Child safeguarding policy
One rule sits under everything we make: nothing involving a child happens without a parent or guardian saying yes, in writing, first. This page is that rule written out in full — who it binds, what it forbids, and what to do if something goes wrong.
If you searched for a “child protection policy”, this is the same document. Schools and funders use both names.
- Applies to
- LOFL (OPC) Private Limited, everyone who works with us, and anyone who uses our materials with a child
- Child means
- Anyone under 18, as Indian law defines it
- The rule
- Written consent from a parent or guardian before any AI touches a child's data, before any review, and before anything is recorded
- Concerns go to
- Mrunmai Patil, Director — childcare@lofl.world
- Emergency
- Call 112. Child Helpline: 1098. Do this before you write to us.
- Owner · review
- The Director · reviewed at least yearly · next review by 28 September 2027
Why this exists
Schools, trusts and funders ask for the document behind a promise. This is it.
It does a second job too. It tells any parent or teacher exactly what LOFL will and will not do with a child's words, work or image — before they hand us anything.
Until today this rule lived as one line on the How we work and About pages. One line is a promise. This page is the procedure.
Who it applies to
Our materials are open. Anyone can download a kit and use it — a parent at a kitchen table, a tutor, a teacher, a community volunteer, a whole school. We do not check who they are. So this policy has to travel with the materials rather than sit behind a gate.
It binds three groups:
- LOFL itself — LOFL (OPC) Private Limited, a one-person company in Pune, and its Director.
- Anyone acting for LOFL — interns, volunteers, contractors, and partners running anything under our name.
- Anyone who uses LOFL materials with a child. You may use the materials freely under their licence. When you do, you are the responsible adult, and the rules below are yours to keep.
You may say you use LOFL's materials. You may not say you run a LOFL programme, or use our name and mark, unless you follow this policy. That is the one condition we attach.
How we work today
Right now LOFL does not run classes with children itself. We publish materials, set the rules, and train the adults. When a school or trust runs a programme, the school stays responsible for its children. We are responsible for what we hand them and for how we behave.
Our tools are built so that we never receive a child's data in the first place. There are no accounts and no server. What a child types or marks stays on the device it was typed on. This is the strongest protection we have. Each tool says so on its own page, and the commons records it as a checked fact, not a slogan.
If that ever changes — if a programme needs a child's work to leave the device — this page changes first, and the new version is dated below.
Consent
Before any AI touches a child's data, before anyone reviews it, and before anything is recorded, a parent or lawful guardian must say yes in writing. No consent, no processing. There is no “we'll get it later”.
In writing means a signed paper form, or an email or message from the guardian that names the child and says what they agree to. A tick in an app a child could tick themselves does not count.
- The adult running the activity collects the consent and keeps it. LOFL keeps a copy only when LOFL itself will process the data.
- Consent is for a named purpose. Using the data for anything else needs a fresh yes.
- A guardian can withdraw at any time, by any channel, and we stop. Anything already published is taken down, or cut back to what cannot identify the child.
- The Living Learning Kit ships a consent protocol for schools to finish. A school may use its own form instead, as long as it covers the same ground.
- A child can say no even when a guardian said yes. We stop.
Data — what we never collect about a child
When a child's work or words are recorded with consent, these limits apply to us and to everyone using our materials:
- First names only, or no names. Never a full name, home address, school ID, phone number or date of birth.
- No photographs or video of a child's face. Hands, work and drawings are fine.
- Nothing that lets a stranger find the child. No location finer than the district, no class timetable, no route to school.
- No tracking, no profiling, no advertising aimed at children. India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 forbids this (Section 9). So do we, and we did before the law did.
- No scores. Our tools keep sets and tallies. Nothing about a child is ranked, graded or compared with another child.
- Kept for the named purpose only, then deleted. Ask, and it goes sooner.
These limits also bind the Signal form and the traces record. If you describe a classroom to us, keep the children unnamed. We remove identifying details on arrival regardless.
Conduct — for adults acting under LOFL's name
If you are an intern, volunteer, contractor or partner working for LOFL, or you run a programme in our name, these are the rules. They are plain on purpose.
- Stay in sight. Work with children in open spaces where another adult can see you. Never alone with a child behind a closed door.
- No private channels. No one-to-one messaging, calls or social-media contact with a child. Messages go through the parent or the school.
- No photos of children on personal phones. None.
- No gifts, favours or money given to a child, and none accepted.
- No physical punishment, shouting, shaming or comparison. A child may stop at any time, for any reason.
- Take a child's word seriously. If a child tells you something worrying, listen. Do not promise to keep it secret. Write down what was said, in the child's own words, and report it the same day.
- Declare it. Before you work with children for us, tell the Director if you have ever been charged with, or investigated for, an offence against a child. We will not place you with children.
Break these rules and we stop working with you. Where the law is involved, we report — see the next two sections.
Reporting a concern
If a child is in danger right now, call 112 (emergency) or 1098 (Child Helpline). Do that first. Then tell us.
For everything else — a worry, a pattern, a rule broken, a data slip — write to childcare@lofl.world. It goes straight to Mrunmai Patil, Director of LOFL (OPC) Private Limited, who is the safeguarding lead. There is no one between you and her.
What happens next
- We confirm we have your message within two working days.
- We do not investigate abuse ourselves. If what you describe may be an offence, we report it to the local police or the Special Juvenile Police Unit, and we tell you that we have.
- If it is about our materials or our conduct, we fix it and tell you what changed. Serious matters are written up, with names removed, in the change log on this page.
- You can report without giving your name. We act on it anyway.
- We do not retaliate against anyone who reports in good faith, and we do not let anyone else.
What the law requires
This policy sits on top of Indian law, not instead of it. The parts that matter most:
- Reporting is compulsory. Under Section 19 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO), any person who knows or suspects that a sexual offence has been, or may be, committed against a child must report it to the Special Juvenile Police Unit or the local police. Not reporting is itself an offence. This binds LOFL, and it binds you.
- A child is anyone under 18. The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 and the data-protection law both say so.
- A child's data needs a guardian's verifiable consent. Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, a child's personal data may be processed only with the verifiable consent of a parent or lawful guardian, and children may not be tracked, monitored or advertised to. The rules under the Act were notified in November 2025 and come fully into force by May 2027. We follow them now.
- Help exists outside us. Child Helpline 1098 is run by the states with the Ministry of Women and Child Development and is linked to the 112 emergency service. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) also takes complaints.
Keeping the policy alive
The Director owns this policy. It is reviewed at least once a year, and whenever a programme changes what it does with children. Next review by 28 September 2027. This page is the record: every change is dated below, and nothing is quietly rewritten.
Honest state: this is v0.1, written by the studio. It has not yet been reviewed by a lawyer or a child-protection specialist. If you are one and see a gap, write to us — that is how it becomes v0.2.
Change log
- v0.1 · 28 September 2026 — first published version. Replaces the one-line rule on the How we work and About pages. Names the Director as the safeguarding lead and sets the yearly review.