Child Protection & Safeguarding Policy

1. Purpose

EcoTech Africa is committed to providing a safe digital environment for participation, publishing, relationships, organisations, research, sport, education and development. This policy explains how EcoTech protects children and young people whose information, activities or participation may appear within the EcoTech ecosystem.

2. Independent MySpace Accounts

EcoTech does not currently permit persons under 18 years of age to create or operate unrestricted independent MySpace accounts.

A person creating an independent MySpace account must confirm that they are at least 18 years old and must agree to EcoTech's applicable Terms, Privacy Policy and this Child Protection & Safeguarding Policy.

3. Junior Participation

Children and young people may still participate in legitimate EcoTech-connected activities such as sport, education, research, agriculture, community programmes, development initiatives and youth projects.

Where this occurs, their participation must be managed through an authorised organisation, club, school, programme, guardian or other responsible adult structure. Junior participants must not be created as unrestricted independent MySpace users.

4. Privacy and Personal Information

Information relating to children must be limited to what is genuinely required for the relevant activity and handled with greater care than ordinary public profile information.

• Private child-related information must remain private or access-restricted.
• Contact details should not be publicly exposed unless lawfully authorised and necessary.
• Precise location information should not be published where it could create a safety risk.
• Health, identity, school, family or other sensitive information must be handled cautiously and only where justified.
• Historical or archived records do not become public merely because they are old.

5. Images, Stories and Publishing

Organisations and publishers are responsible for ensuring that they have the appropriate authority before publishing identifiable images, names, stories or other personal information about children.

Content must not expose a child to humiliation, exploitation, harassment, unwanted contact or unnecessary identification.

6. Adult-to-Child Contact

EcoTech must not be used to facilitate inappropriate private contact, grooming, exploitation, harassment or solicitation involving children.

Normal adult networking, recruitment and opportunity workflows should not be used to directly recruit or privately engage junior participants outside an authorised organisation or responsible-adult structure.

7. Sport, Clubs and Youth Organisations

Sports clubs, leagues, academies, schools and similar organisations may use EcoTech to manage junior programmes, teams, fixtures, announcements and other legitimate activities. Junior players or participants remain within the authorised organisation structure rather than holding unrestricted independent MySpace accounts.

8. Opportunities and Recruitment

Opportunities directed at children or young people must be appropriate, lawful and administered through a responsible organisation or adult structure. EcoTech may restrict, remove or review opportunities that create a safeguarding concern.

9. Echo and Child-Related Information

Echo and Echo Soul must respect the same privacy and access permissions that apply to the underlying EcoTech record. Echo must not reveal private child-related information merely because that information exists within EcoTech.

Child-related information is subject to the same core intelligence gate: identity and safeguarding, permission, lifecycle, relevance, ranking and output.

10. Reporting a Safeguarding Concern

Users should report suspected abuse, exploitation, grooming, harassment, inappropriate contact, unsafe publishing or other child-safeguarding concerns to EcoTech as soon as possible.

EcoTech may restrict access, remove content, preserve relevant records, suspend accounts or take other reasonable protective action while a concern is reviewed.

11. Organisations' Responsibilities

Clubs, schools, associations, research programmes, businesses, NGOs and other organisations using EcoTech remain responsible for their own safeguarding duties, permissions and lawful handling of child-related information.

12. Future Youth ERT

EcoTech may introduce a dedicated Youth ERT model in future. Any such model should be designed specifically for youth participation, with stronger privacy, responsible-adult or institutional controls, restricted contact pathways and appropriate safeguarding settings.

13. Policy Review

EcoTech may update this policy as the platform develops, as youth participation models are introduced, or as safeguarding and data-protection requirements change.

This policy sets EcoTech's current operational safeguarding approach. It should be reviewed against applicable legal requirements in each jurisdiction in which EcoTech enables child-related programmes or participation.