Young People and Parents

Yuga is for people aged 13 and over. Our apps are rated 13+ in the App Store and on Google Play, and our Terms of Use say the same.

We chose 13 for three reasons:

• The content. History includes war, slavery, persecution, disease and death, and the figures speak about them honestly, with the views of their own time, some of which are offensive today. We think most people of 13 and over can meet that with support, but younger children need a more carefully guided experience than Yuga offers today.
• The AI. The figures are played by an AI that improvises its replies. It can be wrong, and it can be persuasive. Using it well means understanding that it is a performance, not the real person, and checking what it says (see AI and Content Policy). That takes a level of judgement we don’t expect from young children.
• The law. Many countries have special rules for collecting information from children under 13, such as the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the United States. Yuga is not designed for, and does not have the parental consent systems needed for, children of that age.

In some countries a young person needs a parent’s consent to use online services until they are older than 13. See when a parent’s consent is needed.

Children under 13 may not use Yuga, with or without an account.

How we keep under-13s out

• We say so in our app store listings, and the app asks on first launch: “Yuga is for ages 13 and up”, with “I’m 13 or older” and “I’m under 13”. Answering “under 13” stops the app on that phone: it shows “Yuga isn’t for you yet. Come back when you’re 13.” every time it opens. The answer stays on the phone and is never sent to us.
• After someone signs in, we ask for their year of birth. If it shows they are under 13, the account cannot be used to talk to any figure: we show the message “Yuga is for ages 13 and up.” We keep the year of birth on the account so the refusal stays in place, and the person can delete the account at any time.
• Answering the year-of-birth question is optional at the moment, and you can use Yuga without an account at all. Without an account, the only age check is that first-launch question, which relies on honesty. We do not use more intrusive methods, such as identity documents or face scans, because we think they would collect far more information about everyone than Yuga needs.

No age check is perfect. If you are a parent and your child under 13 is using Yuga, please ask them to stop, and contact us if they created an account.

If we learn that a child under 13 has used Yuga

If we learn that we hold personal information from a child under 13, for example because a parent tells us or because an account’s year of birth shows it, we will:

1. stop the account being used to talk to figures;
2. delete the account and everything we keep about it (the account details and voice-usage records described below) promptly, and in any case within 30 days, except for the minimum needed to keep the refusal in place if the parent asks us to;
3. not use or disclose the information for any other purpose.

Yuga does not store conversations, so there is no transcript of a child’s conversations for us to delete. We have no way to link a person using Yuga without an account to anyone, so there is nothing we can identify to delete in that case beyond ordinary technical logs, which are deleted automatically after 30 days (see Privacy Policy).

Parents of children under 13

You can write to support@foundationalcreations.com with “Child under 13” in the subject line. Tell us the email address or the Google or Apple sign-in your child used, if you know it. We may ask a few questions to make sure the request is genuine before we act on it, but we will not ask for more information than we need. You can also delete the account yourself with your child, from the Account screen in the app or at /account on the website (see Delete Your Account).

Teenagers are welcome on Yuga. Every conversation uses teen mode unless we know the visitor is an adult: that means everyone who is signed out, every account without a year of birth, and every account whose year of birth shows its owner is 13 to 17. Only a signed-in visitor whose year of birth shows them to be 18 or over gets the figures’ full adult style. Teen mode is worked out each time you talk to a figure, so on a teen account it ends automatically in the calendar year you turn 18. A teen account cannot switch teen mode off.

What teen mode changes

In teen mode, every figure is given an extra instruction. In substance, it says:

“This visitor is a teenager. Keep descriptions of violence brief and without gore, keep romance out of it, and steer away from adult themes as a careful teacher of your time would.”

So a teen talking with a general or a revolutionary will still learn what happened, but without graphic detail; a royal’s marriages are history, not romance; and figures steer conversations away from adult themes.

What teen mode does not change

• Figures still speak with the views of their own time, which can be uncomfortable or offensive today. They still answer honestly about difficult history, with a historian’s context note where we have prepared one.
• All the safety protections that apply to everyone, described in safety features for everyone, still apply.
• Teen mode is an instruction to the AI. Like every instruction, the AI may not follow it perfectly. Please tell us if it doesn’t.

