Acceptable Use Policy

1. Status, scope and what is permitted

This Acceptable Use Policy is incorporated into the Terms of Service and binds every user, guest or member, in every part of the service. The laws named below are the main UK provisions engaged; conduct criminal in England and Wales is prohibited for all users wherever in the UK they live, and the equivalent Scottish and Northern Irish offences apply equally.

What is permitted. ChatNow is an 18+ service. Sexual conversation, and the exchange of sexual images or webcam between consenting adults, is permitted in Adult Rooms and in private conversations where the other person has clearly agreed. Consent can be withdrawn at any time; "no", silence or a block means no.

2. Illegal content and conduct

You must not post, send, stream, request, offer, link to or encourage any of the following.

2.1 Terrorism

Encouraging or glorifying terrorism, disseminating terrorist publications, inviting or expressing support for a proscribed organisation, or acting on its behalf (Terrorism Act 2000, ss.11 to 13; Terrorism Act 2006, ss.1 and 2).

2.2 Child sexual exploitation and abuse

Any indecent, prohibited or sexualised image of a person under 18, real or generated; sexual communication with, about or in the presence of a child; arranging to meet a child; sexual role-play involving a child character; attempts to identify or contact minors (Protection of Children Act 1978, s.1; Criminal Justice Act 1988, s.160; Coroners and Justice Act 2009, s.62; Sexual Offences Act 2003, ss.15 and 15A).

2.3 Intimate images, cyberflashing and extreme pornography

Sharing, or threatening to share, an intimate photograph or film of a person without consent (Sexual Offences Act 2003, s.66B); sending an image of genitals to a person who has not asked for it, by message or webcam (cyberflashing, Sexual Offences Act 2003, s.66A); creating or requesting a sexually explicit "deepfake" of an adult without consent (section 66E of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, inserted by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, in force 6 February 2026); extreme pornography depicting life-threatening acts, serious injury, necrophilia, bestiality or non-consensual penetration (Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, s.63).

2.4 Threats, harassment, stalking and abuse

Threats of death, rape, serious injury or serious financial loss (Online Safety Act 2023, s.181); harassment or stalking (Protection from Harassment Act 1997, ss.1, 2, 2A and 4); publishing a person's private details to intimidate them; grossly offensive or menacing messages (Communications Act 2003, s.127(1); Malicious Communications Act 1988, s.1); controlling or coercive behaviour (Serious Crime Act 2015, s.76).

2.5 Hate

Stirring up hatred on grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation, and threatening or abusive content targeting a person for a protected characteristic, including disability and gender identity (Public Order Act 1986, Parts 3 and 3A; Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021).

2.6 False communications and epilepsy trolling

Messages you know to be false, sent to cause non-trivial psychological or physical harm (Online Safety Act 2023, s.179); flashing images sent to a person with epilepsy to cause harm (Online Safety Act 2023, s.183).

2.7 Suicide and serious self-harm

Encouraging or assisting suicide (Suicide Act 1961, s.2) or serious self-harm (Crime and Policing Act 2026, replacing s.184 of the Online Safety Act 2023).

2.8 Fraud and financial crime

Romance and investment scams, phishing, money or gift-card requests under false pretences, fake giveaways, articles for use in fraud (Fraud Act 2006, ss.2, 6 and 7); laundering the proceeds of crime (Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, Part 7).

2.9 Drugs and weapons

Offering, seeking or arranging the supply of controlled drugs or psychoactive substances (Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, s.4; Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, ss.5 and 7); selling, sourcing or offering firearms, knives, corrosives or other offensive weapons (Firearms Act 1968; Offensive Weapons Act 2019).

2.10 Sexual exploitation, prostitution and trafficking

Advertising, offering, seeking or arranging paid sexual services, including escorting and "sugar" arrangements; causing, inciting or controlling prostitution for gain (Sexual Offences Act 2003, ss.52 and 53); arranging travel, work or accommodation with a view to exploitation (Modern Slavery Act 2015, ss.1 and 2); assisting unlawful immigration (Immigration Act 1971, s.25).

2.11 Computer misuse

Unauthorised access to accounts or systems, malware, credential stuffing, denial-of-service attacks, or tools for these purposes (Computer Misuse Act 1990, ss.1 to 3A).

2.12 Intellectual property

Content that infringes copyright, or use of a name or logo that infringes a trade mark (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988; Trade Marks Act 1994, s.10). Rights holders may use the copyright complaints procedure.

2.13 Other offences

Any other priority offence in Schedule 7 of the Online Safety Act 2023, including animal cruelty and foreign interference, and any other unlawful content, including defamation (see defamation complaints).

