Yapply for parents

Your child’s group is using Yapply. Here is exactly what that means.

Yapply is a private group chat for organised groups of young people — youth groups, sports teams, scouts, camps and clubs. It is run by the adult who leads your child’s group, not by strangers, and it is not a public social network. There is nobody to discover and nothing to go viral on.

What you can see

You can link to your child’s account and get a weekly summary by email. It tells you:

• How many messages they sent
• Who they had direct conversations with, and whether those people are adults or minors
• Which groups they joined
• Any safety flags, moderation events or sanctions on their account

What you cannot see, on purpose

The summary never contains the contents of their messages. We are not going to forward your child’s conversations to you, and that is a deliberate decision rather than a missing feature.

A young person who knows every word is being sent to a parent does not become safer — they move to an app where nobody is watching at all. What you get instead is enough to notice when something has changed: a sudden new adult contact, a spike in activity at 2am, a moderation flag. Those are the things worth a conversation, and the conversation should be with your child.

Children under 13

A child under 13 cannot create a Yapply account by themselves. The app refuses it. A parent or guardian has to set the account up, confirm consent in writing, and hand their child a code — which is why you may have been asked to sign something.

That is a legal requirement under the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and it is also the behaviour we would want anyway. Every under-13 account on Yapply has a named adult who agreed to it.

What we collect

• Name and email from whichever sign-in they use
• Date of birth, kept private — other users only ever see whether someone is an adult or a minor, never the date itself
• Messages, photos and files they send, so the app works
• Crash reports, so we can fix what breaks

There is no advertising in Yapply and we do not sell or share anyone’s data. There is no ad network in the app, so nothing about your child is being auctioned to anyone.

How the app protects them

• Adults cannot start conversations with minors who are not already their friends. This is enforced by the server, not by a setting someone can turn off.
• Every message is checked by automated moderation, for both text and images.
• Links are scanned before anyone taps them.
• Anyone can report or block anyone, and leaders get moderation tools with a record of what was done.
• Everyone agrees to a Code of Conduct, and there is an appeals process if someone is sanctioned.
• Quiet crisis support appears if someone sounds like they are struggling.

If you want them out

You can remove your child’s account at any time, and you can ask us for a copy of what we hold about them or for it to be deleted. Email [email protected] and we will sort it out — you do not need a reason.

Questions

Ask the leader who runs your child’s group first — they can show you the app. For anything about privacy, data or safety, email [email protected] directly.

The full detail is in our Privacy Policy and Terms.