reporting, cooperation, and record preservation to what applicable law requires or permits.
20. Public-profile child-safety rules
Consistent with the NearBuddy Community Guidelines, your public profile must be clean and appropriate. Nudity, pornography, and sexually explicit or indecent public visuals are prohibited, and any sexual content involving a minor is absolutely prohibited in every form. Profiles must not be used to sexualise, solicit, or endanger a minor.
21. Private-message child-safety rules
Private conversations between consenting adults are treated as private, and NearBuddy does not proactively monitor private messages. This does not exempt private messages from these Child Safety Standards. Grooming, exploitation, coercion, solicitation of minors, child sexual abuse material, and any sexual conduct involving minors are strictly prohibited in private messages, exactly as they are everywhere else on NearBuddy.
22. No guaranteed detection, review, response, appeal, or outcome
NearBuddy does not promise that every violation will be detected, that every report will receive an individual review or response, or that any particular action, investigation time, appeal, reinstatement, or outcome will follow. These Standards describe what is prohibited and the rights and steps NearBuddy may take; they do not create a guarantee of a specific enforcement result in any individual case.
23. Account deletion and limited lawful preservation
Your personal data and content are handled in accordance with the NearBuddy Account Deletion Policy, which describes how your account and data are removed when you delete your account. Account deletion is not a means to erase or defeat records that NearBuddy is required to preserve for child safety, enforcement, fraud prevention, compliance with valid legal obligations, or cooperation with competent authorities. Where applicable law requires or permits it, NearBuddy may preserve only the limited records necessary for those purposes. Any such preserved record does not enable account restoration, and NearBuddy provides no historical anonymous-account restoration mechanism.
24. Urgent danger and local authorities
If you believe a child is in immediate danger, please contact your local emergency services or the appropriate law-enforcement authority in your country without delay. NearBuddy is not an emergency service: it does not provide emergency response, 24/7 monitoring, an immediate or fixed response time, or a guaranteed review or enforcement outcome. For child-safety concerns on the service, use the in-app Report tool, block the account, and contact the Child Safety Contact (Section 12).
25. Relationship with the Community Guidelines
These Child Safety Standards supplement, and are to be read together with, the NearBuddy Community Guidelines, which set out NearBuddy's broader conduct rules and the Report and Block tools. Where these Standards address child safety specifically, they apply in addition to the Community Guidelines.
26. Relationship with the Terms & Conditions
A breach of these Standards is also a breach of the NearBuddy Terms & Conditions, and NearBuddy's enforcement rights under these Standards apply in addition to its rights under the Terms & Conditions.
27. Relationship with the Privacy Policy
How your personal information is collected and handled is described in the NearBuddy Privacy Policy, available on the NearBuddy website.
28. Relationship with the Account Deletion Policy
How your account and data are removed when you delete your account is described in the NearBuddy Account Deletion Policy. These Standards do not change that model, except for the limited, law-based preservation described in Section 23.
29. Contact information
- Company: NAMAVI TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED
- Registered office: DOOR NO: 13/350, MALIYEKKAL, MADAKKATHARA P O, THRISSUR, KERALA – 680651, INDIA
- Child Safety Contact: Child Safety Contact, NAMAVI TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED, namavitech@gmail.com
- General support and privacy: namavitech@gmail.com
- Grievance Officer: Grievance Officer, NAMAVI TECHNOLOGIES PRIVATE LIMITED, namavitech@gmail.com
30. Governing law
These Child Safety Standards shall be governed by the laws of India.
31. Dispute resolution
The parties shall first make a good-faith effort to resolve any dispute amicably.
32. Jurisdiction
If a dispute cannot be resolved amicably, it shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts at Thrissur, Kerala, India.
33. Last Updated
The "Last Updated" date of these Standards is the Effective Date for this initial version. If these Standards are later revised, the "Last Updated" date becomes the date of that revision. The Effective Date as defined in Section 3 continues to apply to the original Standards unless a revision expressly states otherwise.
Nothing in these Standards limits any obligation NearBuddy has, or any right or remedy that applies, under applicable law that cannot be excluded.