Child safety standards

Last updated 17 September 2026

HereKorea has no tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation. This page sets out what we forbid, what we do to stop it reaching the app, how anyone can report it to us, and who to write to about any of it. It is published in full because Google Play requires these standards to be public, and because a promise nobody can read is not one.

What is forbidden

Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and any other child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) is forbidden on HereKorea without exception. That covers, and is not limited to:

• Any image, video, drawing or text that sexualises a minor.
• Soliciting, grooming, or attempting to make contact with a minor for sexual purposes.
• Advertising, trading, requesting or linking to such material anywhere else.
• Sexual extortion, and threatening to publish intimate images of anybody.
• Using HereKorea to arrange the sexual abuse or trafficking of a child.

This is written into the Terms of service, which every member agrees to before their account is opened.

HereKorea is for adults

You have to be 18 or over to hold an account. Signing up asks for a date of birth, and the app refuses anyone under 18 outright. The Google Play listing is rated for adults and set to exclude minors.

That age floor is not left to an honest answer. Opening an account also takes:

• A Korean mobile number, verified by one-time code. In Korea a mobile line is registered to a real identity.
• A photograph of a residence card — an Alien Registration Card or a Permanent Residence Card — read by a person before the account goes live. The card carries a date of birth, and a reviewer checks it against what was typed.

An account that fails either check never becomes usable. This is the single most effective control the app has: a service whose members are verified adults is a poor place to look for a child.

Reporting to us, from inside the app

Every post, every reply, every direct message and every profile carries a Report action in its own menu, and one of the reasons offered is sexual content. There is a free-text box for anything a label does not cover. Reporting takes no more than two taps from whatever you are looking at, and does not require you to have an account in good standing, to be in the conversation, or to explain yourself first.

Anyone can also be blocked from their profile, which removes them from your view immediately and does not wait on our decision.

If you cannot reach the in-app action for any reason, write to hello.herekorea@gmail.com.

What happens to a report

Reports arrive in a moderation queue that a human reads. A report concerning a child is treated as the most urgent thing in it and is not left to sit behind older items.

• The content comes down. A reported message is deleted outright, from both copies of the conversation — not hidden from the person who reported it. A post is removed. An image is deleted from storage, not merely unlinked.
• The account is suspended. A suspended member cannot post, message, speak or listen, and is removed from every live room they are in.
• It is kept for the authorities. Where the law requires evidence to be preserved, it is preserved and handed over rather than destroyed.

We do not issue warnings for CSAE. The first instance ends the account.

Reporting to the authorities

HereKorea operates from the Republic of Korea. Confirmed child sexual abuse material is reported to the relevant authorities, and we cooperate with their requests:

• The Korean National Police Agency cyber bureau (ecrm.police.go.kr), and 112 where a child is in immediate danger.
• The Korea Communications Standards Commission (방송통신심의위원회), for removal of material hosted elsewhere.
• The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children CyberTipline (report.cybertip.org), where the material or the people involved reach beyond Korea.

Anybody may report directly to any of these at any time, whether or not they have told us first, and nothing on this page asks them to wait for us.

What the app does not hold

Two design decisions matter here, and both cut the same way.

• Nothing said in a voice room is recorded. Audio passes through and is never written down, so there is no archive of it to leak, subpoena or abuse. It also means audio cannot be reviewed after the fact, which is why a live room is reported and acted on while it is running, and why a host can remove anybody from their own room without waiting for us.
• A residence card photograph is used to verify a person and nothing else. It is not shown to other members, and it is deleted with the account.

Point of contact

Questions about these standards, about a specific report, or from a regulator or a law enforcement officer, go to hello.herekorea@gmail.com. That address is read by the operator of the service, who can speak to how CSAM prevention works here and to our compliance with it.