Child safety on lessonu

lessonu is software for private teachers and small schools: scheduling, messages, lesson notes, invoices and online lessons. Some teachers on lessonu teach students under 18. This page says what lessonu does to keep those children safe, what it does not do, and what to ask a teacher before a child's first lesson.

Schools and parents often check a provider against Australia's National Principles for Child Safe Organisations and New Zealand's Children's Act 2014. Section 8 says where lessonu stands on each principle, including the ones it does not meet yet.

lessonu does not ask for, check or record working-with-children checks. A teacher's page on lessonu shows no check, and lessonu does not stop a teacher without one from teaching children. Teachers are responsible for holding any check the law requires where they teach.

Before a child's first lesson, ask the teacher to show you their check. These are the names to ask for:

• NSW, VIC, SA and WA: Working With Children Check.
• QLD: Blue Card.
• TAS and ACT: Working with Vulnerable People registration.
• NT: Working with Children Clearance (Ochre Card).
• New Zealand: a New Zealand Police vet, part of the safety check the Children's Act 2014 requires of many people who work with children.

• Messages. Messages sent in lessonu are stored in lessonu. Deleting a message removes it from your own messages only; the other person keeps their copy. If someone deletes their whole lessonu account, the messages they sent are blanked for everyone, unless they were to or from a student or a parent. Messages with students and their parents are kept for child safety, whatever the student's age, even after both people delete them or one of them deletes their account; a deleted account shows on them as “Deleted User”. A parent does not see messages between a teacher and a child who has their own login.
• Video. Online lessons run on LiveKit, our video provider. Video and audio are encrypted in transit. They are not end-to-end encrypted.
• Recording. Recording is only available on the School and Academy plans, and is off unless the teacher starts it. It can start only after the teacher and everyone else in the room has agreed on screen. Recordings are kept in private storage, not on a public link, and play back through a link that expires after an hour. On the Solo and School plans our daily clean-up deletes a recording 90 days after the lesson; on other plans, including Academy, there is no automatic deletion.
• Children's logins. Most children on lessonu have no login of their own: the teacher adds them with a parent's email, and the parent is invited to their own portal, where they can see the child's lessons, the notes the teacher shares, and invoices.
• Contact with children. We expect teachers to keep contact with a student under 18 on lessonu or with the parent, not on personal phone numbers, personal email, WhatsApp, Snapchat or Instagram. If you see otherwise, tell us (section 4).

If you're a parent, student, teacher, or school administrator worried about something on lessonu, email hi@lessonu.com. We aim to reply within 24 hours.

Reports of illegal content on lessonu (child sexual abuse material, image-based abuse, cyberbullying, or serious harm) are reviewed, and the content is removed within 24 hours of our confirming it. We keep the evidence and report confirmed cases to the eSafety Commissioner (AU), the Department of Internal Affairs (NZ), or police, in line with the Basic Online Safety Expectations under the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth).

For anything involving suspected harm to a child, please also contact the appropriate authority directly — lessonu's response is internal and not a substitute for a report to police or child-protection services:

• Immediate danger: 000 (AU) or 111 (NZ).
• Child protection (AU): the helpline for your state — e.g. NSW Child Protection Helpline 132 111, QLD 1800 177 135, VIC 13 12 78.
• Child protection (NZ): Oranga Tamariki contact line 0508 326 459.
• Online abuse or grooming (AU): the eSafety Commissioner at esafety.gov.au/report.
• Online abuse (NZ): Netsafe at netsafe.org.nz/report.
• Privacy complaints (AU): Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.
• Privacy complaints (NZ): Office of the Privacy Commissioner at privacy.org.nz or 0800 803 909.

Mandatory reporting laws differ by state. In every Australian state and territory, registered teachers are mandatory reporters. In some places (for example NSW and the Northern Territory) the duty reaches further and can include private tutors, so check the rules where you teach. Where lessonu staff become aware of reasonable grounds to suspect child abuse, we will report to the relevant authority and tell you we have done so, unless that would prejudice the investigation.

This section does not apply to lessons between consenting adults.

We don't use student data for advertising, never sell it, and never share it with a third party except those listed in /subprocessors. A parent can ask for a copy of their child's data, or for it to be deleted, by emailing hi@lessonu.com. Messages to or from the child's own login, and to or from their parent, are kept even then, for child safety (section 3). The general Privacy Policy covers all accounts, adult or child.

If you're evaluating lessonu for a school or any organisation that works with children, email hi@lessonu.com for our Data Processing Agreement, our incident-response runbook, or help completing your state's vendor privacy assessment. We aim to reply within 5 business days. Please read section 2 first: lessonu does not check working-with-children checks, so your own screening of teachers still applies.

For evaluators and school procurement reviewers, here is where lessonu stands on each of the ten National Principles (AU), including where it falls short today.

• Principle 1 — Child safety embedded in leadership. The founder of lessonu is its Privacy Officer (see /privacy §14) and is responsible for child-safety decisions on the platform.
• Principle 2 — Children informed of their rights. Not met yet: lessonu has no explanation of their rights written for children.
• Principle 3 — Families and communities are informed. Parents invited to the portal see their child's lessons, shared notes and invoices (section 3). This page says what lessonu does and does not do.
• Principle 4 — Equity is upheld and diverse needs respected. lessonu asks only for what a teacher chooses to record; a student's date of birth is optional.
• Principle 5 — Suitable workers are engaged. Not met by lessonu: it does not check teachers. Section 2 lists the check to ask each teacher for.
• Principle 6 — Processes for complaints + concerns. Section 4: how to report a concern to us, and the authorities to contact directly.
• Principle 7 — Staff equipped through training. Not met yet: lessonu has no formal child-safety training programme.
• Principle 8 — Physical and online environments promote safety. Section 3: video encrypted in transit, recording only when everyone in the room agrees, recordings kept in private storage, a message that one person cannot delete for the other, and messages with students and their parents kept for child safety, even after an account is deleted.
• Principle 9 — Continuous improvement. We review this page at least every six months, and after any incident reported to us.
• Principle 10 — Policies document how the organisation is safe for children. This page is the public policy. Our incident-response runbook is available to school reviewers on request to hi@lessonu.com.

This page was last reviewed on 30 September 2026. Next scheduled review: March 2027.