Online safety at Prepperland
Prepperland lets the people in a household share their emergency supplies, plan and checklists, so the UK's Online Safety Act applies to it: anything one person types can be seen by someone else. The Act asks us to work out how Prepperland could be misused, to do something about it, and to keep a written record. This page is that record. Only the largest services have to publish theirs. We publish ours because we think everyone should be able to see how a service they use was thought through.
Assessed 10 November 2026, updated 11 November 2026 (see Updates, at the end). First review by 10 May 2027, then at least once a year.
In short
- Almost everything in Prepperland is private to a household. A group is made up of people its owner invites. Nobody else can see it, and nobody can find it.
- There's nowhere to post pictures, video or messages. There are no public profiles and no comments. There's no feed, and there's no way to search for other people.
- The one thing households share with each other is product details for a barcode: a name, a sort and an energy figure. These are shown to other households only after three households have typed the same name. Before that they pass a word filter, and anyone can report one.
- We found a low risk for every kind of illegal content that's possible on Prepperland. For the rest the risk is negligible, including every kind that needs pictures or video.
- We treat Prepperland as likely to be used by children, because teenagers may be in their household's group. For children, too, we found the risk low or negligible.
- Anyone can report something or complain on our Report or complain page, without an account. We look at every report within 7 days.
- Since 11 November 2026 everything a group shares has a Report button on prepperland.info, and invitation emails are limited. The app's own Report buttons reach everyone with its next release. One thing is still to do: checking the report page with VoiceOver and TalkBack. It has a date below.
About this assessment
| Service | Prepperland: the app (iPhone, Android, Amazon Fire) and prepperland.info |
|---|---|
| Provider | Multizone Limited, registered in England and Wales, company no. 3504416 |
| Responsible person | Angus Fox, a director of Multizone Limited. He's accountable to the company's directors for Prepperland's online safety and for how reports and complaints are handled. He also makes sure this assessment is kept up to date. |
| Prepared by | Angus Fox, with Claude, an AI assistant. |
| Approved by | The directors of Multizone Limited, 10 November 2026 |
| Completed | 10 November 2026 |
| Covers | The illegal content risk assessment, the children's access assessment and the children's risk assessment |
| How | Ofcom's four steps, from its Risk Assessment Guidance and Risk Profiles (version 2, 25 June 2026) and Register of Risks, and its children's access and children's risk assessment guidance. The measures are those in Ofcom's Illegal content Codes of Practice for user-to-user services (9 September 2026) and its Protection of Children Code of Practice for user-to-user services (in force 25 July 2025). |
What Prepperland is, and what people can see
Prepperland keeps a household's emergency supplies, with how much there is, where it's kept and when it goes out of date. It also keeps the household's plan (contacts and meeting points) and its checklists. It's used by the people who look after a household's supplies, mostly adults, on their own phones. Fewer than 1,000 people a month in the UK use it.
What one person types can reach someone else in five ways:
- In a group. Used on its own, Prepperland keeps everything on the phone, and nobody else sees any of it. Signing in to share puts the household's supplies, plan, checklists and own recipes in a group. Only the group's members see them, in the app and on the group's pages on prepperland.info. The person who makes a group is its owner. Nobody joins unless the owner invites them, by an email invitation or a six-character joining code that works once, for 15 minutes. The owner decides who can change things and who can only look, and can remove anybody.
- Names. A member's name, as they typed it for their account, is shown to the other members of their groups.
- Invitation emails. An invitation is sent by prepperland.info to an address the owner types. It carries the owner's name and the group's name.
- Meeting points. A meeting point's address is shared with the group, as part of its plan.
- Products other households typed in. When neither Open Food Facts nor anyone else knows a barcode, a signed-in household can type in the product. What's sent is the product's name, its sort, its energy or volume, what it's counted in and which date its packet gives. It never includes notes, quantities, places or dates, and we record which group sent it, not who. It's offered to other households only after three different households have sent the same name. A word filter refuses offensive words on arrival, the site's administrator can reject a product at any time, and the app's Report button takes it out of use until we've checked it.
