Platform Safeguarding and Safety Reporting Policy

Our bounded reporting and handling commitments for platform and Informative-controlled concerns involving people under 18.

1. Purpose and scope

This policy explains how Informative Academy receives and handles safety or safeguarding concerns connected with:

  • use of the Informative Academy platform;
  • content, accounts, access or communications controlled by Informative Academy; or
  • a programme session or adult relationship that Informative Academy directly provides.

It applies where a concern involves a person under 18. It is not a general child-protection service, an emergency service, or a replacement for the policies and trained personnel of a school, charity, camp, family or statutory authority.

Where a partner delivers a programme, the partner retains responsibility for classroom supervision, attendance, staff vetting, local conduct, parent liaison and its local safeguarding response. Informative Academy remains responsible for its platform, its own personnel and contractors, and prompt routing of reports it receives.

2. Commitments and limits

Informative Academy will:

  • provide a stable reporting address and monitor it during normal operating periods;
  • review reports promptly and target an initial assessment within one working day;
  • act sooner when a report indicates an immediate risk;
  • take proportionate action within its control, including restricting content, features, accounts or access;
  • share only what is reasonably necessary with a delivery partner, emergency service, authority or adviser;
  • keep a restricted decision record for material reports; and
  • tell reporters when another route is more appropriate, where it is safe and lawful to do so.

Informative Academy does not promise continuous or 24-hour monitoring. It does not investigate allegations as a school or statutory authority, determine whether abuse occurred, provide crisis counselling, or use AI to make a safeguarding decision.

3. Reporting contact and emergency limitation

Platform Safeguarding Contact: David Goggin, Founder

Reporting address: safeguarding@informative.academy

Use the reporting address for concerns connected with the platform or Informative Academy's own delivery. It is monitored regularly during normal operating periods but is not an emergency channel.

If someone is in immediate danger, contact the emergency service for the person's location first. Singapore routes are summarised in the Singapore schedule. A concern about David Goggin must not be sent only to a mailbox that routes to him; use the relevant delivery partner or external authority instead.

4. What may be reported

Examples include:

  • harmful, threatening, exploitative or illegal platform content involving a child;
  • grooming, coercion, harassment or an attempt arising through the service to move a learner into private off-platform contact;
  • inappropriate conduct by an adult acting for Informative Academy;
  • exposure of a learner's contact details or another platform privacy or access failure that creates a safety risk;
  • a credible safety concern arising during a session directly provided by Informative Academy; or
  • failure to remove, restrict or respond to harmful content or access within Informative Academy's control.

A person may still use the address when unsure. Receiving a report does not mean Informative Academy assumes responsibility for a classroom, family or partner process outside its role.

Do not download, copy, forward or investigate suspected child sexual abuse material. Preserve only a safe pointer where necessary and use the appropriate police or reporting route.

5. How reports are handled

Informative Academy uses an internal Platform Safety Report Handling Procedure. Every report is assigned to one of four routes:

  1. Immediate danger: direct the reporter to emergency services and, when Informative Academy has enough reliable information and it is appropriate to act, make or support an urgent referral without waiting for an internal process.
  2. Platform or Informative-controlled issue: preserve a safe pointer, restrict relevant content or access where proportionate, assess further action and record the outcome.
  3. Partner or classroom issue: send the minimum necessary information promptly to the partner's named safeguarding route. Informative Academy takes any related platform action but does not replace the partner's local process.
  4. Ordinary support or misdirected matter: move it to the appropriate support, privacy, security or complaints process and avoid creating an unnecessary safeguarding record.

The decision record must state the route selected, reason, actions, any referral and closure or review outcome. A decision not to take further action must also be recorded for a material report.

Parents or carers may be contacted where appropriate, but not where doing so could increase risk, conflict with an authority's direction or exceed Informative Academy's role. Partner notification must not delay emergency action.

6. Platform safeguards and feature boundaries

  • Anonymous login and registration surfaces must not offer WhatsApp or another private off-platform messaging route.
  • Signed-in WhatsApp visibility must fail closed for unresolved, unknown and learner roles. An adult-facing WhatsApp route is a business-contact option, not a safeguarding channel.
  • A learner-facing report or moderation feature must have an identified owner, response route and recorded outcome before it is enabled for external learners.
  • Safety action should use the narrowest effective platform restriction rather than requiring whole-account deletion where a narrower action is available.

