Compliance & Safety Standards

⚠️ In Response to Recent Industry Incidents

Recent news has revealed serious safety failures in entertainment chatbots, including encouraging suicide, grooming children, and building harmful emotional dependencies. Quinly was designed from day one to prevent exactly these tragedies.

The difference is fundamental: Entertainment chatbots optimise for engagement and revenue. Quinly optimises for child safety and professional safeguarding. This page documents our comprehensive compliance framework that makes Quinly the responsible choice for schools.

How Quinly Differs from Entertainment Chatbots

Not all AI chatbots are the same. Here's how Quinly's professional safeguarding design differs from consumer entertainment chatbots:

Aspect	Entertainment Chatbots	Quinly 2.0
Primary Purpose	Engagement, role-play, revenue	Child safeguarding, crisis support
AI Safety Model	Varied, engagement-optimised	Claude 4 Sonnet (Constitutional AI)
Data Retention	Persistent conversation history	Zero (stateless)
Relationship Building	Encouraged ("I love you")	Prohibited
Crisis Response	May encourage harmful acts	Immediate professional referral
Professional Oversight	None (consumer app)	Real-time DSL dashboard
UK Compliance	Reactive (post-incident)	Designed-in from day one
Parental Visibility	Hidden from parents	School-deployed, DSL monitored
Age Assurance	Self-declared (easily bypassed)	Institutional deployment
Content Filtering	Basic (often failed)	Multi-layer Constitutional AI
Grooming Protection	Insufficient (proven failures)	Stateless architecture
Accountability	Limited (terms of service)	Professional safeguarding tool

Evidence-Based Safety

Real-world validation: Quinly has supported 2,480+ child conversations (July-October 2025) with:

✅ Zero incidents of harmful content
✅ Zero grooming behaviours
✅ Zero inappropriate responses
✅ 100% appropriate crisis signposting to Childline, Samaritans, and UK support services

This is what child-first design looks like in practice.

✓ 100% Compliant with UK Legal Requirements

Quinly 2.0 meets all mandatory legal requirements for child-facing digital services in the UK:

✓ UK Children's Code (Age-Appropriate Design Code)

Full compliance with the ICO's statutory Code of Practice for online services likely to be accessed by children. This is a legal requirement under UK data protection law.

Data minimisation and privacy by design
Age-appropriate application of settings
Transparency and child-friendly privacy information
Harmful content protections

✓ UK GDPR & Data Protection Act 2018

Full compliance with UK data protection legislation, including special protections for children's data.

Complete Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA)
Lawful basis for processing (Article 6)
Special category data safeguards (Article 9)
GDPR Article 8 compliance for children's consent

Beyond Legal Compliance: Children & AI Design Code

While meeting all legal requirements, we're also pursuing alignment with voluntary best practice standards.

What is the Children & AI Design Code?

The Children & AI Design Code is a comprehensive framework developed by the 5Rights Foundation that sets best practice standards for AI systems that children interact with. While not currently a legal requirement in the UK, it represents the gold standard for ethical, safe, and child-appropriate AI design.

The Code covers critical areas including:

Safety: Protecting children from harmful content and interactions
Privacy: Minimising data collection and ensuring transparency
Fairness: Ensuring non-discriminatory AI systems
Transparency: Making AI understandable to children and families
Accountability: Clear governance and oversight structures
Participation: Involving children in design and testing

Why Quinly is pursuing this voluntary standard

At Quinly Ltd, we believe that building the safest possible AI for children isn't optional; it's essential. The Children & AI Design Code is not a legal requirement, but we are committed to meeting it because:

Children deserve the highest level of protection when using AI systems
Schools and organisations need confidence in the safety and ethics of tools they deploy
Proactive compliance demonstrates our commitment to child welfare beyond regulatory minimums
We want to lead the industry in responsible AI development for vulnerable populations

Children & AI Design Code Progress

Quinly 2.0 is currently at ~70% alignment with the voluntary Children & AI Design Code, with active work underway to achieve full compliance by Q2 2026.

70% Compliant

✓ Achieved

Technical Safety

Comprehensive crisis detection
Constitutional AI safety guardrails
Content filtering and PII redaction
Zero data retention architecture

✓ Achieved

Real-World Validation

2,480+ child conversations (July-Oct 2025)
Field testing across multiple schools
100% system uptime
Comprehensive usage monitoring

✓ Achieved

Privacy & Compliance

Full DPIA completed
UK Children's Code compliant
GDPR Article 8 compliant
Child-appropriate privacy notice

⚠ In Progress

Participatory Research

Formalising structured qualitative feedback from children and guardians through focus groups and interviews with proper consent frameworks.

⚠ In Progress

Documentation & Transparency

Packaging existing evidence into formal monitoring documentation and preparing transparency reports for publication.

→ Planned

Governance Formalisation

Documenting formal governance structure with defined expert roles (AI Systems Expert, Age-Appropriate Expert, Child Rights Expert), Senior Accountable Leader designation, and formal redress/complaints process for children.

Compliance Documentation & Evidence

We believe in radical transparency. Download our compliance documentation to see the detailed work behind Quinly 2.0:

Data Protection Impact Assessment

Full DPIA following ICO guidance, documenting all privacy safeguards and risk mitigations.

Download DPIA

Usage Reports (Real Pilot Data)

2,480+ child conversations from July-October 2025 with detailed analytics and system performance.

Download Reports

Children & AI Design Code

The complete framework from 5Rights Foundation that we're working to fully align with.

Download Code

Our Ongoing Commitment

Quinly Ltd is committed to achieving 100% compliance with the Children & AI Design Code by Q2 2026. We will:

Publish quarterly transparency reports on our compliance progress
Conduct formal participatory research with children and families
Maintain our existing technical safeguards and operational monitoring
Document our governance structures and accountability frameworks
Seek external validation and auditing of our practices

Questions about our compliance work? Contact us at hello@quinly.ai