Anti-Harassment & Misuse Policy
Effective Date: 17th February 2026
MISYOU exists to help families reunite with missing loved ones. We have a zero-tolerance stance toward anyone who uses this platform to harass, intimidate, extort or defraud another user. This policy explains what we forbid, how we detect it, and what happens when it occurs.
1. What counts as harassment or misuse
The following behaviours are strictly prohibited on MISYOU and through any contact channel introduced via MISYOU:
- Extortion — demanding money, goods, gift cards, OTPs, or any consideration in exchange for information about a missing person.
- Stalking — repeated unwanted contact, surveillance, or attempts to obtain a family's home address, workplace or daily routine.
- Intimidation & threats — threats of violence, doxxing, blackmail, or threats against family members.
- Sexual harassment — sexual advances, sexually explicit content, or unwanted comments about the missing person or family members, especially minors.
- Hate speech & discrimination — abuse based on caste, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality or language.
- Impersonation — pretending to be police, hospital staff, NGO workers, or another user.
- Fake or duplicate listings — posting fabricated cases, recycled photos, or AI-generated faces.
- Spam & promotional abuse — posting unrelated commercial messages, links, or political content.
- Privacy violations — sharing another user's phone, email, address or photos without consent; harvesting MISYOU contact details for unrelated uses.
- Platform manipulation — automated scraping, bot submissions, mass account creation, ban evasion, or any attempt to disrupt service.
2. How we detect misuse
MISYOU runs continuous automated and manual safeguards:
- Scam-keyword detection on every case, sighting and abuse report.
- Per-IP and per-account rate limits on case creation, sighting submission and abuse reporting.
- Required Math CAPTCHA on sighting and abuse-report forms.
- Public contact phone & email of families are hidden — outsiders must use the in-app Submit-a-Sighting flow.
- Free-text fields automatically reject phone numbers to prevent scammer harvesting.
- Repeat-offender phone & email pattern detection in the admin dashboard.
- Trusted moderators review flagged content within 48 hours.
3. Consequences for offenders
Depending on severity and history we may take one or more of the following actions:
- Content removed and case/sighting hidden from public view.
- Warning issued; further violations trigger automatic suspension.
- Immediate and permanent ban of the offending account and the device/IP used.
- Refusal of all future registrations from the same identity, email, phone or device fingerprint.
- Forwarding of preserved evidence (account details, IP, user-agent, timestamps, suspect phone & email, message history) to local police and to cybercrime.gov.in.
- Civil and/or criminal proceedings under applicable Indian law (see Section 4).
We keep evidence logs
For every safety-relevant action on MISYOU we retain:
- Account ID, email, phone (if provided), and consent timestamps.
- IP address and user-agent / device fingerprint of the request.
- Server-side timestamps of logins, case creations, sightings, abuse reports and moderator actions.
- Reported scammer phone numbers, emails and the verbatim abuse-report text.
- Photo and content hashes to spot recycled or AI-generated submissions.
These logs are strictly internal and admin-only. We do not sell or share them with advertisers. We release them only to families under court order, or to police / cybercrime authorities under a lawful request — and we will proactively cooperate with any investigation into harassment or extortion of a MISYOU family.
4. Applicable Indian law
Misuse of MISYOU may attract proceedings under (non-exhaustive):
- Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 / Indian Penal Code — extortion (IPC 384–389), criminal intimidation (IPC 503, 506–507), false information to public servant (IPC 182), false charge of offence (IPC 211), defamation (IPC 499), outraging modesty (IPC 354A–D), stalking (IPC 354D), cheating (IPC 415, 420).
- Information Technology Act, 2000 — identity theft (Sec. 66C), cheating by personation using computer (Sec. 66D), publishing obscene material (Sec. 67), violation of privacy (Sec. 66E), abetment (Sec. 84B).
- Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 — where minors are involved.
- Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 — for unlawful processing of personal data.
5. How to report harassment or misuse
If you experience or witness any of the behaviours above:
- Open the relevant case page and tap “Report a scam / abuse” — this is the fastest route and writes directly to our moderation queue.
- If you receive a phone call or message off-platform, take screenshots and note the date, time and phone number, then file the abuse report and attach the suspect's number / email.
- Do not pay anyone, share OTPs, or travel alone to meet a tipster. Always involve your local police station first.
- For urgent threats or extortion attempts, file an immediate complaint at cybercrime.gov.in or dial 1930 (India cyber-crime helpline).
- Email contact@misyou.in if you need a formal copy of evidence logs for police.
6. Protections for the reporter
- Abuse reports may be filed anonymously.
- We will not reveal a reporter's identity to the accused user.
- Retaliation against a reporter is itself a violation and is treated with the same severity as the original offence.
7. Appeals
If your content was removed or your account was suspended and you believe this was in error, you may appeal once within 30 days by emailing contact@misyou.in from the registered email address, with a clear explanation. Decisions on extortion, threats, and minor-safety violations are final and not appealable.
8. Updates to this policy
We may update this Anti-Harassment & Misuse Policy as new threats emerge. Material changes will be announced in-app or via email. Continued use of MISYOU after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.