Safety Policy

This is CommonGround's formal safety policy, distinct from our Safety Center, which is the plain-language, resource-oriented hub for members. This page is the underlying policy those resources implement.

Background checks

CommonGround does not conduct criminal background checks or verify members' identities beyond self-attested date of birth. We do not run criminal background checks, sex-offender registry checks, or any third-party identity verification. What we do: server-side enforcement of a self-attested 18+ date of birth at signup, and a human-reviewed report queue for conduct that happens on the app. Members should exercise the same judgment meeting anyone from CommonGround that they would meeting anyone from any other online platform.

Identity and age practices

Age is self-attested at signup and rejected server-side, not just checked in your browser, if it implies you're under 18. We do not currently verify identity beyond that -- no photo/selfie liveness check, no government ID. This is a real, disclosed limitation, not an oversight: see our Safety Center for the plain-language version of this same limitation.

Prohibited conduct

Harassment, threats, or hate speech directed at someone's status, identity, or anything else about them; unwanted contact after someone has disengaged; spam or promotion of another account, product, or service; unsolicited explicit content or images; nonconsensual sexual contact or coercion of any kind; scraping or bulk-collecting profile data; impersonating another person; and misrepresenting your HIV/HSV status -- claiming a status you don't have, or denying one you do -- which undermines the premise of the app for everyone here and is grounds for an immediate ban with no prior warning. Full detail in our Community Guidelines.

Consent and sexual misconduct

No means no, once is enough, and a lack of response is also an answer. Coercion, pressure, or repeated contact after someone has disengaged is harassment regardless of intent. This applies to conduct on the app and to conduct members report happened after connecting through it.

Reporting

Reporting is one action, not two: filing a report against another member blocks them for you at the same moment, atomically, at the database level -- there is no path to file a report without the block also taking effect, and no separate step required to stop contact. You can report from any profile or message, choose a reason, and optionally add details. You don't need proof or certainty to report something.

Report review

Every report is reviewed by a person. An automated system helps categorize and prioritize the queue so serious reports surface faster, but it never suspends, bans, or removes content on its own -- a human always makes that determination.

Member notification

We generally don't explain the specific reason for a suspension or ban to the affected member, to avoid exposing what was reported or by whom -- reporter confidentiality takes priority over a detailed explanation. A member can always ask whether their account is in good standing through our privacy request form.

Suspensions and bans

Consequences scale with severity: a warning for a minor first-time issue (handled directly by the reviewing founder, not yet a separate tracked system), a 30-day suspension for repeated or more serious violations, and an immediate permanent ban for threats, harassment, or a confirmed false claim about status. A suspended or banned member cannot sign in for the duration of the action.

Appeals

Submit an appeal through our privacy request form (choose "Appeal a previous decision") -- the same public path used for any other request, reachable whether or not you can still log in.

Law-enforcement and legal requests

We authenticate legal process before responding to it, involve counsel where appropriate, minimize what we disclose to only what a valid request actually requires, and keep a record of the decision. We do not act on an informal request for member data, and we do not confirm or deny that a given email or name has an account except in response to valid legal process.

Safer-dating practices

Meet in a public place the first few times. Tell a friend where you're going and who you're meeting. A video call before meeting in person can confirm you're talking to who you think you are. Arrange your own transportation. Trust your instincts -- you can end a conversation, unmatch, block, or report at any point, for any reason, without needing to justify it to anyone.

Colorado policy operations

Colorado requires a dating-safety policy update process, defined reportable metrics, a named reporting owner, and an annual-report calendar. The mechanism this section describes is built. The named reporting owner is the Founder, and this policy is reviewed every January, both assigned 2026-09-14 -- the exact statutory reporting deadline is still a legal-review item and this date may move once counsel confirms it. This policy's substantive sections are also reviewed on the same cadence as any material safety-practice change, and updates are versioned the same way every other legal notice on CommonGround is.

Legal review

This policy is a draft pending legal review before public launch, not a final legal document. State-specific exact placement, format, and disclosure wording (Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, and Colorado's filing requirements) remain an open legal-review item -- the wording above is the national-baseline version used everywhere until that review lands.