There's nothing else. Prepperland has no pictures, video or voice, no messages or comments, and no public profiles, followers or friends. It has no search for people or other households' content, no feed, no recommendations, no livestreaming and no selling between people. Text that people type isn't turned into web links. A phone number in the plan can be called, and a meeting point's address opens in a maps app.
Prepperland is free with a small, non-personalised Google advert, and households can pay to share. The adverts are chosen by Google, not typed by anyone using Prepperland.
Step 1: Ofcom's Risk Profile
Ofcom's Risk Profiles ask which kinds of service and which features a service has, because each is linked with particular harms. Our answers:
| Question | Answer | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Is it a social media, messaging, gaming, adult, discussion forum, marketplace or file-sharing service? | No | It's a household organiser whose lists can be shared within a closed group. |
| 2. Do child users access some or all of it? | Yes | We think so. See the children's access assessment below. |
| 3a. User profiles others can see | Yes, in a limited way | A member's name is shown only to the other members of their groups. There's no photo, age or description. |
| 3b. Sharing anonymously, or without an account | No | Sharing needs an account. Products from the catalogue are shown without saying who sent them, but they can only be sent by a signed-in household. |
| 4a. Connecting with other users | No | There are no friends or followers. People are only connected when an owner invites someone into a group. |
| 4b. Closed groups or group messages | Yes | Groups are closed and invitation-only. Nobody can send messages in them. |
| 5a to 5e. Livestreaming, direct messages, encrypted messaging, comments, pictures or video | No | Connections are encrypted in transit (HTTPS), but nothing is end-to-end encrypted. |
| 5f. Posting location | Yes | Meeting point addresses, shared with the group. The app never reads the phone's location. |
| 5g. Re-posting or forwarding | No | Sharing a list as text goes through the phone's own share sheet, outside Prepperland. |
| 6. Posting goods or services for sale | No | On prepperland.info, a supply with an Amazon product code has our own affiliate link. Nobody sells anything to anyone through Prepperland. |
| 7a. Searching for user-generated content | No | A catalogue product is found only by its exact barcode. A group can search its own supplies, but nobody else's. |
| 7b. Hyperlinks | No | A link can be typed, but it isn't made tappable. |
| 8. Content or network recommender systems | No | Prepperland suggests recipes, from our own book and the group's, based on what the household has. It never suggests anything from another household. |
The risk factors that apply to Prepperland: child users (2), user profiles in a limited form (3a), closed groups (4b) and posting location (5f).
Other characteristics we considered, because the Risk Profiles don't cover them:
- Invitation emails reach people outside Prepperland. Somebody could put abusive words, or a scam, in their own name or a group's name and invite strangers. Since 11 November 2026 one person can send three invitations an hour (see Step 3).
- Every list has free text fields: names, notes and recipe steps. Anything can be typed into them, and the rest of the group sees it.
- The catalogue reaches across households, although only as short product details, filtered and agreed by three households.
- The name "Prepperland" could attract survivalists, a small part of whom overlap with extremist movements. Nothing about the service gives them an audience: there's no public content and no way to find other groups.
- Supplies can include knives, fuel and alcohol, because they're ordinary emergency supplies. Recording that a household has them is lawful, and nothing in Prepperland sells or promotes them.
- The adverts are Google's, and they're non-personalised. The rules for advertising content are Google's, and they're set to suit the app's age rating.
Step 2: The evidence we used
- Ofcom's Risk Profiles and Register of Risks, as in Step 1.
- Reports and complaints. Prepperland's support address has been open since its first release, in November 2026, the app's Report button on catalogue products since 8 November 2026, and the Report or complain page since 10 November 2026. To date there have been no reports or complaints about illegal or harmful content.
- What we know about our users. We don't ask anybody's age. A household tells the app how many adults and children it's for, but only as numbers for working out food and water. That tells us families with children use Prepperland, not that the children have accounts. The app is listed for everyone (4+ on the App Store, PEGI 3 on Google Play), and its Google Play target audience is 16 and over.
