Child Safety

1. Our commitment

Children have the right to grow up free from exploitation, and the internet must not be a place where that right is lost. INDO CHATS PRIVATE LIMITED, the company behind Indo Mail, treats the protection of children as a duty that comes before commercial interests, growth and convenience.

This page explains what Indo Mail does to keep children safe, what we will never allow on the service, how to report a concern, and how parents and guardians can protect the children they care for. It applies to the whole Indo Mail account, including Mail, Drive, Photos, Cloud, Business Profile, Ads and every other app that uses the account.

2. Indo Mail is for adults

You must be at least 18 years old to create and use an Indo Mail account. We do not knowingly open accounts for anyone under 18.

If we learn that an account belongs to a person under 18, we may suspend it, and after giving a short opportunity to save important files, close it. If you believe a child has opened an account, please write to support@indoemail.in with the address and we will look into it.

We will not create accounts for under-18s until a verifiable parental-consent flow that meets the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 is built, tested and live. See section 9 for what we plan.

3. Zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material

Indo Mail has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and for any form of child sexual exploitation. This applies to every part of the service, including email bodies and attachments, Drive files and share links, Photos albums, Business Profiles and ads.

• It is forbidden to create, store, send, receive, share, link to, advertise, request or ask for any sexual image, video or text involving a person under 18. This includes real material, edited or computer-generated material, drawings and written stories that sexualise children.
• It is forbidden to groom, solicit or try to meet a child for sexual purposes, to encourage others to do so, or to offer or ask for a child for sexual purposes.
• It is forbidden to use the service to help anyone find such material, including by sharing tips, forums or directories.
• A claim that material is art, research, a joke or private does not make it acceptable.

Breaking these rules leads to immediate and permanent closure of the account, without warning, and referral to the police. Making, storing or sharing such material is a serious criminal offence in India under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. Offenders can be sent to prison.

4. Other content we do not allow

Beyond CSAM, the following are not allowed and are acted on seriously:

• Sexual or romantic approaches to children by adults, and adults pretending to be children in order to build trust.
• Content that shows or encourages child abuse, child marriage, child labour or trafficking of children.
• Threats to share intimate pictures of a minor, or demands for money or more pictures (sextortion).
• Sharing a child's personal details, such as home address or school, in a way that puts the child at risk.
• Ads or Business Profiles that target children with harmful products, or that sell anything illegal to under-18s.
• Intimate images of any person shared without that person's consent. Where the person is a child, we treat it as CSAM.

5. How Indo Mail finds and handles this material

We use a mix of technology, user reports and trained people, always with respect for the privacy of lawful communication.

• Reports first. Reports sent to abuse@indoemail.in, and the Report scam and Spam buttons in the inbox, are reviewed by people. Reports about children are placed at the top of the queue.
• Review within hours. We aim to review any report about a child within 4 hours, at any time of day.
• Immediate block. Where we find or are told about CSAM, we remove it or block access straight away, disable the share link, and suspend the sending account.
• Limited access. Staff who must view such material are specially trained, limited in number and supported with wellbeing care. They view only what is needed to make a decision.
• Never forwarded. Our staff are told never to copy, download or forward suspected CSAM except through the secure channel used to give it to the authorities.
• Technology over time. We are working to add automated matching of known abusive images against lists maintained by recognised child-protection bodies, so that fewer people ever have to see it. We will update this page when that is live.

Our tools will never be used to scan lawful private mail for other purposes, and we never read mail to target ads.

6. Reporting, preservation and cooperation with authorities

When Indo Mail becomes aware of an offence against a child, we act under Indian law and in the way the authorities expect.

• Reporting. Section 19 of the POCSO Act, 2012 requires any person who has knowledge or apprehension that a sexual offence against a child is being or may be committed to report it to the Special Juvenile Police Unit or the local police, and section 20 requires a person who comes across material showing a child in a sexual form to report it. We follow both duties: we report such cases to the police and cooperate with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), as the law provides.
• Preservation. We preserve the relevant message, files, account details and logs, and keep them secure and unchanged, so that investigators can use them. Preservation is not deleted at the account holder's request while an offence is being investigated.
• Law-enforcement requests. Police may write to legal@indoemail.in. For a child-safety emergency, they should mark the subject URGENT and we will give priority to the request. A formal order or notice under section 94 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 should follow.
• International cases. Where the material or the offender is outside India, or the report is made through an international child-protection body, we will also report to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the United States, and cooperate with foreign police through the proper Indian channels.
• CERT-In. Where an incident is also a cyber-security incident, it is reported to CERT-In within 6 hours as required by its Directions of 28 April 2022.
• Confidentiality. We do not tell a suspect about a police investigation if the law or the police ask us not to.

