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Part of Reporting resources: evidence and next steps
Reporting resources tools are mostly free: what a dated record still does
Reporting resources tools, most of them free: what a dated record does that software cannot, and the questions to ask before installing anything.
What to take away
Reporting resources tools are mostly free. The best one is a page of dated notes, and that is the honest summary of what changes outcomes in the fortnight after something goes wrong. This page names free tools, what each is good for, and the questions worth asking before any of them is installed.
- The record is the tool. Everything else assists it.
- Every reporting route runs on its own rules, and none of them promises you an outcome.
- A tool that captures evidence is worth more than a tool that watches for trouble, because the first is used once and the second is used every day at a cost.
- Where a child is in immediate danger, contact emergency services first, before anything on this page.
Free reporting tools and record keepers, and what each does
Free reporting tools and record keepers
| The tool | What it is good for | What it cannot do |
|---|---|---|
| Screenshot and screen recording, already on the device | Capturing a message with its username and timestamp before anything is blocked | Prove who was holding the other phone |
| A dated log, on paper or in any document | Turning three weeks into something a school or a police service can act on | Make anyone act |
| In-app reporting on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat | Telling the platform, and generating a reference you can quote later | Guarantee a review, an outcome, or any timescale |
| A school's own reporting route | Reaching the people who can change your child's Monday | Reach conduct the school has no purchase on |
| Removal request routes on a service that offers them | Asking for specific content to be taken down | Remove a copy someone else already saved |
| Google Family Link | Free parental controls on Android and iPhone: screen time limits, app approval, location sharing with a child Google Account | Cannot read messages, and stops working if the child uses a device outside the account |
| Apple Screen Time | Free on iPhone, iPad, and Mac: Downtime, App Limits, Communication Limits, Content and Privacy Restrictions | Does not send alerts for risky messages, and a child can leave a Family Sharing group |
| Microsoft Family Safety | Free on Windows, Xbox, and Android: screen time, content filters, activity reports with a Microsoft account | Web and app coverage varies by platform |
| NCMEC CyberTipline | Free 24/7 US reporting route for child sexual exploitation at report.cybertip.org or 1-800-843-5678 | Does not remove content itself; it passes reports to law enforcement |
| Take It Down | Free NCMEC service to hash and request removal of nude or sexually explicit images of anyone under 18 | Does not find images you have not hashed, and cannot remove an already saved copy |
| StopNCII.org | Free tool for people 18 and over that creates a hash on your device for intimate images, which participating platforms use to block uploads | Covers participating platforms only, and not every service joins |
| Internet Watch Foundation | Free UK hotline to report child sexual abuse images and videos by URL | Focused on UK-relevant content; it is not a US police report |
| Google Takeout | Free export of Gmail, Drive, Photos, and other Google data | Does not capture messages on devices or apps outside Google, and it is not a report |
The right-hand column is the part that gets left out of most descriptions. Each of these is worth using. None of them ends anything on its own. The reasoning does not depend on any single product.
Each of the large platforms — Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat — takes a report through its own in-app flow, and each one returns a case reference. Write that reference into the record; it is what turns a later follow-up into a continuation rather than a fresh start.
Two limits matter before a child files anything. A route based outside the US cannot act on a US case, and some image-removal services accept reports only from adults 18 and over, which leaves a teenager unable to use the tool built for their situation. NCMEC's Take It Down is the one built for images of people who were under 18.
Tools: what each can and cannot do
Tool
- Screenshot / screen recording
- Captures message, username, timestamp
- Dated log
- Turns weeks into action
- In-app reporting
- Tells platform, gives reference
- School reporting route
- Reaches people who change Monday
- Removal request routes
- Asks for specific content removal
Good for
- Screenshot / screen recording
- Proves who held other phone
- Dated log
- Makes anyone act
- In-app reporting
- Guarantees review or outcome
- School reporting route
- Reaches conduct school cannot touch
- Removal request routes
- Removes copies others saved
Cannot do
- Screenshot / screen recording
- Dated log
- In-app reporting
- School reporting route
- Removal request routes
What a good record actually contains
Five fields, and no more, because a record nobody keeps up is worse than none. One entry per event, in this order: the date and time; the platform, app or place; the account or handle exactly as it appears; what was said, shown or sent, in plain words; and what you did about it, and when. Written out, one line holds the lot: [date and time] — [platform and handle as shown] — [what was said, in plain words] — [what you did, and when].