3. Webcam and voice

• Only you, and adults who have expressly agreed, may be shown or heard on your stream; broadcasting another person without consent is prohibited.
• No person under 18 may be visible or audible on any stream, even in the background.
• You must not record, screenshot, re-stream or otherwise capture another user's webcam, voice note or voice conversation. ChatNow does not record streams; nor may you.
• Sexual content on webcam is permitted only in Adult Rooms, or in a private conversation where the other person has clearly agreed; exposing genitals to someone who has not agreed is cyberflashing (section 2.3).

4. Images

• Every person shown in an image you upload must be an adult who consented to it being taken and shared on ChatNow.
• No non-consensual intimate images, real or generated, and no image of a person under 18 in any context.
• No extreme pornography within section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.
• Sexual images are permitted only in Adult Rooms and in private conversations where the recipient has clearly agreed to receive them.

5. Private messages

Every rule in this policy applies to private messages exactly as in public rooms. In addition: unsolicited sexual images or explicit voice notes are prohibited whatever room the conversation began in; a first message must not be sexual unless invited; and continuing to message a person after they have asked you to stop, or have blocked you, is harassment.

6. Profiles, usernames and impersonation

• Usernames and profile text must not be abusive, threatening or discriminatory, sexualise minors, advertise paid services, give contact details for commercial purposes, or impersonate anyone.
• Profile bios are reviewed before they go live.
• You must not impersonate another person, a public figure, a moderator, an administrator or ChatNow itself (Fraud Act 2006, s.2, where done for gain or to cause loss).
• Your stated age must be truthful; misrepresenting it is a serious breach.

7. Platform integrity

• Ban evasion. Returning after a ban by any means is a breach and extends the ban.
• Multiple accounts. One person, one account, one session at a time.
• Automation and scraping. No bots, scripts, automated messaging, crawlers or scrapers; no harvesting of usernames, messages or images; no circumventing our security or rate limits.
• Commercial solicitation. No advertising, affiliate links, referral schemes or recruitment for other platforms, and no escorting or paid sexual services (section 2.10).
• Age misrepresentation and circumvention. Misstating your age, using another person's identity or documents to pass the age check, sharing methods to defeat it, or helping anyone under 18 gain access are serious breaches, reported where a minor is involved.

8. Enforcement ladder

Sanctions are applied consistently and in proportion to the seriousness of the breach, the harm caused or risked, intent and history. In increasing order: removal of the content; reduced visibility for a limited time; temporary mute; temporary ban by account, IP address and device; permanent ban by account, IP address and device with termination of the account. Breaches under sections 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 (non-consensual images) and threats of violence lead directly to a permanent ban. Every decision is notified with the reason, the rule or law relied on, whether automation was involved and how to appeal; no permanent ban is applied on a purely automated basis without human review.

9. How we detect breaches

Three layers (details in section 8 of the Terms and on the Online Safety page): human moderation by moderators present in rooms daily, with 24/7 on-call cover for intimate-image and child-safety cases; automated analysis of the text of public and private messages by an AI classifier after sending (text only, never your identity), plus anti-spam controls and pre-moderation of bios; and hash matching of every uploaded image against known child sexual abuse material and StopNCII.org hashes.

10. Reporting

Use the report button on any message or profile, or email safety@chatnow.fr; people who do not use ChatNow may report the same way. Reports are acknowledged within 24 hours and standard reports decided within 7 days. Intimate-image reports from the person shown, or someone acting for them, are actioned within 48 hours under section 10(3A) of the Online Safety Act 2023. See Report content or a user. Knowingly false reports made to harass another user are themselves a breach.

11. Appeals

Any sanction, rejected report or age-assurance decision can be appealed through Complaints & Appeals. Appeals are decided within 14 days by a human reviewer who did not take the original decision; a successful appeal restores the content, lifts the sanction and corrects the record. A repeat of a complaint already decided, with nothing new, may be closed without further review with a written note. Acting against you in breach of this policy or the Terms gives you a right to claim for breach of contract (Terms, section 13).

12. Cooperation with law enforcement

Detected child sexual exploitation and abuse content is reported to the National Crime Agency under the Online Safety (CSEA Content Reporting by Regulated User-to-User Service Providers) Regulations 2026 and, where relevant, to the Internet Watch Foundation. Terrorism content is referred to the police. Otherwise we preserve evidence and disclose data to the police, the courts and regulators in response to valid legal requests or where a person is at imminent risk, as described in the Law Enforcement & Authorities Guidelines and the Privacy Policy.

13. Changes to this policy

This policy changes only for the reasons, and with the notice (at least 30 days for any material change), set out in section 22 of the Terms; all versions are listed on the Legal Documents Version History page.