Trust, safety & data protection
We work with young people — many of them vulnerable. Keeping them safe and their data protected comes first.
🛡 Safeguarding
- An always-free crisis safety net — if someone is struggling, support (Samaritans, Shout, PAPYRUS, 999) shows immediately, before any paid feature.
- A named Designated Safeguarding Lead reviews every safeguarding flag, with a defined response time.
- We never present ourselves as a clinical or therapeutic service — we signpost to the right help and to a young person's own keyworker.
🔒 Data protection
- UK GDPR compliant, with a completed Data Protection Impact Assessment.
- Children's Code (Age-Appropriate Design) defaults for under-18s.
- Sensitive (“special category”) information is only ever collected with explicit, separate consent, and can be skipped or deleted.
- Young people can export or delete their data at any time.
- Funder reports are aggregated with small-number suppression (groups under 10 never shown), so no individual can be identified.
🤝 Sharing with keyworkers
- A young person's progress is only shared with their programme's keyworker if they explicitly agree when they join.
- If they don't consent, they still get the full app — but they appear anonymously to the organisation.
- Coach conversations and anything marked private are never shared.
🚫 What we will never do
- Analyse your face or voice to judge emotions or “confidence”
- Run hidden or “anonymous” wellbeing surveillance
- Let employers browse young people’s profiles
- Profile young people by “personality” or label them with a single score
- Sell your data or use it for advertising
AI guidance is clearly labelled and is never presented as advice from a qualified careers adviser.
Read the full Privacy Notice. Organisations can request our DPIA, safeguarding policy and a data-processing agreement — hello@playnorthwestcic.com. For organisations →