The protected Build peer-feedback lane remains disabled for external children until its own reporting, takedown, notice, appeal and republication controls are deployed and human-tested. That is a feature-release condition; it does not prevent this email-based policy from becoming effective while the feature remains disabled.

7. Delivery partners and adults with learner contact

For partner-delivered programmes, the delivery agreement or written operating plan must identify:

  • the partner's local safeguarding contact and reporting route;
  • Informative Academy's platform reporting address;
  • which party handles classroom or local concerns;
  • how urgent and non-urgent matters are routed; and
  • who may receive the minimum necessary information.

The partner remains responsible for vetting, training, supervision and conduct of its personnel unless a written agreement expressly assigns a specific responsibility to Informative Academy. Informative Academy does not ordinarily collect or duplicate the partner's underlying staff-vetting files.

Any adult whom Informative Academy directly assigns to learner contact must receive role-appropriate conduct and reporting instructions before access. Additional identity, reference, screening or recognised safeguarding-lead training requirements apply only where the role, delivery model, contract or applicable law makes them necessary. Informative Academy must not describe a person as a trained designated safeguarding lead without evidence supporting that claim.

8. Records and confidentiality

A material report requires one restricted case record containing only what is necessary to understand the report, decide action and evidence the outcome. A separate minimal tracking entry may contain a case reference, dates, jurisdiction, status, safe source pointer and route selected, but must not duplicate the narrative.

Substantive reports, allegations, evidence and case notes must not be placed in GitHub, Notion, Slack, model prompts, general analytics or ordinary product-support records. They must not be deliberately submitted to, retrieved through, indexed for or processed by an AI tool. Where an authorised connector cannot exclude the restricted location technically, the Platform Safeguarding Contact must not invoke that connector on the location or its contents, and the residual access must be reviewed before another person or automated process receives access. Repository evidence may record control status, dates and synthetic test results only.

Access is limited to the Platform Safeguarding Contact and any person who must receive the information for a lawful, contractual or protective reason. The record must distinguish information received from conclusions or actions; Informative Academy does not record an allegation as an established fact.

9. Retention and disposal

  • Ordinary or misdirected support correspondence follows the 24-month support-correspondence period.
  • A material platform safeguarding or safety report, including its decision and referral evidence, is retained for three years after closure.
  • Informative Academy keeps only the minimum routing and decision evidence when a school, partner or authority owns the substantive case record.
  • A documented legal, regulatory, contractual, claim or active-investigation hold may extend the relevant period. The reason, scope and review date must be recorded.
  • A different period applies only when a specific law, authority direction, partner agreement or documented case classification justifies it.

The school-sector age-25, age-75 and staff-retirement benchmarks are not the default for Informative Academy platform reports. They apply only if a later documented assessment establishes that Informative Academy actually holds the corresponding school or child-protection record class.

10. Jurisdiction and partner routes

Jurisdiction schedules provide verified emergency and referral contact information and any specific legal characterisation needed for Informative Academy's role. They do not turn Informative Academy into a local child-protection authority or replace a partner's policy.

Current schedule:

  • Singapore

Before a new delivery model or country is activated, Informative Academy must identify the applicable emergency route, partner responsibility and any material legal requirement that changes this policy.

11. Competence, testing and review

The Platform Safeguarding Contact must understand this policy, the internal handling procedure, the restricted-record rule and the applicable referral routes. Proportionate additional training must be completed before Informative Academy undertakes a direct classroom safeguarding role, formally acts as a partner's designated lead, or begins a delivery model that requires it.

Before relying on this policy for external learners, Informative Academy must complete a benign synthetic handling test. The test verifies receipt, review time, correct selection of one of the four routes, minimum recording and prohibited-system avoidance. It must not use a real disclosure or contact an emergency service or authority.

Quarterly review must confirm:

  • the published policy is reachable and current;
  • the reporting address delivers and is monitored as described;
  • the handling procedure and restricted record location remain usable;
  • Singapore and any other active contact routes remain current;
  • partner responsibility is documented for each partner-delivered programme; and
  • feature-specific safety gates accurately reflect which features are enabled.