- Incidents. None so far.
- The controls already in place, listed in Step 3. We gave them weight only where they're part of how Prepperland is built, not where they depend on somebody noticing.
Prepperland is new, so there's little history to go on. That's the main limit of this assessment, and why the first review is after six months rather than a year. With few risk factors and no evidence of harm, Ofcom's core inputs were enough. We didn't commission any research, or test it with outside experts.
Step 2: Risk levels for illegal content
Ofcom's levels are high, medium, low and negligible. Negligible means the harm isn't possible on Prepperland, or is extremely unlikely. Low means it's possible, we've no evidence of it, there are few risk factors for it, and its reach would be one group.
| Kind of illegal content | Risk | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Terrorism | Low | It could be typed into a group's lists, or tried as a product name. Nobody outside the group would see it, and Prepperland can't be used to find or recruit people. The name could attract survivalists (Step 1), but the service gives no audience. |
| Child sexual abuse material: images | Negligible | Nobody can share a picture or video anywhere in Prepperland. |
| Child sexual abuse material: links | Low | A web address could be typed as text within a group. It wouldn't be tappable, and nobody outside the group would see it. |
| Grooming | Low | There are no messages, no profiles to find and no way to contact a stranger. An adult can only reach a child in a group the owner has invited both of them into, which in practice means a household's own members. |
| Hate | Low | It could be typed into a group, or into a name or group name in an invitation email. A catalogue product's name is filtered and needs three households to agree. |
| Harassment, stalking, threats and abuse | Low | It's possible within a group, or through invitation emails sent again and again to someone. A meeting point shares an address, but only one the group chose, with its own members. Anyone can leave a group, and the owner can remove anybody. One person can send three invitations an hour. |
| Controlling or coercive behaviour | Low | A household's group could be one of the ways somebody controls a partner or family member, for example by deciding who's in it. Prepperland shows nobody's location or activity to anyone else. Any member can leave, keep their own copy on their phone and carry on alone. |
| Intimate image abuse | Negligible | No pictures or video. |
| Extreme pornography | Negligible | No pictures or video. |
| Sexual exploitation of adults | Negligible | There are no profiles to advertise with, no messages, no search and no way to sell anything. |
| Human trafficking | Negligible | The same reasons, and there's no way to reach anyone outside a group. |
| Unlawful immigration | Negligible | The same reasons. |
| Fraud and financial offences | Low | Invitation emails could carry a scam in a group's name, from our domain, but one person can send only three an hour. Nobody pays anybody else through Prepperland. Payments go only to the app stores. |
| Proceeds of crime | Negligible | No money or goods change hands between people. |
| Drugs and psychoactive substances | Low | Could be listed in a group's supplies. Nothing can be sold or advertised, and a product name in the catalogue needs three households to agree. |
| Firearms, knives and other weapons | Low | Knives and tools are ordinary emergency supplies, and could be listed. Nothing can be sold, and nothing is visible outside the group. |
| Encouraging or assisting suicide and serious self-harm | Low | Could be typed within a group. Nobody outside it would see it, and there are no messages. |
| Foreign interference | Negligible | Nothing reaches the public, and there's no way to spread content. |
| Animal cruelty | Negligible | This harm spreads by pictures and video, which Prepperland doesn't have. |
| Cyberflashing | Negligible | No pictures or video. |
| Other illegal content | Low | We found no other offence the service makes more likely. Threatening or false messages would be possible within a group, so they're covered under harassment above. Flashing images meant to cause seizures are impossible without pictures. |
Prepperland is low risk overall. It isn't "multi-risk", because no kind of illegal content is at medium or high risk, and it isn't a large service.
Children's access assessment
Can children use Prepperland? Yes. We don't check ages, and nothing in Prepperland is closed to children.
Do, or would, a significant number of children use it? We think so, so we treat Prepperland as likely to be used by children. It's made for households, and a household's group may include teenagers who help with the supplies or need to know the plan. Its Google Play audience includes 16 and 17-year-olds on purpose. We have no figures, because we don't ask anybody's age. Ofcom advises erring on the side of caution, and we'd rather protect children we can't count than argue that they aren't there.
