Children’s Policy

PartnerMe AI is a professional networking platform. The service is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18.

We enforce the 18+ rule in two layers:

• Date of birth (required): at signup you provide your date of birth. The signup form's date picker is capped at 18 years before today and the server independently rejects any DOB that would make the account holder under 18.
• Affirmative checkbox (required): you tick a box confirming you are 18 or older. This is the legal declaration we rely on under UK GDPR Recital 38 for adult-only services.
• Social sign-ups pass the same gate: if you create your account with LinkedIn, Google or Instagram, the platform does not give us your date of birth - so the whole service stays locked until you complete the same date-of-birth + 18+ affirmation step on first sign-in. The server enforces this lock on every request, and an under-18 date of birth keeps the account locked.

If we become aware that an account is held by a person under 18 we will:

• Suspend the account immediately.
• Run a full Article 17 erasure against the account within 72 hours, anonymising personal data across every linked table.
• Cancel any active subscription and arrange a refund where required by consumer-protection law.
• Log the incident in our internal incident register and report it to the ICO where the under-18 processing constituted a personal data breach.

If you believe an under-18 has signed up - whether they are your child or someone else - please email privacy@partnerme.net with:

• The username or profile URL.
• Any information that supports the claim (we will treat this confidentially).
• Your relationship to the account holder (parent, guardian, school, etc.) - helps us verify the report.

We aim to acknowledge reports within 24 hours and complete investigation + removal (if confirmed) within 72 hours.

Although the Children's Code (the ICO's Age-Appropriate Design Code) is principally for services likely to be accessed by children, our 18+ gate + age verification + reactive removal procedure is designed so that in the rare event a child does reach the service, the highest privacy + restriction settings are in effect until removal.

Article 8 EU GDPR allows member states to set the digital-services age between 13 and 16. Our 18+ rule sits above every member-state minimum, so the operationally simplest stance applies uniformly.

Data Protection contact: privacy@partnerme.net. You can also contact the UK Information Commissioner’s Office directly.