Child Safety Policy

Our standard

We have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE). That includes:

• any sexual content involving a minor, in a message, display name or profile photo;
• grooming: trying to build a relationship with a minor for sexual purposes;
• sextortion: pressuring a minor into sexual content or contact;
• using Hunting Game to find, follow, contact or meet a minor for any of the above;
• trafficking, or offering a minor for sexual purposes.

Any account involved is closed immediately and permanently. We report to the competent authorities where the law requires or allows it, and we keep the evidence we hold when law enforcement asks us to.

Minimum age

You must be at least 13 to use Hunting Game. At first sign-in, everyone gives their date of birth. If it shows they are under 13, the app stops there and asks them to sign out, and the date is not kept. Marketing email is only offered from 16.

To be honest about what that is worth: it is a statement, not a check. We do not verify age, so a child who enters a false date gets in.

If you think someone under 13 has an account, tell us and we will delete it.

How to report

Email contact@hunting-game.com with "Child safety" in the subject. It reaches the operator directly and is handled before anything else.

Tell us the game's join code, roughly when it happened, the display name involved, and what you saw. Keep a screenshot if you can, but never forward or save sexual images of a child: describe them instead.

If a child is in immediate danger, call the emergency services first (112 in Europe). In Belgium you can also call Child Focus on 116 000, and you can report child sexual abuse material to the INHOPE hotline in your country.

Point of contact

Child safety matters, including requests from law enforcement and child protection organisations:

Jasper Aelvoet, Klein Amerika 1B, 9930 Lievegem, Belgium, contact@hunting-game.com

For parents and guardians

Hunting Game is a real-world chase game. Please read this part.

• The game shares your child's precise, live location with the other players in their game while the game runs, and with the host in the lobby once your child taps Ready.
• Anyone with a game's join code can watch the game on our website without an account: player names, photos and roles. It shows no positions before the head start ends, none of referees, and none at all in Hide and Seek. After that it shows each team only as the other team sees it: runners where the chasers last saw them, and chasers when the runners can see them. Treat the join code like a house key.
• Adding a friend happens at once. There is no request to accept: anyone with your child's friend code or link becomes their friend. Friends can see when your child was last online, and can invite them to games. Your child can remove a friend at any time.
• Every game has a chat, and we do not read or filter it.
• Game details can show on the lock screen, home screen and watch: role, timers and the lobby code. People nearby can see them.
• Share cards show the route your child ran on a map, with their name. Nothing is posted unless they choose to share it.
• The game sends players outside to run around. Traffic, water and unfamiliar places are real risks the app cannot see.
• The map is part of the game, not a way to keep track of your child. Positions can be wrong, late or missing, and stop when a phone loses signal or battery. Hunting Game is not a safety or emergency service.

What we suggest:

1. Play with your teenagers rather than letting them play with strangers. In Family mode an adult can join as referee and play along.
2. Only share join codes with people you know. Never post one publicly. If someone you don't know joins a lobby, the host can remove them, and that account can't join that game again. But whoever has the code can still watch the game on our website, so the best step is for the host to leave the lobby, which closes it for everyone, and start a new game with a new code.
3. Talk about what to do if a message or a player makes them uncomfortable: leave the game and tell you.
4. You and your child decide together where, when and how they play. Agree on the area, a meeting point and an end time, and not after dark or alone.
5. Use the parental controls built into your child's iPhone or Android phone to manage app use and purchases.

You can download the data of your child's account, delete the account, or ask us at contact@hunting-game.com.

What we do on our side

• A 13+ minimum, with a date of birth asked at sign-in and stated in our terms.
• Location is sent to us only during a game, where it can continue in the background but stops when the game ends for that player, and in a lobby once a player taps Ready or hosts it, only while the app is open. Only the host sees lobby positions, in the app; our website shows none.
• Live positions and routes are deleted five minutes after a game ends, and chat within about ten minutes.
• No ads in the app and no advertising IDs. Our server sends Meta nothing about players under 18.
• In the lobby, the host can remove a player, and that account can't join that game again. During a game, a referee can remove a player.
• To stop people from trying codes at random on our website, it refuses codes from an internet connection for up to 10 minutes after too many wrong ones.
• Child safety reports are handled before anything else.

Where we know we fall short

We would rather write this down than pretend:

• Age is self-declared and not verified. This is the weakest part of our child safety and we know it.
• When the age check stops someone under 13, the account they just signed in with is not yet deleted automatically. Tell us and we delete it.
• On Android, Meta's measurement software in the app also runs for players under 18. It tells Meta when the app is opened, an account is created and a game is finished, and Meta can use that to choose who sees our ads. Switch it off under Measure our ads in Settings.
• There is no report or block button in the app yet. Reports go by email.
• Chat is not filtered or moderated in advance.

We are working on these, and this page will be updated as they are fixed.