Keeping young people safe

Many people on EduPress are under 18. These rules apply to every account that belongs to someone under 18. EduPress applies them automatically.

Who counts as under 18

EduPress treats an account as under 18 when:

• the date of birth on the account is less than 18 years ago, or
• the person is currently enrolled at daycare, nursery, primary or secondary level, or at an international school, whatever date of birth they gave, or
• there is no date of birth on the account and it lists a school level, or no adult level of education.

Parent accounts and school staff accounts are always treated as adults.

Minimum age

You must be at least 13 to create your own account. A younger child's account is created and held by a parent or guardian, who adds the child to their own account.

Never listed

Someone under 18 is never shown in:

• the people listed on a school's or a business's page, or on a school's team
• a school's alumni list (only adults with a known date of birth appear there)
• people search
• the classmates directory
• community member lists and event attendee lists
• the people who reacted to a post
• mutual connections and "people you may know" suggestions
• "people also viewed" suggestions
• the lists and counts in "who viewed your profile"

A member under 18 who does not belong to a school cannot search for people at all. The location on an under-18 profile is never shown.

A few people do see a young person, because they need to: their guardian, their school's safety tools and its pupil records tool, a business they applied to or messaged, a community leader looking at their request to join, and exam results their school publishes.

Who can see your profile

• Pupils in P1 to P7 are seen only by their school: its staff, its pupils under 18, and the parents it has accepted. There's no setting to change this.
• Pupils in S1 to S6 are seen by their school too, and can choose to add their connections.
• Adults choose: their school, signed-in members, or everyone.

You choose in the app under Privacy & Safety, or on the web under Settings, then Visibility.

Your guardian, EduPress's safety team, a school or business you applied to or wrote to, and a community leader looking at your request to join can always see your profile.

In the year you're 18, the app asks you to choose, unless you've already picked one of the adult choices. If you'd never chosen, signed-in members can see your profile until you do. If you'd chosen your connections, only your school sees it until you choose again.

If your school's community let you in automatically, someone at the school has to accept you before its pupils and staff can see your profile and you can connect with other pupils. Until then the app says "Your school hasn't confirmed you yet."

Likes, followers and reactions

• Counts. If you're under 18, you don't see how many likes, reactions or comments other people's posts have, or how many followers or members other people, schools and communities have. You still see the counts on your own posts and comments, and how many people follow you. Nobody else sees the counts on your posts and comments, or how many people follow you.
• Your own reaction. Your own reaction still shows on someone else's post or comment, with no number beside it.
• Who reacted. You never get a list of who reacted to a post. Nobody gets one for a post a pupil wrote, not even the pupil.
• P1 to P7. You can react only with Like, Celebrate, Support or Love, on posts, comments and messages.
• Lists end. Feeds don't keep loading as you scroll. At the end you see "You're all caught up", and older posts load only when you tap a button such as Show older posts. Other lists load more only when you tap Show more. This is the same for everyone on EduPress.

Connections and messages

• Connections. A student under 18 can connect with, and follow, only other students under 18 at their own school. Adults and under-18s can't connect with each other.
• Messages. Messages can only be sent between people who are connected. If you connected with a pupil at another school before November 2026, the connection stays and you can still read your old messages, but you can't send new ones.
• Photos. Photos can be sent in messages only when both people are adults.
• Typing. The "is typing" sign is off whenever either person is under 18.

Messaging a school

• A school can never start a conversation. It can only reply when someone writes to it, and only if it has turned messaging on.
• Someone under 18 can write to a school only while a guardian allows that school. You can ask your guardian from the app.
• Your guardian sees every reply the school sends you.

Businesses

• Messages. A business cannot start a conversation with anyone. Someone under 18 can message a business only if their guardian has allowed contact with that business. The guardian is told when the young person writes and when the business replies (at most once a week for each), and can withdraw permission at any time.
• Questions. When someone under 18 asks a question about a listing, their guardian is told.

