For parents: what Lumi is, and what it is not

Your teen has asked about Lumi, or you found it in a browser history. You have read the guides about random video chat and you want to know whether this one is different, how the age check actually works, what is kept, and what you can do.

Here is exactly how the check works, what is kept and for how long, how reporting works, and what Lumi is not.

What it is

Lumi pairs a person with one other person for a text, audio, or video conversation, or puts a few people in a room together. It runs in the browser with nothing to install and no account. It is pseudonymous: a nickname or nothing, never a name. Everyone passes a selfie age check before their first chat, and users aged 13 to 17 are placed in a lane that adults cannot enter. Adults (18 and over) are matched only with adults.

What it is not

Lumi is not a kids' app, and it is not unsupervised freedom. It is a place where a teen talks to other teens they do not know, with a mechanism that keeps adults out of the teen pool, screening for abuse, and a person behind the Report button. It does not replace the conversation you have with your teen about what to share with strangers, which is: never a school, an address, a full name, or a social handle, and never a move to another app because someone asked.

How the age check works

1. A birth year and a moment at the camera. Software running on Lumi's own servers estimates the age group from a few frames. No outside company is involved, and no face template is ever stored.
2. The year is tested against the photos. Two separate readers of age have to agree, a live person has to be at the camera rather than a picture or a screen, and the year typed has to fit what the photos show. A year that does not fit is sent back to be corrected; a year that keeps not fitting is refused for the day. If the software cannot read a face, there are five retakes, and then the day is refused. The software decides on its own, and a person looks over its decisions afterwards.
3. The photo is kept for 90 days at the latest, on Lumi's own servers only. A photo from a check a person has ruled on may be kept longer, to train Lumi's own age model. No face template is ever stored, and no photo ever leaves Lumi. A check that reads as under 13 is refused.

The age band is bound into the session on the server. Every match and every room checks it; there is no query on Lumi's servers that joins a minor to an adult. A test of the check by an adult ends in the adult lane, not the teen one.

What is kept

• No account, no profile, no name, no phone number, and no email address.
• The age-check photo, for 90 days at the latest; a photo from a check a person has ruled on may be kept longer, on Lumi's own servers only, to train Lumi's own age model.
• Conversations are not recorded. Automated screening on Lumi's own servers may sample camera frames and check text to catch abuse; what gets flagged is kept as evidence for 90 days and reviewed by a person, the rest is discarded.
• One-way codes for the device and the connection, so that a ban sticks. Nobody sees a raw IP address except Lumi's own servers, and the person your teen talks to never does.
• No ads, no trackers, no data sale, and no third-party vendors of any kind.

The teen lane, specifically

• Teens only ever meet teens, one to one and in rooms.
• Shared video only when Lumi switches it on for teens, and then YouTube links only, every link recorded, and anyone in the room can report the video. No paid extras, and nothing to buy. Nobody under 18 is ever monetized.
• No public headcounts, lists, or schedules for teen rooms; teens are never discoverable.
• Every room carries a rules card written for a 13-year-old, pinned at the top and posted as the first line.
• Regulars, message requests, and calls work in the teen lane, and only inside it: a teen's regular is always another teen. Every one of them is mutual by design, so nothing connects two people unless both chose it -- a wave that is not returned does nothing and is never mentioned to anyone. Communities need an account, and an account needs a verified adult, so a teen cannot open or own one.

Reporting

Report is one tap in any chat or room. It captures the reporter's side of the conversation and, in a video chat, a frame of the other person, and a person reads it. A ban sticks to the device and the connection, not just the nickname, and a ban is never lifted for money. Support inside the app also reaches a person. The safety page publishes how many checks, reports, and bans there were this month.

What you can do

• Talk about the nickname rule and the never-move-to-another-app rule. They are the two that matter most.
• Try the age check yourself. You will land in the adult lane; that is the mechanism working.
• If you believe someone under 13 has got in, write to Support inside the app. It is treated as a matter of fact, not a complaint.
• Know what does not exist: there is no parental dashboard, because there is no account to look into. What Lumi keeps is listed above, in full.

Nearby