A figure only adults can question

One figure, Adolf Hitler, is only for signed-in adults with a year of birth showing they are 18 or over. Teenagers, and anyone whose age we don’t know, can’t start that conversation. See Figures examined, not performed.

Teen mode is the default

When we don’t know someone’s age, we treat them as if they might be a teenager. A teenager who uses Yuga without an account, or with an account that has no year of birth, still gets teen mode. Adults who want the full style can sign in and give their year of birth. Teen mode can’t tell us someone’s real age, though: it protects teenagers who haven’t told us their age, but it doesn’t stop a child under 13 using Yuga while signed out. That is why we ask parents to help (see the next sections).

We keep the same, small amount of information about a teenager as about anyone else, and we use it in the same limited ways. The full details are in our Privacy Policy.

If a teenager has an account

• a user number we create, and which sign-in service they used (Google or Apple) with that service’s account number;
• their email address and name, if Google or Apple shares them (Apple lets you hide your email address);
• their year of birth, if they give it (we never ask for the full date of birth);
• their plan, and when the account was created;
• how many seconds of AI voice they have used each week, to apply the plan’s voice minutes.

What we don’t keep or do

• No conversations. We do not store what a teenager says to a figure or what the figure says back. The conversation, which takes place in our iPhone or Android app, exists only on their device during the call. The one exception is a reply they choose to send us with “Report this reply”, which we keep for 12 months for review, not linked to their account.
• No voice recordings. Yuga never receives audio. In the apps, speech is turned into text by the phone’s own speech service; our website never uses the microphone.
• No photos, no camera, no location. Yuga does not use the camera, and does not collect precise or approximate location from the device.
• No advertising. Yuga shows no ads, to anyone.
• No tracking or profiling. We use no analytics, tracking pixels or advertising identifiers, and we do not build profiles of anyone’s interests or behaviour.
• No selling or sharing. We never sell personal information, or share it for advertising.
• No marketing emails or notifications. We don’t send them, to anyone.

Conversation text is sent, turn by turn, to Google’s AI model to write the figure’s reply, and sentences are sent to a voice service to be spoken. These providers process it for us under contract and we don’t keep it. See Service Providers.

The age at which young people can sign up to online services on their own varies from country to country. Here is how it works in the places most of our visitors come from. If the law where you live requires a parent’s consent for a person of your age, please ask your parent or guardian to agree before you create a Yuga account, and to read these pages with you.

European Union and European Economic Area

Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (article 8), where an online service relies on a young person’s consent, a parent must give or authorise that consent below a “digital age of consent” that each country sets between 13 and 16. In some countries it is 13; in others, such as Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, it is 16. We do not rely on a young person’s consent to run their account (see Privacy Policy for the legal bases we use), but we still ask young people below their country’s digital age of consent to involve a parent before creating an account.

United Kingdom

In the UK the digital age of consent is 13. Teenagers can create an account themselves. We also follow the UK’s Age Appropriate Design Code; see the UK Children’s Code.

India

India treats everyone under 18 as a child; see India: under-18s below.

United States

COPPA requires verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13, which is why Yuga is not for them. For teenagers, see United States laws.

Other countries

Other countries set their own ages, often between 13 and 18. If you are not sure what applies where you live, ask a parent or guardian, or ask us.

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 treats everyone under 18 as a child. From 13 May 2027, when section 9 of the Act and rule 10 of the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules 2025 take effect, a data fiduciary must:

• get the verifiable consent of a parent or lawful guardian before processing any personal data of a child, after checking that the person giving it is an identifiable adult (for example through identity and age details already held, or a token from DigiLocker or another authorised service);
• not process a child’s data in a way likely to harm their well-being; and
• not track, behaviourally monitor or target advertising at children.

Yuga already does none of the last two, for anyone. The first is harder: talking to a figure sends what you say to the AI model, and that is personal data, with or without an account. So, before 13 May 2027, one of these will be in place for users in India under 18, and this page will say which:

1. a way for a parent or guardian to give verifiable consent in the app, as the Rules describe; or
2. Yuga will not be available in India to anyone under 18.

Until then:

• if you are in India and under 18, please use Yuga only with your parent’s or guardian’s agreement, and ask them to read this page with you;
• a parent or guardian can ask to see or delete a child’s account at any time, by writing to support@foundationalcreations.com or the Grievance Officer, Pranay Vanka.

