Safeguarding statement
Responsibility follows control. HomeFón takes full responsibility for the layer HomeFón controls: how the device is designed, what we claim about it, how your household's data is looked after, the guarantee that no HomeFón setting can block a call to 999 or 112, and what we do if a safeguarding concern reaches us.
HomeFón does not take on your role as a parent. The product is built on the premise that supervision belongs in the home. The phone is kept in a shared space, family rules are agreed between you, and you manage the contact list. This is a narrow statement on purpose.
Our partWe are responsible for
- The design of the software, and the protections it enforces.
- The claims we make about it, checked against what the product does.
- Your household's data: kept to what the service needs, and exportable or deletable by you at any time.
- Emergency dialling, which no HomeFón setting can block.
- What we do if a safeguarding concern reaches us. Our written procedure for it is being finalised.
Your partYou are responsible for
- Where the phone lives, and keeping it somewhere you can see it being used.
- Who your child can reach, and which of those contacts they can message.
- The rules of the house, including what happens when something upsetting arrives.
- The conversation with your child, which no device replaces.
Why the conversation at home matters
The product is built this way for two reasons. A phone cannot read a room: it can tell an approved number from an unapproved one, but it cannot tell whether a conversation with an approved friend has turned unkind.
Technology will never replace the safety that a parent can foster. The benefits of encouraging your child to ask for help or guidance will be far greater than us implementing a blunt tool that will eventually be bypassed or exploited.
If a safeguarding concern reaches us
Our written procedure for a safeguarding concern is being finalised. Until it is adopted, a concern that reaches us goes to the founders named below. If you are worried about a child's safety, you do not need to go through us: contact Tusla in office hours, or the Gardaí at any time. In an emergency, ring 999 or 112. If a concern reaches us and a child may be in immediate danger, we call the Gardaí first. We do not investigate a family ourselves, and we do not read a child's messages to look into a concern.
Safeguarding for HomeFón rests with the founders Willemein Koelink and Ronan Maher, who are the points of contact for a concern about the product or about a household using it. We distinguish between active guidance, proportionate oversight and invasive surveillance, and we design against the last.
Contact HomeFónIf a child is at risk of harm, technology is not a substitute for talking, and for contacting the appropriate services.
