Legal
Child safety standards
Verus has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation. These are the standards Verus Communications Ltd holds the Verus app to, how to report a concern and what happens when you do.
Last updated 14 September 2026.
Zero tolerance
Child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) has no place on Verus. The following are prohibited in every form, whether in a message, an attachment or anything attached to an address:
- Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) of any kind, including drawn, generated or altered imagery.
- Asking for, sharing, trading or linking to CSAM.
- Grooming: building contact or trust with a child in order to abuse or exploit them.
- Sextortion: coercing a young person with sexual images of them or the threat of sharing them.
- Any sexualisation of a minor, including sexual comments, role play or content that presents a child in a sexual way.
An account found doing any of these is removed and reported. There are no warnings and no second chances.
Verus is for adults
Verus is for people aged 18 and over, as the terms of use require. It is not designed for children or marketed to them.
What end to end encryption means here
Messages on Verus are end to end encrypted. They are encrypted on the sender's device and can only be decrypted on the recipient's, so nobody at Verus can see what a message says. That also means we cannot scan conversations. We see the content of a message only when a participant in the conversation reports it and chooses to share it with us.
That is why reporting is built into every conversation.
How to report
In the app. Every conversation has Block and Report. Blocking is immediate and happens on your device. Reporting sends us the address you are reporting along with what you tell us. It blocks that address too. You can choose to attach up to twenty of the most recent messages that person sent you, which your device decrypts and sends with the report. Nothing you wrote is included and nothing is attached unless you choose it.
By email. Write to lj@verusapp.co.uk with the Verus address involved and what happened. Please do not email us images of child sexual abuse, even as evidence. Describe what you saw instead.
If a child is in immediate danger, call 999 in the UK or your local emergency number first.
What happens after a report
- Every report is reviewed within 24 hours.
- The offending address is barred from the Verus relay, so it can no longer send or receive messages through it.
- Apparent child sexual abuse material is reported to the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) and to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) through its CyberTipline.
- Any evidence the reporter supplied is preserved as the law requires.
What Verus holds, which is what it can provide to the authorities, is set out in the privacy policy.
The law
Verus complies with applicable child safety laws, including the UK Online Safety Act 2023.
Child safety point of contact
The named person responsible for child safety at Verus is Louis-James Davis, at lj@verusapp.co.uk. Regulators, law enforcement and child protection organisations can use the same address.
Verus Communications Ltd, company number 17429651, C/O Usque Ltd, 97 Alderley Road, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 1PT, United Kingdom.