7. How to report a concern to us

If you see anything that endangers a child, tell us. You do not need to be sure; it is enough to have a good reason for worry.

• Write to abuse@indoemail.in and put URGENT at the start of the subject line.
• Describe what you saw and where. If it is a Drive share link, Business Profile or ad, include the full web address. If it is an email, forward it as an attachment so that the full headers travel with it.
• Tell us if a child is in immediate danger. In that case, also call 112 (the national emergency number) or 1098 (CHILDLINE) first. Our report is not a substitute for calling for help.
• Do not forward the material to friends or post it online, and do not keep copies on your own devices. Doing so can itself be an offence. Report it and delete it from your device once the authorities have what they need.
• You can report anonymously to the police through the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal at cybercrime.gov.in, which has a section for crimes against children.

We will confirm that we have received your report. For privacy and legal reasons we may not be able to tell you what was done. No one is penalised for making a report in good faith.

8. Guidance for parents and guardians

Most harm to children online begins with ordinary conversation. Offenders pretend to be friends, flatter a child, ask for secrecy, and slowly push the limits. Knowing the pattern is the best protection.

• Recognise grooming. Warning signs include an older person who gives a child gifts, money or phone credit; who asks to keep chats secret; who moves the conversation to a private app; who asks for pictures; or who sends sexual jokes or images 'to teach' the child. A child may become secretive about devices, upset after being online, or have new things they cannot explain.
• Understand sextortion. A criminal, often pretending to be a girl or boy of the same age, persuades a child to share an intimate picture or video, then threatens to send it to family and friends unless money or more pictures are sent. The shame is the weapon. Payment does not stop it.
• What to tell your child. You will never be in trouble for telling me. Nobody has the right to ask for pictures of your body. If someone threatens you, stop replying and tell me straight away, and I will help.
• If it happens: stay calm. Do not blame the child. Do not pay. Stop all contact and do not delete the chats; take screenshots with the profile name and web address. Report at cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930, and tell the police. If an Indo Mail address was used, write to abuse@indoemail.in marked URGENT.
• Keep the door open. Talk about online life often and without anger. Children who fear punishment hide problems.
• Use device controls. Set up age-appropriate controls and screen-time rules on your child's phone and use the safe-search tools on the browsers and apps they use.
• Know their friends online. Ask who they talk to, and check privacy settings together.
• Protect their pictures. Think before posting photos of children online, especially in school uniform or with a location visible.
• Teach early. Explain that people online may not be who they say, and that real friends do not ask for secrets.

Our Safety Center has more advice on scams and account safety for the whole family.

9. Parental consent under the DPDP Rules, 2025 (planned)

The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 treats a person under 18 as a child. Before processing a child's personal data, a data fiduciary must obtain verifiable consent from a parent or lawful guardian, and must not track, monitor the behaviour of, or target advertising at children. The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 explain how consent is to be verified.

Indo Mail will not create accounts for anyone under 18 before a verifiable parental-consent flow is available. When we build it, we plan to include:

• A check of the parent's or guardian's identity by a method allowed under the DPDP Rules, 2025, before any child's account is activated.
• A clear explanation, in simple language, of what data would be collected and why.
• A rule that a child's account will never receive ads, behavioural tracking or profiling of any kind.
• Parent controls to view the account's settings, withdraw consent and have the account and its data deleted.
• Limits on the apps and features open to a child's account.
• A review of the design by our Data Protection Officer before it launches.

This is a plan and not a live feature. Until it is live, Indo Mail remains an 18+ service. We will update this page and the Privacy Policy when the situation changes.

10. Advertising and business content

Free-plan ads on Indo Mail are contextual only and are chosen using the placement, country, language and words on the page. They never use mail content or personal data, and every ad is reviewed before it runs.

Ads and Business Profiles that sexualise children, target children with unsuitable products, or promote anything illegal for minors are rejected. If you see one, send the address to abuse@indoemail.in or ads@indoemail.in.

11. Where to get help in India

12. Contact

Report any child-safety concern: abuse@indoemail.in, marked URGENT. Police and court requests: legal@indoemail.in. Under-age accounts and general questions: support@indoemail.in. Privacy questions about children's data: privacy@indoemail.in. Complaints about how a report was handled: Salena, Grievance Officer, INDO CHATS PRIVATE LIMITED, grievance@indoemail.in.

This document is governed by the laws of India.