Five fields of a usable record
- Date, and time where it matters
- What happened, one plain sentence
- Whereplatform, group or direct
- Who was told, and when
- Any reference number that came back
Keep it in one place, keep it out of the way of anyone who does not need it, and take it to every conversation. Three weeks in, this is the difference between a specific request and a general complaint, and reporting resources covers how the different routes use it.
The one exception is images of a minor. Those are never collected, copied or forwarded, for any purpose including evidence. Describe what exists, in words, and report it.
Questions to ask before installing anything
Four, in this order, and the first one usually settles it.
Four questions before installing anything
Does your child know and agree?
keep the channel open
it is monitoring, not reporting
- Does your child know about it and did they agree. A tool they do not know about is not a reporting tool. It is monitoring, and it costs the channel you actually need.
- What does it do at two in the morning. Something that raises an alarm and offers no route is worse than nothing.
- Who holds what it collects, and can it be deleted. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission's COPPA rule — the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, 16 C.F.R. Part 312 — sets what a service may collect from children under 13, so it tells you what to ask rather than what a teen app must do.
- Would you still want it in three months. Most of these are installed in a frightened week.
The products that scan for trouble
There is a category that reads a child's messages or images, applies detection, and alerts a parent. It is sold hardest to exactly the households on this page.
If your child does not know it is there, discovery turns every future safety conversation into one about being watched. That price is heavy at the age you most need to be told things.
If they do know, it still changes what they say to friends. That is where the information you want lives. False alarms are common in how young people talk.
Named paid products in this category include Bark, Qustodio, Net Nanny, Aura, and Canopy. Public plan pages in 2026 put most family plans in a typical range of $5 to $15 per month, or roughly $50 to $150 per year. Free tiers usually stop at web filtering and time limits.
If you use one anyway, say what it looks at, agree what happens when it flags something, and give it an end date. Consent turns it from surveillance into a rule your child can argue with, and parental controls covers why that difference carries so much weight.
The routes that are not tools at all
Most of what works here is people, not products.
A named adult at school: in most US districts that is the school counselor, the principal, or the coordinator that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 requires every district to name for complaints of sex-based harassment. School guidance covers finding that person rather than the most senior one.
The police where you live — your city or county department, or the state police, most of which take non-emergency reports online — for an adult in contact with your child, sexual images of a minor, threats, or a demand for money or images. In the US, the NCMEC CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org or 1-800-843-5678 is the dedicated route for child sexual exploitation, and your state's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force takes the same reports. Where a case crosses state lines or involves a federal offense, the FBI runs an online tip line of its own.
If the school does nothing, the district office and its Title IX coordinator are the next step, and the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights takes complaints that a district has not resolved. State departments of education run their own school-safety and complaint lines, and they can be reached without a lawyer.
And a family doctor, where the strain is doing damage regardless of what any report is doing. Mental wellbeing covers making that call without waiting for a process to finish.
What no tool here can promise
No tool removes content from everywhere. No tool tells you who was really behind an account. No tool guarantees a platform reviews anything, or that a school reaches conduct it has no purchase on, or that anything happens to the other child.
Anyone selling certainty on any of those is selling something that does not exist. What the tools above genuinely do is preserve your position, shorten the distance to the people who can act, and stop a fortnight of detail from evaporating.
Listing a product does not mean it is recommended. Nobody paid to appear on this page, and nothing is put forward here that has not been examined. Where a child is in immediate danger, contact emergency services first.
Common questions
Is a paid evidence-collection service worth it?
Ask what it does that a dated page and screenshots do not, and ask who ends up holding the material. Most of the value in this area is in the habit rather than the software, and a service holding a young person's messages is its own consideration.
My child wants to report it from their own account. Should they?
Usually yes, with you sitting beside them. They can see content you cannot, and doing it themselves returns some control at the moment they feel they have none.
Can I use a recording tool to capture a call?
Whether that is permitted depends on where you live, but the law has a shape you can check before you press record. Federal law, the Wiretap Act at 18 U.S.C. § 2511, allows one-party consent, so you may record a call you are part of. Some states require every party to agree, California among them under its Penal Code § 632, and a call recorded across a state line can fall under the stricter rule. Look up your own state's wiretap statute, or ask a lawyer there, before you record.
Nothing came of any of the reports. What was the point?
The record. It is what makes the next report a continuation rather than a fresh start, and repeat conduct is usually assessed against a history rather than an incident.
This is general information for parents, not legal advice, and it promises no outcome from any route.
