No. It is openly installed, visible on the device, and can be switched off. It only ever runs on a child's own devices, with consent, and never on adults or anyone who has not agreed to it.

What data leaves the device?

By default, none of the content. The models judge things on the device. When something needs a parent they get a short, redacted alert with no message contents in it. If you turn on the network filter, traffic goes to our servers or one you host yourself, never a third party, and still nothing raw is kept.

Can it read my child's private messages?

It reads what is already on the screen, on the device, so it can catch grooming inside encrypted apps. It never logs keystrokes or passwords, and that text never leaves the device or gets stored.

Do you keep or sell any of it?

We don't sell anything, and we never store raw messages, images or video. What we keep is a short, redacted record for the guardian, the verdict and a stripped-back snippet or a blurred thumbnail, in an encrypted log that deletes itself on a clock. Illegal material is blocked and reported as the law requires, never kept.

A guardian setting it up on a device they own, for a child in their care. It is not a tool for monitoring adults or anyone who has not consented.

Approach

Protection without surveillance.

It would be easier to build this by watching everything a child does. We don't. A tool that sees everything can be turned against the child it is meant to protect, and every choice below follows from that.

Predator Hunters has worked on the front line since 2017, running online decoy operations, reporting from court, and training parents. The lab is the newest part of that work, and it keeps the same hard rules. We treat a child's privacy as part of their safety, not something to trade away for it.

So the models are small enough to run on the device, the system keeps no raw content, and a person is always the one who acts. These are real constraints, and we hold them even when they make the work harder.

The line we hold

What our research will never touch.

The screen

We never record or stream what a child sees or types. The screen is read on the device, in the moment, for one job, and then it is gone.

Their location

No GPS, no movement history, no record of who they are with. None of it is collected.

Raw content

No message, image or video is stored or sent. A parent gets a short, redacted signal that something needs them, nothing more.

Anyone else

The tools run on one child's own devices, with consent. Never on the people around them, never on adults, and never in secret.

Principles

Six commitments, in plain words.

On device by default: The models run on the child's own devices, across the platforms a family actually uses, from Android and Windows to iPhone, iPad and Mac. You can route traffic through a filtering VPN, but only to our servers or an instance you host yourself, never a third party, and it never carries raw content.
No raw content, ever: No raw message, image or video is ever stored. What we keep is a short, redacted record for the guardian, the verdict and a stripped-back snippet or a blurred thumbnail, held in an encrypted, tamper-evident log that deletes itself on a clock. There is nothing raw sitting on a server to leak, because we never put it there.
A person always decides: The models raise a concern and a person acts on it. A parent decides for their child, and our editors decide what we report. Nothing is ever an automated accusation.
Block and report, never store: Illegal child-abuse material is blocked on sight and reported to the right authority, as the law requires. It is never stored, served, or made.
Stings, then the courts: Our frontline team runs decoy operations and, when it is safe, confronts the person and holds them for the police with everything we have gathered. We never name anyone before they are charged. Footage is held back until there is a conviction, censored where it is needed, and published only when it genuinely helps people protect children. We work with the police, not in their place.
Open methods, closed data: We explain how the models work. We never publish anything that could harm a child, like their data, a grooming dataset, or live weights.

Questions

The questions people ask first.

Is this spyware?: No. It is openly installed, visible on the device, and can be switched off. It only ever runs on a child's own devices, with consent, and never on adults or anyone who has not agreed to it.
What data leaves the device?: By default, none of the content. The models judge things on the device. When something needs a parent they get a short, redacted alert with no message contents in it. If you turn on the network filter, traffic goes to our servers or one you host yourself, never a third party, and still nothing raw is kept.
Can it read my child's private messages?: It reads what is already on the screen, on the device, so it can catch grooming inside encrypted apps. It never logs keystrokes or passwords, and that text never leaves the device or gets stored.
Do you keep or sell any of it?: We don't sell anything, and we never store raw messages, images or video. What we keep is a short, redacted record for the guardian, the verdict and a stripped-back snippet or a blurred thumbnail, in an encrypted log that deletes itself on a clock. Illegal material is blocked and reported as the law requires, never kept.
Who is it meant for?: A guardian setting it up on a device they own, for a child in their care. It is not a tool for monitoring adults or anyone who has not consented.