Child Safety at Pulse
Pulse uses age-aware and country-aware safeguards with stricter defaults for young people.
Release policy by jurisdiction
Pulse applies the stricter of its global product baseline and the release rule configured for the user’s declared country. Where verified parental-consent or stronger age-assurance infrastructure is not yet available, Pulse may use a stricter minimum account age rather than collect a child’s personal data.
🇺🇸 United States
Pulse release minimum: 13. COPPA applies to services directed to children under 13 and to general-audience services with actual knowledge that they collect personal information from a child under 13. Pulse therefore blocks under-13 account creation in the current release instead of relying on an unverified parental-consent flow.
US · 13+ · teen safeguards under 18
🇪🇺 European Union / EEA
Pulse release minimum: country-specific, never below 13. Where Pulse relies on the user’s consent for an information-society service, GDPR Article 8 permits national digital-consent thresholds from 13 to 16. Because this release does not offer a verified parental-consent path, Pulse uses the applicable verified national threshold as its account floor. This is a Pulse product rule, not a claim that Article 8 creates one universal social-media signup age.
EU/EEA · 13–16 by verified national threshold
🇫🇷 France
Pulse release minimum: 15. France has a specific digital-majority framework around age 15 and CNIL guidance addresses joint parent/child consent below 15 for consent-based processing. Pulse therefore blocks account creation below 15 in France in this release rather than pretending an unverified parental-authorization flow exists.
FR · conservative 15+ release rule
🇦🇺 Australia
Pulse release minimum: 16. Australia’s social-media minimum-age regime requires covered age-restricted social-media platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16 account access. Pulse uses a 16+ account minimum for Australian users.
AU · 16+
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Pulse baseline: 13+ with high-privacy teen mode. Pulse keeps under-18 accounts private by default, restricts stranger contact and disables precise location and live broadcasting. The rule can be raised independently if UK-specific age-assurance requirements require it.
GB · 13+ baseline · under-18 safeguards
🇮🇱 Israel
Pulse baseline: 13+ with high-privacy teen mode. Under-18 accounts receive stricter privacy, discovery and messaging defaults. Pulse does not claim that this product rule alone satisfies every local legal obligation.
IL · 13+ baseline · under-18 safeguards
🇧🇷 Brazil
Pulse baseline: 13+ with high-privacy teen mode. The service keeps minors in stricter safety settings and can apply a higher country rule without changing the registration design.
BR · 13+ baseline · under-18 safeguards
🌍 Other countries
Global baseline: 13+. Pulse applies private-by-default teen profiles and stronger messaging, location, live and advertising protections below 18. If a country has a stricter rule, that country policy overrides the global baseline.
GLOBAL · 13+ unless stricter rule applies
Current Pulse EU / EEA release thresholds
These are account floors used by this Pulse release where the service does not provide a verified parental-consent path. They reflect the national Article 8 digital-consent threshold where independently verified, while Pulse never allows accounts below 13.
| Pulse minimum | Countries |
|---|---|
| 13+ | Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Malta, Portugal, Sweden, Iceland and Norway |
| 14+ | Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, Lithuania and Spain |
| 15+ | Czechia, France, Greece and Slovenia |
| 16+ | Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Liechtenstein |
Liechtenstein remains configured at the GDPR 16+ default until a lower national Article 8 threshold is independently verified. The registry can be raised without an app update when a stricter product or legal rule is confirmed.
Safety by design
- Under-18 accounts start private and cannot weaken protected defaults from the child account where the safeguard is locked.
- Adult-stranger messaging is restricted for teen accounts; connected relationships are required for messaging in the current backend.
- Behavioral advertising based on profiling is disabled for minors.
- Precise location and live broadcasting are disabled for minors in the current release.
- Stories, posts, comments and messages use moderation controls and users can report or block.
- Guardian-facing safety concepts are designed not to expose private message content.