Age Verification & Children’s Privacy Statement

1. Minimum Age Requirement

LearnWithOtti is designed for A-Level students and is available to users aged 16 and over. We do not knowingly allow users under 16 to register or use the Service.

If you are under 16, you must not create an account or use the Service. Any account found to belong to a user under 16 will be immediately suspended, all associated data will be deleted, and a full refund of any charges will be issued.

2. How We Verify Age at Sign-Up

2.1 Current Process

At the point of registration, users must confirm that they are 16 or over by accepting our Terms and Conditions. This acceptance is recorded alongside the account creation timestamp. Email confirmation is required before an account becomes active.

2.2 Nature of Verification

We are transparent that our current age verification relies primarily on self-declaration. This is a common approach for services targeting 16+ audiences and is consistent with guidance from the ICO. We take reasonable steps to enforce our age requirement and respond promptly to any reports of underage use.

2.3 Planned Enhancements

We plan to introduce date of birth collection and, where appropriate, a parental consent flow for users aged 16 or 17. These enhancements will be implemented in a future release.

3. Protections for Users Under 18

3.1 Data Minimisation

We collect only the data necessary to provide the Service. We do not request information such as school name, year group, or detailed demographic data from any user.

3.2 No Behavioural Advertising

We do not serve behavioural or targeted advertising to any user, regardless of age. Any analytics we carry out is solely for the purpose of improving the Service.

3.3 No Social Features

LearnWithOtti does not include social networking features, public profiles, user-to-user messaging, or any mechanism by which users can identify or contact one another.

3.4 AI Safety and Appropriate Content

Otti is instructed to focus exclusively on A-Level academic content. It is configured to decline requests that fall outside its educational scope and to avoid generating content that is inappropriate for a student audience.

3.5 No Commercial Profiling

We do not create commercial profiles of users under 18. Interaction data for under-18 users is used solely to operate the Service and to track academic progress within the platform.

3.6 Anonymised Data Use

Any secondary use of data (such as for improving Otti or producing educational content) is carried out only on fully anonymised data that cannot be linked back to any individual user.

4. Information for Parents and Guardians

If you are a parent or guardian and have concerns about your child’s use of LearnWithOtti, please contact us at rob@learnwithotti.co.uk. We can:

• Confirm whether an account exists for a given email address
• Provide information about what data we hold
• Delete an account and all associated data upon verified request
• Issue a full refund where an account is closed due to age concerns

5. If We Discover an Underage User

If we become aware that a user is under 16, we will immediately suspend their account, delete all associated personal data, and issue a full refund of any charges paid. We will not retain any data collected during the period of underage use.

6. Compliance with UK Children’s Code

We are committed to implementing the ICO’s Age Appropriate Design Code (Children’s Code). Our current and planned measures include:

• Age-appropriate privacy notices written in plain English
• High privacy settings applied by default for all users
• No geolocation data collection
• No profiling of users for non-essential purposes
• No nudge techniques or dark patterns in the user interface
• No connected toys or devices
• No parental monitoring tools that could undermine a young person’s trust in the Service

7. Contact

For any questions about age verification or children’s privacy, contact us at rob@learnwithotti.co.uk.