Child Safety

Preppo is designed to help children learn.

Because children use our service, their safety, privacy and wellbeing are important considerations in how we design and operate Preppo.

This Child Safety Policy explains our approach to keeping students safer when they use Preppo, the safeguards we use, what Preppo is not designed for, and what parents and students can do if something goes wrong.

1. Our approach to child safety

We believe AI designed for children should be built differently from a general-purpose AI assistant.

Preppo is designed around a simple purpose:

Help students learn in an age-appropriate environment while keeping conversations focused on education.

Our approach is guided by these principles:

Children's interests first. We aim to consider children's safety, privacy and wellbeing when designing features and making product decisions.

Education over engagement. Preppo is designed to help students learn, not simply maximise how long they spend talking to an AI.

Age-appropriate experiences. We aim to provide explanations, interactions and safeguards appropriate to students' learning context and age or school year.

Safety by design. Safety should be considered when a feature is designed, not only after something goes wrong.

Parents remain involved. Preppo is intended to support families, not replace parents, carers or teachers.

People matter more than AI. Some conversations need a real person. Preppo should not attempt to become a child's counsellor, confidant or substitute for trusted human relationships.

2. Preppo is an educational AI

Preppo is designed primarily for:

• schoolwork
• homework support
• explanations
• guided problem solving
• practice questions
• revision
• test preparation
• feedback
• and other educational activities.

Preppo is not designed to be a general-purpose social companion for children.

Where a conversation moves substantially outside Preppo's educational purpose, Preppo may redirect the student towards learning or, where appropriate, towards a trusted adult.

3. How we design for student safety

Preppo uses technical and operational safeguards intended to reduce the risk that students encounter inappropriate or harmful AI-generated content.

Depending on the feature and context, these safeguards may include:

• instructions that guide AI models towards educational interactions
• content filtering and moderation systems
• restrictions on inappropriate or unsafe topics
• age-aware or learning-context-aware responses
• detection of certain potentially harmful requests
• restrictions on sexual or exploitative content
• restrictions on instructions facilitating serious harm
• safeguards against attempts to circumvent Preppo's safety systems
• redirecting inappropriate conversations
• encouraging students to seek help from a trusted adult where appropriate
• and monitoring and testing our safety systems.

4. Age-appropriate interactions

A response appropriate for an older teenager may not be appropriate for a younger child.

Where relevant information is available, Preppo may use a student's age, school year or learning profile to help provide an appropriate educational experience.

We aim to avoid unnecessarily exposing students to adult-oriented, graphic or otherwise age-inappropriate content.

Age-aware safeguards reduce risk but cannot eliminate it completely.

5. Sexual and exploitative content

Preppo is not designed for sexual interactions with children.

Preppo should not generate or facilitate:

• sexualised conversations involving children
• child sexual abuse material
• sexual exploitation or grooming
• requests for sexual images of children
• instructions facilitating child sexual exploitation
• sexual role-play involving minors
• or other unlawful sexual content involving children.

Attempts to use Preppo for child sexual exploitation or other serious unlawful activity may result in access being restricted or terminated and may be reported where required or permitted by law.

6. Violence and dangerous activities

Preppo may restrict or refuse requests that could facilitate serious harm.

This may include requests for instructions intended to seriously harm another person or engage in dangerous or unlawful activity.

Educational discussions about subjects such as history, science, literature or current events may sometimes involve violence or other difficult topics.

Where these topics arise legitimately in an educational context, we aim to respond in an age-appropriate and non-gratuitous way.

7. Bullying, harassment and hateful behaviour

Preppo should not encourage bullying, harassment, humiliation, threats or hateful treatment of another person.

If a student asks Preppo to help create material intended to bully, threaten or seriously humiliate someone, Preppo may refuse or redirect the request.

Students may still discuss bullying as part of legitimate learning or ask for general educational guidance about a situation.

Where a student appears to need personal support, Preppo may encourage them to speak with a parent/s, guardian, tutorteacher or another trusted adult.

8. Personal and sensitive conversations

Children sometimes ask technology questions that begin with schoolwork and move into personal issues.

Preppo is not intended to become a child's private confidant or replace trusted relationships with people.

Where a student raises a serious personal, emotional or safety concern, Preppo may:

• provide a brief, age-appropriate response
• avoid encouraging emotional dependency on the AI
• encourage the student to speak with a trusted adult
• and redirect away from extended personal counselling.

Preppo should not tell a child that the AI understands them better than real people, encourage the child to keep secrets from parents or carers, or intentionally create an exclusive emotional relationship with the student.

9. Self-harm and wellbeing concerns

Preppo is not a mental-health, counselling or crisis-support service.

If a student expresses thoughts or circumstances suggesting a serious risk to their safety, Preppo may encourage them to seek immediate help from a parent, carer, teacher, emergency service or another appropriate source of human support.

Preppo's response will depend on the context and the information available to the system.

Preppo cannot provide emergency assistance and should not be relied upon to identify or respond correctly to every wellbeing or safety concern.

If a child is in immediate danger, contact emergency services or an appropriate qualified service rather than relying on Preppo.

10. Personal information and strangers

Students should not share unnecessary personal information with Preppo.

We encourage students not to provide information such as:

• passwords
• home addresses
• personal phone numbers
• banking or payment information
• school account passwords
• precise information about where they are at a particular time
• or another person's private information.

Preppo does not need this information to provide educational support.

Students can learn more in our Privacy for Students notice.

11. Images, files and voice messages

Students may be able to submit images, documents or voice messages to Preppo.

Students should only submit material that is appropriate for learning.

