PicU Security

Our mission is to keep PicU a pure experience. PicU is an adventure and it is totally up to you to decide what your adventure on PicU will be. We want you to feel free to explore the possibilities on PicU and we’ll always be here to provide you with a supportive space. Safety has always been and will always be our priority. Even though we remain a place for anonymous acquaintances, in order to look out for your best interest, we actively fight against scammers and fraudsters.

LET’S GET RID OF SCAMMERS AND FRAUDSTERS TOGETHER!

If you encounter a user who is breaking the community rules, please let us know.

To make PicU better and safer, we need your support. If you see any sort of suspicious behavior, send us a report. Together, with you, we can create a healthy online community.

You can send us reports directly from chats to notify us of any issues with specific ads. Please only send us reports if someone’s profile or behavior goes directly against our Community Guidelines. Click on the menu icon (with three dots) inside the chat, select “Report” and choose the reason for the report.

By clicking on the menu, you will see the following options:

• “Report” (you can choose one of the following reasons for reporting: False personal file, Inappropriate content, Fraud, Minors, Display or sell drugs)

Sale of drugs and sex services

Secure communication is our top priority. Please immediately report the following behavior:

• If someone is trying to sell you something illegal, even coded with emojis or other words like “snow”, “meow meow” and so on;
• If someone is trying to sell any sort of sexual services: nudes, virtual sex, sexting, dating, and sex services!

Scam

We are proud of our community, we have managed to unite people with common views and values, but as everywhere, there are exceptions. If you find that someone is interested in something completely different than just chatting and meeting, report it to us. PicU is not a place for scammers and fraudsters!

Underage users

Everyone is welcome on PicU, but there is a “but”: our users must be of legal age. No exceptions.

Nudity

We follow guidelines from APP Store — will remove any intimate images in the Feed. You can help us with this too — if you see something like this, report it to us.

Offensive behavior on the app

If you come across a suspicious profile or if someone behaves in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable — let us know and our team will check it out as soon as possible. PicU is a place where everyone’s boundaries are respected.

Offensive behavior in real life

If you are or have been the victim of sexual assault or harassment, we recommend that you contact law enforcement in your area immediately. We understand it’s not easy, but try to remain calm. We also advise you to contact our support service at contactus@pic-u.com as soon as possible. Tell us more about what happened, so we can quickly respond and help you. Report the user to us, so our team can review his/her profile. At PicU we want to keep you as safe and cared for as possible.

Self-harm / Suicide

If you notice in conversation that a person is obviously having suicidal thoughts or a desire to harm themselves, we recommend the following. If you have the emotional bandwidth and feel capable of approaching the subject delicately, you can try speaking with your match to show them support. If the situation seems beyond your control or your comfort zone, you can try to gently ask your match to contact an emergency suicide support service.

You can also call these helplines for advice if you’re worried about someone else.

If you see something in someone’s profile description that clearly indicates intent to self-harm, please let us know about this at contactus@pic-u.com. We’d appreciate it if you include your identifying information.

To avoid falling for scammers on PicU, here are some simple tips:

• Never send money or share financial information. It seems that this is already obvious, but repetition does no harm. We know of cases when even the most vigilant people have fallen into such traps.
• Here is a common scam: your match may ask you to chip in for gas money or pay for a taxi to come to you (explaining that he or she does not want to give you their home address for safety). In this case, you can agree to send a car to the nearest store or restaurant.
• Remember — if you are asked to transfer even a minimal amount of money, it is most likely a scam.
• Some go as far as to ask you to take a photo of a bank card to make sure you are not “fake”. Do not get involved under any circumstances, report it to us immediately.
• Stay on the platform. What happens on PicU, stays on PicU. We assure you, we’ve created more features for your safety than even the most secure messengers, so the “it’s more convenient elsewhere” argument simply doesn’t work. Also, we are constantly training our algorithms to detect scammers and fraudsters, so if you receive a warning from us concerning your match — pay attention and think twice about what information you are willing to share while chatting. While these warnings don’t necessarily mean that the person on the other end is 100% a scammer, we like to say that if it’s predictable, it’s preventable.
• Take your time with sharing social media. If you are asked to share a link to your Instagram, it’s better to send a whole bunch of new pictures that can be instantly verified through our built-in camera. There’s no need to give someone you just met access to a public profile outside of PicU.
• What could be the danger? Adding someone on another social app can give them access to your friends and even family members if they decide to look into your followers, who you follow, and who likes and comments on your posts and photos.
• Unfortunately, this has happened in the past and we don’t want anything like this to happen to you.
• Make sure your nudes are as anonymous as possible. Taking nude photos is both a science and an art, we mean it! And while you may not want our advice, we’re going to give it just in case: If you have just connected with someone on PicU and things get hot and heavy pretty quickly to the point where you start sending nudes back and forth, we strongly advise you to choose nudes where your face is not visible and distinguishing features, like tattoos, are covered.
• This will reduce the chances of possible blackmail. We also advise you to keep all your nude pictures in a separate folder on your phone or, even better, in the PicU album. This way, we can guarantee that no one will see them. And, if it’s of interest we have a guide on how to take a perfect nude photo. Feel free to check it out for more useful tips.
• Have a video chat date before meeting IRL. PicU video chat is not only the best place for virtual fun, but also an effective tool for “face control.” No matter how much effort we put into eliminating fake photos, loopholes can be found anywhere. So if your match refuses to engage in a face-to-face video chat with you, it might be a red flag.
• Meet in a public and well-known place. We are sure that there are plenty of places in your city where you can have a comfortable and safe date that still allows for privacy. Sorry for dragging on about this, but we really want your dates to go as smoothly as possible, without any awkward or unpleasant surprises. So our recommendation is to always choose a crowded and public spot for a first meeting.

WE HAVE EXPLAINED HOW TO REPORT ACTIVITY THAT GOES AGAINST OUR GUIDELINES, BUT WE WOULD LIKE TO GO OVER WHAT HAPPENS SHOULD WE RECEIVE A COMPLAINT ABOUT YOUR BEHAVIOR.

Here are some common questions:

Why was my profile deleted?

We remove ads that contain: nudity, hate speech, and offensive language, bullying, threats, and other content that does not comply with PicU’s policy. If our moderators or users report such behavior, your ad will be removed from the Feed, and you will no longer be able to see other users’ ads. We will temporarily freeze your account for any suspicious behavior and our moderation team will review your account manually. If everything seems fine, we will get you back on the app within the next 24 hours, and all your chats will be restored. Change your photo or edit the profile text with respect to others’ boundaries and our guidelines. If everything is ok after you’ve made some changes, you will be able to use PicU again.

My account has been blocked. What’s happening?

If there are multiple complaints from different users, your account may be blocked. This is an extreme measure and we do not block accounts unless there is a good reason to do so. If you are sure that it is a misunderstanding, write to our support team at contactus@pic-u.com.