Minor Recipients and Guardians Policy

4.2 If the Recipient is under 18 at the start of the access window, we may require a Guardian to complete additional steps before access is granted, which can include:

• identity verification (via our verification provider), and
• evidence of parental responsibility or legal authority where appropriate (for example a birth certificate, adoption order, or court order). We will confirm what is required when you contact us.

4.7 If the Account Holder was the child's only parent or guardian. Where the Account Holder who passes away was the Minor Recipient's sole parent or legal guardian, Messages addressed to the child are kept securely and remain unreleased until a new legal guardian has been formally appointed (for example through a guardian named in the Account Holder's will, or by a court). Once appointed, the new guardian may contact us to verify their identity and authority, after which the standard Guardian access steps in 4.2 apply. We will pause the access window during this period where reasonably necessary so that Messages are not lost while formal guardianship is being arranged. If you are concerned about this scenario when adding a child Recipient, we encourage you to name a chosen guardian in your will and to record their details in your Y.O.D.O. account notes.

4.8 If the named Guardian cannot act. The Guardian the Account Holder named may be unable to act when the time comes. They may have died, lost capacity, become unreachable, declined the role, or ceased to hold parental responsibility for the Minor Recipient. In any of those cases, a person who is in fact the Minor's parent or legal guardian may apply to us for access on the child's behalf, whether or not the Account Holder named them, and whether or not the Account Holder knew of them. They do not need to have been recorded in the Account Holder's Y.O.D.O. account.

To apply, contact Support at info@yodo.ltd. We will ask for identity verification and for evidence of parental responsibility or legal authority for that child, as set out in 4.2, for example a birth or adoption certificate, a court order, a special guardianship order, or a local-authority placement decision. We will also ask what has happened to the named Guardian, so far as the applicant knows it. Where the claim is contested, or where we are not satisfied on the evidence, we will not release the Messages and will say so.

We will pause the access window while a properly made application is being assessed, so that Messages are not deleted under 4.3 while guardianship is being established. We do not hold Messages indefinitely: if no eligible guardian comes forward before the 12-month window closes, the Messages are deleted under 4.3. That is why we would rather hear from someone early, even if their authority is not yet fully documented, than not hear from them at all.

The purpose of this clause is narrow and worth stating plainly: the Account Holder wrote to a child, and that child should receive what was written for them. The Guardian mechanism exists to protect the child, not to become the reason the Messages are lost.

Status: not yet available. Clause 4.9 describes a feature we have designed but not yet released. We do not send any notice to a Minor Recipient today. Every route to a Message currently runs through a Guardian under 4.2. The clause is published in advance so the terms and the reasoning are settled before it is built; it is written below in the present tense to describe how it will operate. We will update this policy, with a new version and a changelog entry, when it goes live.

4.9 Letting the Minor Recipient know a Message exists. Where the Account Holder has given us the Minor Recipient's own email address and has chosen this option when adding them, we may tell the Minor Recipient that a Message is being held for them. We do this because the access window is finite. A child who does not know a Message exists cannot ask anyone to act, and if nobody acts before the window closes the Message is deleted under 4.3. It is the child, more than anyone, who has a reason to get the Guardian process started in time.

No notice below the age of 13. We do not send this notice to a Minor Recipient under 13. Below that age everything routes to the Guardian, who is told that a Message is being held and can begin the process under 4.2. We set the threshold at 13 by analogy with section 9 of the Data Protection Act 2018, which is the age at which a child in the United Kingdom can consent to information society services on their own behalf. The reasoning is recorded in our data protection impact assessment for this feature.

Why an age limit at all. A notice of this kind asks the child to take it to a trusted adult. Below 13 we do not think that is a fair thing to ask, and the Guardian route reaches the same outcome without placing the request on the child. The limit narrows who we contact directly; it does not narrow who may receive a Message.

Notice is not access. The notice tells the Minor Recipient only that a Message is being held, that an adult with parental responsibility for them needs to complete a verification step first, and how that adult can contact us. It does not contain the Message, any part of it, any preview, any attachment, or anything about what it says. No access is granted to a Minor Recipient at any point under this clause. Access follows 4.2, 4.7 or 4.8, or 4.5 if they turn 18 while the window is still open.

How we word it. The notice is written to be read by a child, in plain language, without urgency, pressure, or any suggestion of what the Message might contain. It encourages the Minor Recipient to speak to a parent, guardian, or another adult they trust, and it gives that adult a direct route to us. We send it once, with at most one reminder, and the Minor Recipient can ask us to stop sending it.

Control and choice. This is off unless the Account Holder turns it on for that Recipient, and the Account Holder can turn it off at any time while they are alive. We will not send a notice where we have not been given the Minor Recipient's own address, where the Account Holder has not chosen this option, or where we have reason to believe a notice would not be in the child's interests. A Guardian who has been verified for that child may also ask us to stop.

We treat a Minor Recipient's email address as children's personal data under the ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code and process it only to send this notice and to answer a reply to it. It is not used for marketing, is never shared, and is deleted with the rest of the Recipient record under our retention rules.

4.10 What a verified Guardian is expected to do. Once a Guardian has been verified under 4.2, 4.7 or 4.8, the Messages addressed to the Minor Recipient are made available to them for the remainder of the access window. It is for the Guardian to download those Messages and keep them safe, and to decide whether the child sees them now or when they are older. That judgement belongs to the person responsible for the child, not to us.

Please download and store the Messages during that 12-month window. Y.O.D.O. is not a long-term archive for a Minor Recipient's Messages and does not keep them until the child turns 18. When the window closes, the Messages are deleted under 4.3 and cannot be recovered. If you need more time, ask us at info@yodo.ltd before it ends.

4.11 How we use our discretion to extend, where a child is involved. Terms section 11.4 lets us extend an access window. Where the Recipient is a Minor, we start from the position that an extension should be granted, and we look for a reason to say yes rather than a reason to say no. We will normally extend where guardianship is being appointed, where a court or local authority process is under way, where an application under 4.8 is being assessed, or where a Guardian has been verified but needs longer to arrange safe storage.

We take this approach because the consequence of getting it wrong falls on a child who did nothing to cause the delay, and because formal guardianship can take longer than 12 months to settle. It is not an unlimited commitment, and we will still refuse where a request is not genuine or where we are not satisfied about identity or authority, but a child should not lose a parent's last words to a calendar. If you are close to the end of a window and the position is unresolved, contact us anyway.