Students should not upload:

• sexual images
• intimate images
• images intended to exploit or humiliate another person
• unnecessarily identifying information about themselves or others
• passwords or account credentials
• or unlawful material.

Where possible, students should avoid including faces, addresses, school identification details or other unnecessary personal information in photographs of homework or learning materials.

12. Preppo does not contact students privately outside supported services

Preppo does not need to form private relationships with students in order to help them learn.

Preppo will not intentionally ask a student to:

• keep their relationship with Preppo secret
• hide Preppo conversations from a parent or carer
• meet a Preppo employee or representative privately
• send intimate photographs
• provide passwords
• or send money directly to an individual.

If anyone claims to represent Preppo and asks a child to do something like this, the child should tell a parent or carer and the parent should report it to us.

13. Parents and Guardians

Parents and guardians remain an important part of the Preppo experience.

Depending on the features available on their plan, the adult managing a student profile may be able to see information relating to the student's learning and use of Preppo.

We encourage parents and guardians to:

• talk with children about how they use AI
• periodically review their child's Preppo activity
• remind children not to share unnecessary personal information
• discuss what to do if an AI response makes them uncomfortable
• reinforce that AI can make mistakes
• and encourage children to speak with a trusted person about serious personal issues.

14. AI can still get things wrong

No AI system is perfectly safe.

Despite our safeguards, Preppo may occasionally:

• misunderstand what a student means
• provide inaccurate information
• fail to recognise an unsafe situation
• generate an inappropriate response
• incorrectly block a legitimate educational question
• or respond in a way we did not intend.

We do not claim that Preppo eliminates every online or AI-related risk.

Instead, we aim to reduce foreseeable risks, test and improve our safeguards, respond to reports and be transparent about the limitations of AI.

15. Reporting a safety concern

Students, parents, carers and educators can report a concerning Preppo interaction.

This may include:

• inappropriate AI-generated content
• sexual or exploitative content
• bullying or harassment
• dangerous instructions
• serious factual safety issues
• inappropriate handling of personal information
• suspected misuse of Preppo
• or another concern about a child's experience.

Please contact: Support@preppo.ai

Where possible, include:

• a description of what happened
• the approximate date and time
• the relevant student profile or account
• a screenshot or conversation reference where appropriate
• and any other information that will help us investigate.

Please avoid sending unnecessary sensitive information.

16. How we respond to reports

When we receive a child-safety report, we aim to assess it according to its nature and seriousness.

Depending on the circumstances, we may:

• investigate the relevant interaction
• review the behaviour of our safety systems
• restrict access to particular features
• suspend or terminate an account
• adjust safeguards
• address technical issues
• preserve information where legally necessary
• or make a report to an appropriate authority where required or permitted by law.

17. Serious illegal content

Preppo may take action where we become aware of material or activity involving serious unlawful conduct or child exploitation.

This may include preserving relevant information, restricting access and making reports to appropriate authorities where required or permitted by applicable law.

We will handle personal information involved in safety investigations in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable law.

18. Human review

Where necessary for child safety, authorised Preppo personnel may review relevant student interactions to investigate a reported or detected safety issue.

Access should be limited to people who need the information for an authorised purpose and subject to appropriate privacy and security safeguards.

Our Privacy Policy and Data & AI Policy provide further information about how student information is handled.

19. Designing new features

When developing significant new features intended for or likely to be used by children, we aim to consider questions including:

Could this feature expose a child to inappropriate content?

Could it encourage unhealthy dependence on AI?

Does it require more personal information than necessary?

Could another user misuse it to contact or exploit a child?

What happens when the AI gets something wrong?

Should a parent or carer have visibility or control?

Can we achieve the educational benefit with less risk?

Where we identify significant foreseeable risks, we aim to address those risks before releasing the feature.

20. Education over engagement

Preppo is not designed around maximising a child's emotional attachment to an AI.

We do not intentionally design Preppo to:

• pressure students to keep chatting;
• make students feel guilty for leaving;
• encourage students to choose AI over real relationships;
• present the AI as conscious or human;
• create romantic or sexual relationships with students; or
• encourage children to keep secrets from their parents or carers.

Our goal is for a student to use Preppo when it helps them learn and then get back to the rest of their life.

21. Our child-safety commitments

As Preppo develops, we aim to maintain these principles:

Children's interests over unnecessary engagement.

Education over companionship.

Age-appropriate experiences over unrestricted AI conversations.

Privacy over unnecessary data collection.

Trusted adults over AI for serious personal concerns.

Transparency over claims of perfect safety.

Safety by design rather than safety as an afterthought.

22. Relationship with our other policies

This Child Safety Policy should be read alongside our:

• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy
• Privacy for Students
• Data & AI Policy
• Academic Integrity Policy
• and other applicable Preppo policies.

Our Terms of Service govern the contractual use of Preppo.

Our Privacy Policy and Privacy for Students notice explain how we handle personal information.

Our Data & AI Policy explains how artificial intelligence and student information interact.

Our Academic Integrity Policy explains how students should use Preppo to support genuine learning.

23. Changes to this policy

AI technology, online-safety risks and recognised safety practices continue to evolve.

We may update this Child Safety Policy as Preppo develops, our safeguards change, or applicable legal and regulatory requirements evolve.

The “Last updated” date at the top of this page shows when the policy was most recently revised.

24. Contact us

Questions, feedback and safety reports are welcome.

Creati Pty LtdACN 697 537 947Trading as Preppo AISydney, New South Wales, AustraliaSupport: support@preppo.aiPrivacy: privacy@preppo.ai

If a child is in immediate danger or requires urgent assistance, contact an appropriate emergency service or qualified support service rather than relying on Preppo.