Conclusion: likely to be accessed by children. Prepperland has the children's safety duties, and the children's risk assessment follows. We'll do this assessment again at least once a year, and before any significant change.
Children's risk assessment
The children most likely to use Prepperland are 13 to 17, in their own household's group. Younger children could be invited too. Nothing in Prepperland is aimed at any age group of children, and nothing differs by age.
Content harmful to children is mostly what other people post, so the same features matter as above. Everything is in closed groups of people the owner invited, text only, with no messages and no feed. The catalogue holds only short product details.
| Content harmful to children | Risk | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Primary priority content: children must be prevented from encountering it | ||
| Pornography | Negligible | No pictures or video. Explicit text in a household's own lists is possible but extremely unlikely, and a product name with it would be filtered and need three households. |
| Suicide | Low | Could be typed within a group. Nothing reaches beyond it. |
| Self-harm | Low | The same. |
| Eating disorders | Low | Could be typed within a group. Prepperland itself counts calories, but only for a whole household's food, in days. It never records what a person eats, their weight, or a goal, so it can't be used to track a diet. |
| Priority content: children must be protected from it | ||
| Abuse and hate | Low | Possible within a group, or in a name in an invitation email. |
| Bullying | Low | One member of a household could use its lists to pick on another. Anyone can leave a group, and the owner can remove anybody. |
| Violent content | Low | Text only, within a group. |
| Harmful substances | Low | Supplies can include alcohol and fuel, recorded as things a household keeps, not encouraged. Our recipes use neither. |
| Dangerous stunts and challenges | Negligible | These spread by video and through feeds, which Prepperland doesn't have. Our own cooking advice is written for safety (the terms say where a camping stove may be used). |
| Other content Ofcom has identified as harmful to children | ||
| Body stigma | Negligible | Nothing in Prepperland concerns bodies or appearance, and there are no pictures. |
| Content promoting depression or hopelessness | Low | Prepperland is about emergencies, which could worry a child. Our own words are practical and calm. A group's own text is possible, as above. |
Prepperland is low risk for children, and not multi-risk.
Step 3: What we do
These are the measures in Ofcom's codes that apply to a service like Prepperland: low risk, not large, likely to be used by children. Measure numbers are Ofcom's: ICU for illegal content, PCU for protecting children.
| Measure | How Prepperland meets it | Status |
|---|---|---|
| A named person accountable for online safety (ICU A2, PCU A2) | Angus Fox, as above. | In place |
| Reviewing suspected illegal or harmful content (ICU C1, PCU C1) | Every report is read by a person, who decides whether the content is illegal under Ofcom's Illegal Content Judgements Guidance, harmful to children, or against our terms. We don't read groups' content otherwise, and no software scans it. | In place |
| Taking it down swiftly (ICU C2, PCU C2) | We can delete anything a group holds (every phone in the group removes it at its next sync), reject a catalogue product, remove a member, and close an account. A reported catalogue product is taken out of use at once, before anyone has looked at it. | In place |
| A way to report and complain, for anyone (ICU D1, PCU D1) | The Report or complain page takes a report about something in a group, a product, a person, a decision we made, or anything else, from anyone, with or without an account. Email works too. | In place |
| Reporting that's easy to find and use (ICU D2, PCU D2) | The page is linked from every page's footer, the Support page and the terms. It asks only what's needed, and has room for detail. Beside the content, as Ofcom asks (D2(a)): every item's page here ends with a Report button that opens the page already about that item, and the app has a Report button on everything a group shares, from version 0.5.37 (with testers now, and with everyone in the app's next release). The report page was checked on 10 and 11 November 2026: every field labelled, its hints read with their fields, its contrast and its order with a keyboard alone. Not yet: a check with VoiceOver and TalkBack. | In place, but for the screen reader check, by 31 December 2026 |
| Acting on reports of illegal or harmful content (ICU D7, PCU D7) | Each report is acknowledged by email with a reference, and looked at within 7 days, usually within two working days. A report suggesting a child or anyone else is in danger is looked at the day we see it. We tell the person who reported it what we did, if they want to know. | In place |
