Children & Age Policy

ChefSphere is designed for cooks of every experience level, but it is not intended for young children. This document explains who can use the Service, what protections apply to younger users, and how guardians can exercise their rights. It supplements the Terms of Service, the Privacy Policy, and the Acceptable Use Policy.

1. Minimum ages

ChefSphere operates four distinct age thresholds, each tied to a specific type of activity:

• Free account (global floor): 13 years. Users under 13 may not create an account or use the Service. This aligns with the COPPA floor (16 C.F.R. Part 312) applied by most major platforms.
• European Economic Area and United Kingdom: 13–16 minus one with verifiable parental consent. Users aged 13 but under 16 may use the Service only with verifiable consent from a parent or legal guardian. This reflects Art. 8 GDPR and national ages of digital consent, which vary from 13 to 16 across EU Member States; we apply 16 as the default upper bound. Where a Member State sets a lower age of digital consent, users above that national age can consent themselves.
• Online marketplace transactions (buying ebooks, buying or selling through Stripe-processed tool orders): 16 years. Below 16 the user does not have the contractual capacity to conclude distance-contract purchases or rentals under the applicable consumer contract law (e.g. §§ 104–110 BGB in Germany, Art. 1146 Code civil in France, §§ 8–9 Estonian General Part of the Civil Code Act), and our Terms do not permit it without parental supervision at the payment rail.
• In-person tool meet-ups: 18 years. Every party to a physical tool handover — buyer, seller, renter, owner — must be at least 18. This is a safety and liability rule and applies regardless of the online age thresholds above. Under-18s may attend only if accompanied by a parent or legal guardian who holds the ChefSphere account and signs the meet-up.
• Commercial sellers and ebook authors: 18 years or the contractual majority of the country of residence, whichever is higher. Authors and Sellers must also pass identity verification and Stripe Connect onboarding, as described in the Ebook Author Agreement and the Tools Seller Agreement.

2. How we apply age gates

At sign-up we ask for a date of birth or age range. We do not store the exact date if we do not need it; we store the minimum-necessary age band. If a user is clearly under the applicable age for their country, we do not create the account. We may ask for re-confirmation or additional verification when a user updates their age in a way inconsistent with prior signals.

For users aged 13 to 16 minus one in the EEA / UK, before activating the account we seek verifiable parental consent through a reasonable method that takes into account the risks of the processing, the available technology, and the specific situation of the child. Methods include confirmation from a parental-consent email address, a payment-method verification made by the parent, or a signed consent form.

3. What data we process about younger users

We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13. For users aged 13 up to (but not including) 18 we keep data processing reduced compared to adult users:

• No profiling-based advertising (and we do not run third-party behavioural advertising anyway).
• Reduced or disabled access to features with higher risk of harm (see Section 4).
• Stricter privacy defaults on posts, profiles, and messages (for example, teen profiles and follower lists default to a more restricted audience).
• No personalised suggestions that rely on behavioural profiling outside the core cooking purpose.

The full list of data we process and legal bases is in the Privacy Policy.

4. Feature restrictions for minors

The following features are restricted or unavailable for users identified as minors:

• Chef Lives hosting — available only to users aged 18 and over.
• Chef Lives viewing — available to users aged 13 and over, with additional safety filters enabled by default.
• Direct messages — available with additional limits (for example first-message previews, stranger-message filters on by default).
• Marketplace selling (ebook authoring, tool listings, marketplace payouts) — available only to users aged 18 and over.
• Online marketplace buying — available to users aged 16 and over. Below 16 the purchase must be concluded by a parent or legal guardian holding the account; the billing channel (Apple, Google, or our payment processor) remains responsible for its own age checks on payment.
• In-person tool meet-ups — every party to the meet-up must be aged 18 or older; see the In-Person Safety Guide.
• AI Chef safety mode — stricter content filters and age-appropriate guardrails are applied automatically.
• Community feed visibility — teen posts default to a more restricted audience; parents and users can adjust through in-app settings.

5. Parental rights and controls

Parents or legal guardians of minors can, without charge:

• Ask what personal data we process about their child and receive a copy.
• Correct or delete their child's personal data.
• Withdraw consent for processing and close the child's account.
• Control or restrict the child's access to specific features from the settings.
• Ask for a human review of any automated moderation decision affecting their child.

Requests can be sent to [email protected] (or [email protected] for GDPR-specific questions). We will verify the relationship to the child before disclosing data, in a way that is proportionate and not unnecessarily intrusive.

6. If we discover an underage account

If we learn that someone under the minimum age has created an account in breach of this Policy, we will delete the account and associated personal data without undue delay. Parents and users can report such accounts to [email protected].

7. App Store age rating

ChefSphere's App Store and Google Play age ratings are set to reflect this Policy: availability of user-generated content, messaging, and community features drives the rating. The current rating shown on each store is authoritative for that store. We reassess the rating when we launch material changes in community features.

