A practical guide for parents and guardians on how Zupp works and how we help keep teens safe.
Last updated: 2025-12-12
Zupp is a social app designed to help young people meet new friends in a positive, controlled environment. Many Zupp users are teenagers, and we understand that parents and guardians want to know how the app works and what steps we take to keep young people safe.
This guide explains Zupp in simple terms: what your teen can do, what they cannot do, and which protections we’ve built into the app.
Zupp is a free social app where users can discover new people and send connection requests (friend requests) to profiles they like. The goal is to help teenagers and young adults connect with people who share similar interests, hobbies, and outlooks.
Zupp is focused on friendship and shared interests. It is not designed as a dating app, and our safety systems and age separation are built to keep interactions age-appropriate and respectful.
The minimum age to use Zupp is 13.
When a user creates an account, they must provide their age. This information is used to put them into the correct age group and to keep adult and teen experiences separate.
Age cannot be freely changed from inside the app. If a user believes their age was set incorrectly, they must contact our support team so we can review and, if appropriate, update it safely.
If we have reason to believe an account belongs to someone under 13, or an account is reported as under-age, our team reviews the account and may remove or restrict it.
Teenagers on Zupp see other people in their own age group and can send connection requests to profiles they like. When someone receives a request, they can choose to accept or decline it. Accepting creates a connection inside Zupp.
Zupp automatically separates teens (13–17) and adults (18+). Teenagers only interact with other teens on the platform. Adults only interact with other adults.
Within the teen group, users can adjust their discovery filters (such as age range within 13–17 and country) to have more control over who they see. These filters cannot be used to see adults.
Teens can also control what they share on their profile, including photos and interests. We encourage teens to avoid sharing highly identifying information such as their full name, school, home address, or phone number.
Zupp uses several technical measures to keep minors and adults separate.
All users on Zupp belong to one of two age pools:
These pools are enforced on the backend. In practice, this means:
If an account attempts to bypass this separation by using a false age, we may restrict or remove that account.
Because of the age pool system, adults are not shown to teens, and teens are not shown to adults.
Connection requests, messaging and discovery are all restricted so that teens and adults do not interact with each other on Zupp.
Zupp does not use or track real-time GPS location.
During sign-up, users manually choose their country. This helps with matching and language relevance, but we do not collect or show precise locations such as addresses, neighbourhoods or GPS positions.
Users also have a discoverability setting that controls whether their profile can appear to others in discovery. If a teen does not want to be found by new people, they can turn off discoverability and focus only on existing connections.
We strongly encourage teens not to share things like their exact school, home address, or phone number in their profile or in messages with people they don’t know in real life.
Profiles on Zupp are meant to help users present themselves in a friendly, honest way. They are not a place for shocking, explicit or harmful content.
Teenagers can upload profile photos and share a short bio and interests. Zupp’s rules prohibit:
If content appears that breaks these rules, it can be reported inside the app. Our team may remove the content and take action against the account.
On Zupp, users first connect by sending and accepting connection requests.
Messaging (chat) is only available between users who are in the same age group and have connected with each other.
We encourage families to talk about how teens use messaging in any app, including Zupp, and to agree on what feels safe and appropriate for your household.
Zupp includes simple tools so your teen can control their experience and ask for our help when something feels wrong.
Your child can report:
Reports can be sent from user profiles and from specific parts of the app where supported. Our team reviews reports and may remove content, restrict features or suspend accounts where necessary. Issues involving minors or serious harm are treated with high priority.
If someone makes your child feel uncomfortable, they can block that person.
When a user is blocked:
We encourage teens to block first, then report if something feels wrong.
We have zero tolerance for child exploitation, grooming or other forms of predatory behaviour on Zupp.
Examples of behaviour that are not allowed include:
Accounts involved in serious safety violations may be banned from Zupp. Where appropriate, we may also share information with relevant authorities in line with applicable laws.
Zupp may include optional rewarded ads and in-app purchases that give users extra in-app currency (“gems”) or perks.
Rewarded ads are only shown when a user chooses to watch them, for example to earn a small gem bonus; they are not automatically played without user action.
In-app purchases are handled through the app store provider (for example, Google Play). This means parents can use existing device- or store-level controls (such as purchase approval and spending limits) to manage or restrict purchases.
We recommend that parents and guardians:
The most effective safety tool is regular, open conversation.
You can support your teen by:
Teens are more likely to ask for help when they feel listened to rather than watched. Our goal is to provide tools that support those conversations, not replace them.
We are here to support parents, guardians and teens.
If you have a safety question or need help understanding how Zupp works, you can reach our support team using the email below. Please include as much detail as you can (screenshots, usernames, what happened) so we can help effectively.
Contact us:
zuppfriends.app@proton.meZupp uses a combination of technical protections, age separation, reporting tools and human moderation to protect users. We update our safeguards as the platform grows and as new risks appear.
We take every safety report seriously. If something feels unsafe, we encourage you and your teen to use the in-app reporting tools and to reach out to us.
Together, we can help make Zupp a safe place for teenagers and young adults to meet new friends.