Adverts

Paid adverts are never shown to anyone under 18. The advert space in the feed is also not shown to anyone who is not signed in.

Jobs and listings

• Minimum age. A listing can have a minimum age. If your age is not known, you see only listings with no minimum age. On a business's page in the app you may see a listing with a minimum age above yours, but you cannot open it or apply.
• Jobs. To apply, you must verify your identity with a National ID, passport or driving licence, and be at least 16. Someone under 18 also needs a guardian linked to their account.
• Contact details. An employer receives an under-18 applicant's contact details only at the interview stage, and only after the guardian agrees, for that one application.
• CVs. An under-18 CV shows the school's name, website and town instead of the young person's own contact details.

Adults only

These are for adults only:

• creating or running a business page
• joining a school's team
• the services marketplace
• the public "open to work" badge

Notifications

• Quiet hours. If you're under 18, EduPress sends no push notifications to your phone or browser from 21:00 to 07:00, or from 08:00 to 16:00 on weekdays (Uganda time). Your notifications still wait for you in the app.
• S1 to S6. When quiet hours end, you get one push saying how many new notifications you have. It doesn't say who they're from or what they say.
• P1 to P7. You get no single push notifications. You get one push a day at 16:30 saying how many unread notifications you have, if you have any.
• Live classes. The reminder 15 minutes before a live class you joined still comes in lesson time, because you chose that class. It never comes at night.
• Event reminders. The app doesn't set its own event reminders on your phone.

Who viewed your profile

If you're under 18, you can't turn on "who viewed your profile", and your visits to other people's profiles are never recorded.

Your posts

If you're under 18, every post you write waits for a member of staff at your school before anyone else sees it. That's your own posts and your Bulletin posts. Until then only you, your school's staff and, for a Bulletin post, the Editor's Desk can see it.

• While it waits. When you send a post, you're told who it's waiting for. If your school hasn't confirmed your account yet, you're told that instead, and your posts wait until it does.
• Sent back. A member of staff can send your post back with a note saying why. Write it again with the changes and send it.
• Editing. Every time you edit a post, it waits for staff again, even one that was already up.

Guardians are kept informed

A guardian whose link the young person has acknowledged gets an alert when the young person:

• blocks someone
• reports a person or a message
• applies for a listing, and when that application ends in an offer or a rejection
• messages a business, or a business replies
• messages a school
• asks about a listing
• is in a message that school staff reviewed
• deletes their account

EduPress sends at most one of these alerts a week for each kind of event. School replies to a young person, and their requests to message a school, always reach the guardian.

When a guardian uses your Tyra

A guardian can use Tyra, the study tutor, for you only after you've accepted their link and your school has verified it, and only during a session they start. Each session lasts at most 24 hours. You're told when one starts. Family shows your guardians and their latest 50 sessions: who, which mode, when it started and ended, and how many times they read your Tyra chats. It's in the app's Me menu, and on the web under Settings, in Data privacy. A guardian can't clear your Tyra history.

To stop a guardian, turn off their link in Privacy & Safety in the app, or Data privacy on the web. Any session they have running ends at once. If you move school, your new school has to verify the link again. When you turn 18, nobody can use Tyra for you.

What your guardians' weekly summary shows

Each Sunday evening, a guardian who can use Tyra for you (you accepted their link and your school verified it) gets a summary of your week: news, results and events from your school, the live classes you joined and library items you rented, and how many new connections you made, never who. It also lists the Bulletin posts you published after a teacher said yes, by title only, and how many of your posts a teacher sent back. It only lists what both you and your guardian can see. It never shows your messages, who you talk to, your searches, who viewed your profile, or anything you reported or blocked.

You can read every summary a guardian got, exactly as they got it, on Family (in the app's Me menu, or Settings on the web). When you turn 18, the summaries stop.

Reporting a concern

Use Report on any post, comment, school, person or message. Read the community guidelines to see what happens next. You can also write to EduPress support.