Content Policy and Acceptable Use

Effective date: September 21, 2026 Last updated: October 8, 2026

This policy describes what you may and may not capture, certify and share using Cert.Photos, and what we do when someone breaks these rules. It sits underneath our Terms of Service; where the two differ, the Terms of Service governs.

Cert.Photos is a service of Platform Technology Ventures LLC, One Broadway, 14th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.

1. Zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material

We have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and for any sexual exploitation of children.

There is no exception, no warning, and no appeal. Where we find it, or where it is reported to us and confirmed:

• the content is removed immediately and its certification is revoked;
• the account is terminated for good;
• we file a report with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline, as required of electronic service providers under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A; and
• we preserve the content and the associated records for the period the law requires, and make them available to NCMEC and to law enforcement.

You can report suspected child sexual exploitation to us through our report form or at abuse@cert.photos. You can also report it directly to the NCMEC CyberTipline at https://report.cybertipline.org or 1-800-843-5678. Reports to us may be made anonymously.

2. Prohibited content

You may not use Cert.Photos to capture, certify, store or share:

• Child sexual abuse material or child sexual exploitation. Covered by §1 above.
• Sexual or pornographic content. Sexually explicit imagery is prohibited.
• Violence and gore. Graphic violence, gratuitous gore, and content that glorifies violence.
• Threats and dangerous organizations. Credible threats of violence, and promotion of terrorism or violent extremism.
• Hate and discrimination. Attacks on people based on protected characteristics.
• Harassment and bullying. Targeting, intimidation, and doxxing.
• Self-harm and suicide. Content promoting or instructing self-harm, suicide, or disordered eating.
• Illegal goods and activity. Drug sales, weapons sales, trafficking, and other illegal acts.
• Non-consensual and privacy-violating content. Intimate images shared without the consent of the person depicted, and content produced through surveillance or stalking. Because Cert.Photos certifies real-world scenes that may include people who did not know they were being photographed, we ask you to take particular care here.
• Impersonation and misrepresentation. Posing as another person or organization.
• Spam, fraud and scams. Deceptive commercial content and phishing.
• Intellectual property infringement. Content you have no right to capture or publish. See our DMCA page.
• Provenance abuse. Using certification to lend false authenticity to deceptive content, or attempting to forge, game or misrepresent the certification itself. This one is specific to what we do, and we treat it seriously.

3. Account rules

• You must be at least 18 years old to use Cert.Photos.
• Do not create additional accounts to evade an enforcement action.
• Do not automate abuse of, scrape, or attack the certification and verification systems.
• Give accurate registration information.

4. What certification does and does not mean

A Cert.Photos certificate attests to the authenticity and integrity of a capture — that a photograph was taken by a real camera at a stated time and has not been altered since. It is not a statement that the subject matter is legal, accurate, newsworthy, or endorsed by us.

Certification can be revoked. Revoking a certificate is one of the enforcement actions available to us, in addition to removing content.

5. How we detect violating content

Our posture, stated plainly: we do not generally monitor everything our users capture. We combine automated detection with human review of reports.

Since 21 September 2026, every photo is checked against industry-standard perceptual hash sets of known child sexual abuse material before a certificate is issued. A match blocks certification, preserves the content, and raises a priority case for human review. No automated check is perfect, and it does not replace reports from people. If you see something wrong, tell us.

6. What happens when a rule is broken

Actions available to us, roughly in order of severity:

1. Removal of the content, and revocation of its certificate.
2. A warning.
3. Temporary suspension of the account.
4. Final termination of the account.
5. For child sexual abuse material: immediate removal, final termination, preservation, and a report to NCMEC. No appeal.

We will normally tell the affected user what action we took and which rule we applied.

7. Reporting and appeals

• To report content: use the report form or email abuse@cert.photos. No account is needed. Reports may be anonymous.
• Response times: reports of child sexual abuse material are actioned on receipt. All other reports are acknowledged within 24 hours and resolved within 72 hours.
• To appeal a decision about your own content: use the appeal form. A person reviews every appeal. Appeals are not available for child sexual abuse material.

8. Contact

• Report content: abuse@cert.photos · report form
• Trust and safety: trust@cert.photos
• Copyright: dmca@cert.photos · DMCA page
• Legal process: legal@cert.photos · law enforcement guidelines
• Everything else: support@cert.photos

Platform Technology Ventures LLC, One Broadway, 14th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.