The law lets a service process the minimum data needed to check that someone is not a child (DPDP Rules, Fourth Schedule). If Yuga needs to ask your age or where you are to apply these rules, it will ask only for that, and say why.

The UK Information Commissioner’s Age Appropriate Design Code (the “Children’s Code”) sets 15 standards for online services likely to be used by under-18s. This is how Yuga meets them today, and where we still have work to do.

• Best interests of the child. We designed Yuga around learning and curiosity, with no ads, no engagement tricks and as little data as possible.
• Data protection impact assessment. We assess the risks of Yuga to young people, and we update that assessment when we add features that could affect them.
• Age-appropriate application. Teen mode is the default: it applies to everyone except signed-in adults who have given a year of birth showing they are 18 or over. The privacy protections on this page apply to everyone, whatever their age.
• Transparency. This page, our Privacy Policy and AI and Content Policy are written in plain language, with a short summary at the top.
• Detrimental use of data. We don’t use anyone’s data in ways that work against their wellbeing. There are no streaks, rewards for time spent, autoplay of the next call, or prompts to keep talking.
• Policies and community standards. We enforce our Terms and Acceptable Use Policy, and the figures follow published safety rules.
• Default settings. The most private setting is the only setting: there is nothing to share, no public profile and no analytics to switch off.
• Data minimisation. We collect only what is needed to run an account and apply voice minutes, and we don’t store conversations, apart from a reply someone chooses to report to us.
• Data sharing. We share data only with the service providers that run Yuga for us, never for advertising or sale.
• Geolocation. Yuga does not collect location from the device.
• Parental controls. Yuga does not have parental controls yet, so there is nothing that lets a parent monitor a teenager’s use. If we add them, the teenager will be clearly told when they are on.
• Profiling. We do no profiling, of anyone.
• Nudge techniques. We don’t use design tricks to push anyone into giving more data, weakening their privacy or spending more time in the app.
• Connected toys and devices. Yuga is not a connected toy and does not run on one.
• Online tools. Anyone can delete their account and its data from the app or the website at any time, report a figure’s reply from the call screen in the app, and reach us by email with a request or concern (see what parents can do).

Several US states have laws protecting the personal information and online safety of teenagers. Some limit the sale of minors’ data or targeted advertising to them (for example, California’s Consumer Privacy Act requires opt-in consent before selling the personal information of anyone under 16). Others require online services or app stores to check ages and, for younger teenagers, a parent’s consent.

Yuga does not sell personal information, show ads or build profiles of anyone, so most of these rules about selling, advertising and profiling are already met for everyone. Some states (for example Utah, and California from 1 January 2027) require app stores to share an age signal with apps, which apps must respect; Yuga will use that signal, so teen mode and the adults-only rule follow it, and this page will explain how before it applies.

California and New York also have laws on AI “companion” chatbots. Whether or not they apply to Yuga’s historical figures, we follow their main protections: the figures never claim to be human, there is a published crisis protocol, and AI characters may not be suitable for some young people, which is one reason teen mode is the default.

Talk with your teenager

The most useful thing you can do is talk about what Yuga is. The figures are AI performances, not the real people. They can be wrong, and they speak with the views of their own time. Ask your teenager who they’ve been talking to, what surprised them and what they would like to check.

Tips for using Yuga to learn

• Come with a question. Figures are at their best when asked something specific: why they made a decision, what an ordinary day was like, what they were afraid of.
• Check one thing. After a call, pick one claim and look it up in a primary source or a good reference book. Each figure’s page lists the works it is built from.
• Notice the markings. The transcript marks replies that quote the record and replies that are inferred. Talk about the difference.
• Hear the other side. Talk to two figures who disagreed, or to someone affected by a figure’s decisions, then compare.
• Discuss uncomfortable views. If a figure says something offensive, ask why people of that time thought so, and what changed.
• Never cite Yuga. In homework, quote the original document, not the figure.

Ask us for your child’s information, or to delete it

If your child is under 18 and has a Yuga account, you can ask us for a copy of the information we hold about the account, to correct it, or to delete it. Write to support@foundationalcreations.com. We will need to check that you are the parent or guardian and that the account is your child’s, and in most cases we will involve your teenager too, because they have rights over their own information as well. The easiest way to delete an account is together, from the Account screen (see Delete Your Account). More about rights is in our Privacy Policy: children and your rights.

