SampleDecision record
Real: adapted from Lurnnet, shortened and with implementation detail removed. Every significant decision on a project gets one of these, so the "why" outlives the conversation.
Guardian consent for every student under 18
Status: Accepted · Area: privacy & compliance
Context
Lurnnet serves students in Egypt and the GCC, many of them minors. The age at which a young person can consent to their own data being processed differs between these countries, and the laws differ in how much verification they expect.
Options considered
- Different rules for each country: apply each country's age threshold separately. It's the most permissive, but it's complex, easy to get wrong when a student moves or a teacher works across borders, and fragile whenever a law changes.
- Trust the student's stated age: no friction, but a self-declared age is the weakest evidence there is, and the platform would carry the risk.
- One rule everywhere: every student under 18 needs a guardian's consent, whatever the country.
Decision
Option 3. One rule is simpler to explain to teachers, parents and regulators, and it holds up under the strictest market rather than the most relaxed one.
Consequences
- Onboarding a minor takes an extra step, and some students will wait on a guardian. We accept that friction.
- Checks stop a student from approving their own account, for example by entering their own or their teacher's contact details as the guardian's.
- If no guardian confirms within a set window, the student's access is paused rather than left running without consent.
- Launch waits until this flow and its legal documents are complete.