8. Safety by design

We apply "safety by design" principles to product changes that may affect minors, including: privacy-protective defaults; content-risk assessments before launch; clearly visible reporting tools on every surface where a minor can interact with other users; restrictions on data sharing; and independent review of significant changes. We follow the UK Age-Appropriate Design Code where it applies to our UK users and the 5Rights principles as general guidance.

9. COPPA (United States)

If we process personal data of US-based children under 13 in breach of this Policy, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act may apply to that specific processing. Our baseline rule is simple: we do not accept users under 13. Parents who believe their child under 13 has created a ChefSphere account can request deletion by writing to [email protected]. We will confirm receipt within a business day and delete the account and associated data without undue delay.

10. Apple App Store safety disclosures (Guideline 1.2 + child safety)

In line with Apple App Store Review Guidelines 1.2 (apps with user-generated content and interactive user-to-user features) and 1.2.1(a) (creator apps — age-restriction mechanism based on verified or declared age, effective November 2025), ChefSphere implements and commits to the following child-safety standards on its iOS distribution:

• A method for filtering objectionable material — the moderation classifiers described in the AI Disclosure §1 and the safety filters described in §4 above.
• A mechanism to report objectionable content and timely responses to concerns — the in-app Report action on every user-visible surface, a 24-hour acknowledgement SLA for child-safety reports, and the Acceptable Use Policy §Enforcement.
• The ability to block abusive users — available on every interactive surface (posts, comments, DMs, Chef Lives, marketplace messages).
• Published contact information — a child-safety escalation channel at [email protected] and a data-protection channel at [email protected].
• Proactive enforcement — automated classifiers backed by human review for CSAM, grooming indicators, self-harm content, and bullying or harassment of minors, with mandatory reporting to NCMEC and equivalent national authorities where applicable under US 18 U.S.C. §2258A and EU Reg. 2021/1232.
• Account age-gate — the four-tier age policy in §1, enforced at sign-up and reviewable at any time.
• No advertising to minors — ChefSphere does not run third-party behavioural advertising; if we ever introduce advertising, it will never be personalised for users identified as minors.

These commitments apply equivalently to the Android distribution on Google Play under the Google Play Families Policy and the Child Safety Standards requirement for apps with UGC and social features.

11. State App Store Accountability Acts (United States)

Four US states have enacted laws that impose age-verification and parental-consent obligations on app stores and, correspondingly, on app developers. ChefSphere complies with the developer obligations of each law:

State	Statute	Effective
Texas	App Store Accountability Act (HB 15)	1 January 2026
Utah	App Store Accountability Act (SB 142)	7 May 2026
Louisiana	App Store Accountability Act (HB 570)	1 July 2026
California	Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043)	1 January 2027

11.1 Age-range designation

ChefSphere publishes an accurate age-range designation for the ChefSphere app and for every in-app purchase, in both App Store Connect and Google Play Console, using the four statutory bands:

• Child (under 13) — not permitted to create an account.
• Younger Teen (13 to 15) — permitted in the EEA / UK with verifiable parental consent under Art. 8 GDPR; permitted in the US subject to COPPA safeguards (see §9).
• Older Teen (16 to 17) — permitted; may transact in the online marketplaces at or above 16 (see §4); not permitted to attend in-person tool handovers (see §1).
• Adult (18+) — all features.

The reason for each band is documented in the App Store Connect / Play Console metadata and mirrors the thresholds in §1 of this Policy.

11.2 Age-category ingestion and parental consent

Where Apple or Google provides the age category of a user to the ChefSphere app through the relevant store SDK, ChefSphere ingests the signal, maps it to the Younger Teen / Older Teen / Adult band, and enforces the feature restrictions in §4 accordingly. If the store indicates that the account is held by a minor and that parental consent is required, ChefSphere blocks account creation (or the specific purchase) until the store confirms that verifiable parental consent has been obtained.

If a parent or legal guardian later revokes that consent through the store, ChefSphere (i) blocks further use by the affected minor, (ii) pauses any active subscription for that minor's account (store billing is cancelled through the store), and (iii) initiates the parental-rights flow in §5 for access, correction, or deletion requests.

11.3 No misleading age range

ChefSphere commits never to publish an age-range designation that understates the maturity of the content or features of the app. The Service's user-generated content, Chef Lives, and marketplace features drive the rating. If a state or store lowers a threshold that applies to us, the designation is updated at the next submission cycle.

11.4 California Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043, effective 1 January 2027)

California's AB 1043 is not yet effective and imposes additional duties on app stores rather than developers. This Policy will be updated before 1 January 2027 to reflect the developer-side obligations that the implementing regulations add.

12. Changes

We update this Policy when the Service, the law, or best practice for minors change. Material changes are announced in-app or by email at least 30 days before they take effect.

13. Contact

• Privacy / parental requests: [email protected]
• Data Protection Officer: [email protected]
• Trust & safety / underage-account reports: [email protected]