| Appeals (ICU D9 and D10, and PCU's equivalents) | "A decision we made" on the report page is how someone challenges a removal. We look at it promptly. If we got it wrong we put things back: a product approved again, a person added back or their account reopened, or an item restored from the copy kept with the report. | In place |
| Complaints about automated tools, about how we comply, and complaints that are clearly unfounded (ICU D11 to D13, and PCU's equivalents) | The catalogue's word filter is our only automated tool, and it can be complained about like anything else. Complaints that we aren't meeting our duties go to the responsible person. The terms say when we may set aside a complaint that's clearly unfounded. | In place |
| Terms that say how people are protected, clearly (ICU G1 and G3, PCU G1 and G3) | The terms have a section for this. It covers terrorism, child sexual abuse and other illegal content separately, each kind of content harmful to children, the word filter, complaints and appeals. | In place |
| Removing accounts of proscribed organisations (ICU H1) | We close any account run by or for a proscribed organisation, and report it to Counter Terrorism Policing. | In place |
Measures that don't apply, and why: the governance and moderation measures for large or multi-risk services (ICU and PCU A1, A3 to A7, C3 to C8). Hash matching and URL lists for abuse material (ICU C9, C10, C14), because Prepperland has no pictures and isn't large or high risk. The complaint measures for large, medium or high risk services (ICU D3 to D6, D8 and D14, and PCU D3 to D6 and D8). Highly effective age assurance (PCU B1 to B7), because Prepperland doesn't allow primary priority content and isn't at high risk of it. Recommender system measures (ICU E1, PCU E1 to E3), because there are none. The support measures for children and the user controls for larger or riskier services (ICU F1, F2 and J1 to J3, and PCU's F and J measures). And the duties of Category 1 services (ICU G2 and PCU G2).
What we do beyond the codes:
- Private by design. No pictures, no messages, no public profiles, no search for people. Most of the risks above are low or negligible because those features were never built, not because something catches misuse afterwards.
- The catalogue is guarded three ways: a word filter on arrival, three households agreeing before anyone else sees a product, and a Report that takes it out of use at once.
- The least data. Prepperland never asks a child's name or age: children are counted, not named.
- Who changed what. AppSync, the software behind sharing, records who last changed each thing in a group, and every item's page here says who, so the group can see it too. When something is reported we can see who wrote it.
- Three invitations an hour. An invitation carries somebody's words to any address, from our own domain, so one person can send three an hour, and then waits. Cancelling one doesn't give it back.
Still to do, with dates:
- Testing the Report or complain page with VoiceOver and TalkBack, and fixing what we find. By 31 December 2026.
Step 4: Keeping it up to date
- When: the first review is by 10 May 2027, because Prepperland is new. After that, at least once a year, with the children's access assessment at least once a year as the law requires.
- Before any significant change. We'll assess again before Prepperland adds anything that lets people share beyond their group, such as recipes shared with everybody, or pictures or messages of any kind.
- When the evidence changes: a report of real harm, a pattern of reports, or a sign that more children use Prepperland than we think.
- Watching it work. The responsible person reads every report as it arrives, and looks at all of them together at each review: what they were about, how long they took, and what was done.
- Reported to the directors of Multizone Limited at each review. This assessment was reported to them on 10 November 2026.
Updates
- 11 November 2026. Done: a Report button on everything a group shares, on prepperland.info and in the app (version 0.5.37, with everyone in its next release); every item's page says who last changed it; three invitation emails an hour for each person; the report page checked for labels, contrast and keyboard use. No risk level changed.
If you're worried about something
Use Report or complain, or email
If a child is being harmed or approached online, you can also report it to CEOP, the National Crime Agency's child protection service. Ofcom regulates online safety in the UK. It doesn't take up individual complaints, but you can tell it about a service at ofcom.org.uk.