How Lumi keeps you safe, with numbers
Every random-chat site says it is moderated. This page says how, who looks, what is kept and for how long, and publishes the counts each month so you can see whether the machinery is running.
This month
Counts for this month so far. They come from Lumi's own records and are updated hourly.
A "--" means the numbers have not loaded. The software decides every check on its own and a person looks over its decisions afterwards, so that count lags the check count within a month.
The age check
Before your first chat you enter your birth year and look at your camera for a moment. Software on Lumi's own servers reads your age group from several photos, not one; no outside company is involved, and no face template is ever stored. The year you type is tested against what the photos show: a year that does not fit is sent back to you to correct, and a year that keeps not fitting is refused for the day. The software decides on its own, and a person looks over its decisions afterwards. If the check cannot read your face you get five retakes, and then it is refused for the day.
More than one check runs on every photo: two separate readers of age that have to agree, a check that a live person is at the camera and not a picture, a video or a screen held up, and the comparison with the year typed. The check also remembers: a birth year that changes from one try to the next is refused for the day. Someone Lumi has known in one age group for more than a week, coming back on a device they have passed a check on, is let in without a new photo.
What it keeps: The photo exists for that check and 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. What is left after that is a record of what the software read, what a person said about it, and when, kept so that Lumi can tell whether the software is worse for some faces than others and can show a regulator that the gate ran at all.
What it does: users aged 13 to 17 are matched only with other teens and can only join teen rooms; adults (18 and over) are matched only with adults. The band is bound into your session on the server, and every match and every room checks it. A check that reads as under 13 is refused.
What is screened, and who looks
- Camera frames. In a video chat or a room, self-hosted software samples frames and looks for nudity and for anyone who appears to be a child. A frame it flags is kept as evidence, blurred in the queue, and reviewed by a person; every other frame is discarded on the spot.
- Text. Messages, status lines, and the words in activities: every line passes through Lumi's own chat rules before it is delivered: a clear violation is refused and the sender is told, and a line that is delivered but noted for a moderator shows its sender a caution. A self-hosted toxicity model catches what the rules miss and warns the sender. Three strikes in one chat end it.
- Speech. Spoken lines are off unless you switch them on in the sound and video settings. On, Lumi's own speech-to-text writes what you say into the chat as spoken lines, for both sides; the words are screened like typed ones and never leave Lumi's servers. Off, nothing you say is heard or written.
- Shared files and images. Every upload is classified before anyone sees it, and its fingerprint is checked against images that have been ordered removed.
- Who looks. A person. Nothing is auto-cleared; the software can refuse, flag, and hold, but only a person dismisses a flag or decides a report. What gets flagged is kept as evidence for 90 days and then deleted, unless a case is still open or the law requires it to be kept longer.
Reports
Report is one tap in any chat or room. It captures your side of the conversation and, in a video chat, a frame of the other person; the server knows who you were paired with, so you do not need to know anything about them. A person reads every report and decides: a ban, or nothing. No promise is made about minutes; what is published is the count, above. The person you reported is never told who reported them. You can also skip, leave, or mute someone in a room so that you see and hear nothing from them.
Bans
A ban sticks to the device and the connection, using one-way codes, so a banned person cannot simply come back under a new nickname. Nudity, sexual content, harassment, and any content involving minors lead to bans. A ban is never lifted for money. Nothing on Lumi that changes who you meet, or lets anyone past a safety step, is for sale. If you believe a ban is a mistake, write to Support inside the app: a person reads it and can lift it, and the decision is recorded. A ban the software gives on its own is reviewed by a person, with its evidence, and can be lifted. A star next to a name was given by Lumi's staff; any ban takes it away.
Intimate images shared without consent
If an intimate image of you, or of someone under 18, has been shared on Lumi, you can ask for it to be removed at /takedown, without an account. A request is acted on within 48 hours; the image is deleted and its fingerprint is blocked from being uploaded again. Where the image involves someone under 18, Lumi treats it as a report to the authorities as well as a removal.
What Lumi does not do
- It does not record conversations, and it does not sell or share data. There are no ads, no trackers, and no third-party vendors.
- It does not show anyone your IP address: audio and video are relayed through Lumi's own servers.
- It does not let software clear a flag or decide a report. A person does.
- It does not stop the other person from recording their own screen. Never show anything you would not want seen.