User Safety and Reporting Policy

The Third Connection is operated by RELAYLANE LABS LTD (company number 17162321), registered office: Lavender Cottage Hazelden Farm, Marden Road, Cranbrook, England, TN17 2LP, trading as "The Third Connection".

1. If you are in immediate danger

Contact the emergency services first — dial 999 in the UK (or your local emergency number) — before reporting to us. Our reporting tools are for keeping the service safe; they are not an emergency response channel.

If something happens at one of our events, alert event staff on site as well as, where appropriate, the emergency services.

2. How to report

You can report another user, or something that happened at an event, in any of these ways:

In the app

Use the safety report option. You will be asked to:

• choose a category — Harassment, Safety concern, or Other;
• identify the user and/or the event the report is about (either or both);
• describe what happened in your own words.

On the web

Use the report page at www.thethirdconnection.com/report.

By email

Email safety@thethirdconnection.com with as much detail as you can.

You do not need to have matched with someone to report them, and you can report concerns about an event itself as well as about a person.

3. What happens after you report

1. Your report enters our safety review queue. Every report is reviewed by a human member of our team — decisions about people are not made by algorithms.
2. Interim protection at scale. A single report does not automatically restrict anyone. However, if three or more different users report the same person within a rolling 30-day period, that person's account is provisionally restricted automatically, pending human review. Duplicate reports from the same reporter do not count more than once. A human reviewer then confirms, adjusts or lifts the restriction.
3. Outcome. Depending on what we find, outcomes range from no action, to a warning, content removal, account restriction, or a permanent ban — see 04-community-guidelines.md section 7 and 08-moderation-appeals.md. Privacy law means we cannot always tell you what happened as a result of your report or what action was taken against another person's account; where we can update you, we will.
4. Timeliness. We prioritise reports of serious harm and review them promptly; urgent risks are escalated immediately.

Confidentiality and no retaliation

We do not tell the reported person who reported them. Retaliating against someone for making a good-faith report is itself a breach of our Community Guidelines. Knowingly false or bad-faith reports breach our Acceptable Use Policy (05-acceptable-use-policy.md section 2.6).

Child safety (CSAE) escalation

Reports involving suspected child sexual abuse or exploitation, or any indication that a user may be under 18, are escalated with the highest priority under our Child Safety Standards (06-child-safety-standards.md), including preservation of evidence and reporting to the relevant authorities where required by law.

4. Blocking

You can block any user from the app at any time, without giving a reason.

• Blocking is mutual and immediate: a blocked user cannot send you messages, and you cannot message them. The block is enforced by the platform itself ("fail-closed" — if anything goes wrong, messages are not delivered rather than delivered).
• Blocking is independent of reporting: you can block without reporting, report without blocking, or both.
• You can unblock a user later if you choose.

5. Safety tips for in-person events

Our events are ticketed, hosted gatherings — but the same common-sense rules apply as for meeting anyone new:

• Meet at the venue. Arrive and leave independently; don't accept a lift from someone you've just met.
• Tell a friend where you're going, which event it is, and when you expect to be back.
• Keep your phone charged and with you.
• Watch your drink and drink within your limits.
• Keep personal details personal. You don't need to share your home address, workplace, or financial details with someone you've just met — and no genuine connection will ask you for money (see 04-community-guidelines.md section 4.5 on scams).
• Trust your instincts. You never owe anyone your time. If something feels off, step away and speak to event staff.
• Afterwards, chat happens only if you both choose to match — and you can unmatch or block at any time.

6. Safety in the app

• Matching is strictly mutual: nobody can message you unless you both chose to connect after an event.
• Chat is text only — no unsolicited images can be sent to you in chat.
• Profile photos pass through moderation review (see 08-moderation-appeals.md).
• Push notifications for new messages never include the message text.

7. Contact

• Safety reports: in the app, at www.thethirdconnection.com/report, or by email to safety@thethirdconnection.com. This is also our designated child-safety contact.
• Support, complaints and appeals: support@thethirdconnection.com.
• Data rights: privacy@thethirdconnection.com.
• Emergencies: always contact the emergency services first — 999 in the UK (see section 1).