Report a concern

If a figure says something you think is unsuitable for a teenager, the quickest way to tell us is “Report this reply” in the call screen of the iPhone or Android app: choose what is wrong, add a note if you like, and it reaches me for review. Show your teenager how to use it too.

If you are worried about how your child is using Yuga, or want a reply from us, write to support@foundationalcreations.com with “Safety” in the subject line. Tell us the figure, roughly when it happened, and what was said. We don’t store conversations, so for an email we rely on what you send us.

These protections apply to every visitor, whatever their age:

• Help in a crisis. Before a message reaches the AI, Yuga checks it for common phrases about self-harm or suicide. If it finds one, the app shows a card asking the visitor to contact their local emergency number or find a free, confidential helpline at findahelpline.com. The figures are also told to show concern, encourage the visitor to reach someone who can help, and bring up the same card.Yuga is not a crisis service and cannot contact anyone.
• Refusals. Figures refuse requests for hateful, sexually explicit or dangerous content, or for instructions that could hurt someone.
• Report this reply. If a figure says something offensive, inaccurate or unsafe, anyone, including teenagers and parents watching with them, can report that reply from the call screen in the iPhone and Android apps, without leaving the call. (Conversations take place only in the apps, so there is nothing to report on the website.) Reports come to me for review. We keep them for 12 months and do not link them to the account.
• Limits on use. There are limits on how many messages can be sent in a short time, and on each plan’s voice minutes, messages and debates.
• No contact with other people. Yuga has no social features. There is no chat or messaging between users, no friends lists, no public profiles, no comments and nothing users create that is shown to other users. The only one your teenager talks to in Yuga is an AI figure. Your teenager can share a quote card, a short clip or a badge outside Yugathrough the phone’s share sheet, to apps they already use; each is labelled as AI, may include their question (which they can switch off) and, on a clip, their name if signed in. Nothing from the adults-only figure can be shared.
• No ads; purchases only with permission. Yuga shows no ads. Plus and minute packs are not on sale yet; when they are, they will be bought in the app through Apple or Google, whose Ask to Buy and family controls let parents approve purchases. Under-18s need a parent’s permission to buy (see Subscription Terms), and accounts showing someone is under 13 can’t buy.
• Memory of past calls (part of Plus) is for adults only. It can't be turned on by anyone under 18, or anyone whose age we don't know, so nothing a young person says is kept as a memory.

More about how the figures are kept safe, and what they can get wrong, is in AI and Content Policy.

We would love Yuga to be used in classrooms, but classroom features are not available yet. There are no school accounts, no way for a teacher to assign a figure or set questions, and no way for a teacher to read students’ conversations (we don’t store them).

When classroom features arrive

Schools will sign a separate agreement with us before using them. Under that agreement, the school will decide how student data is used, and, in the United States, will act for parents in giving consent under COPPA for students under 13 and protect student records as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) requires. We will publish the terms and update this page before classroom features launch.

Until then

• Teachers can use Yuga with students aged 13 and over, under our ordinary Terms, for example by showing a conversation from the app on a classroom screen or asking students to use Yuga at home.
• Do not use Yuga with students under 13.
• Do not ask students to share an account, or to sign in with a teacher’s or school account. Each student who wants an account should have their own, with their own year of birth, so that the right rules apply. Students without an account still get teen mode.
• Check your school’s or district’s rules on using AI tools and online services with students, and on parental consent, before you start.
• Teach students to treat the figures as a starting point and to cite primary sources, not Yuga (see how to check what you hear).

If your school would like to talk to us about classroom use, write to support@foundationalcreations.com.

Yuga is run by one developer, Hriday Vanka, Hyderabad, Telangana, India, India, who reads every message.

• Privacy requests, including about a child’s account or a child under 13: support@foundationalcreations.com
• Something a figure said: “Report this reply” in the app’s call screen, or support@foundationalcreations.com (put “Safety” in the subject line)
• Grievance Officer (India, and anyone else): Pranay Vanka, support@foundationalcreations.com; see Grievance Redressal and Contact

We aim to reply to safety concerns and requests about children first. If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to the data protection authority where you live; our Privacy Policy explains how.