We've built an automated safeguarding layer into our Lesson transcript system. Here's how it works:
Automatic content scanning
Every Lesson transcript is automatically reviewed by an AI agent after the Lesson transcript is generated. It scans for six categories of concern, and each category comes with a plain-English description of what it covers, shown alongside the flag and in your safeguarding settings:
Profanity — swearing or crude language.
Self-harm — a participant disclosing or alluding to self-harm, suicide, abuse, neglect or exploitation.
Off-platform contact — asking for or sharing personal contact details (a personal phone number, personal email address, social media handle or home address), or arranging to meet in person. Mentioning email or messages as part of the Lesson, such as emailing a worksheet, isn't flagged.
Personal information — sharing of personally identifying information that shouldn't be in a Lesson, such as a full date of birth or financial details.
Inappropriate content — sexual, violent, hateful or otherwise age-inappropriate content.
Bullying — a participant insulting, mocking, demeaning, threatening or pressuring another participant.
Each flag is assigned one of two severity levels, low or severe, so reviewers can prioritize accordingly.
Choosing what Bobbin looks for and emails about
Safeguarding detection is on by default, with all six categories active and every concern emailed. An Administrator can change this under Organization > Settings > Safeguarding:
Enable safeguarding detection — turn detection off altogether. While it's off, no flags are recorded and no alerts are sent.
One setting per category — each of the six categories has its own dropdown, with its description shown next to it. Choose one of:
Email all concerns (the default): every flag in this category is recorded and emailed.
Email severe only: every flag is recorded, but only severe ones are emailed.
Record only, no emails: flags are recorded on the Safeguarding page but never emailed, even severe ones.
Don't detect: Bobbin doesn't look for this category at all, so nothing is recorded or emailed.
If you're getting too many alerts, try setting the noisier categories to Email severe only rather than switching them off. Flags that aren't emailed still appear on the Safeguarding page for you to review. If you switch a category to Don't detect and later turn it back on, it goes back to the email choice it had before.
Note: These settings affect Lessons starting from the point you change them. Flags already recorded stay on the Safeguarding dashboard.
Turning detection off, or changing a category, is recorded in your organization's activity log along with who made the change.
Audit trail
Every concern identified is permanently recorded, creating a full audit trail. This means nothing is lost or overlooked. Even if a flag is later resolved, the record of it remains. Each flag captures the category, severity, the speaker involved and whether they were a Tutor or a Student, a relevant excerpt from the transcript, an explanation of why it was flagged, and where in the session it happened.
The speaker's role is stored on the flag at the moment it's raised, so it stays accurate even if that person is later removed from your organization.
Instant Administrator alerts
As soon as a concern is detected, an alert email is automatically sent to the appropriate Administrators, following the email choice for that category. The email includes a summary of the flags from that Lesson and a direct link to review it. These alerts are sent either to owner-level Administrators or specific Administrators set to receive safeguarding alerts.
Each Administrator can turn their own safeguarding alerts on or off under My profile > Notifications. The link at the bottom of each alert email goes straight there.
Each flag in the email names its category in full, gives the reason for the flag on its own summary line, and shows the conversation from either side of the flagged moment — roughly twenty seconds each way — with the flagged line highlighted. That's usually enough to judge whether something needs acting on before you open Bobbin.
Note: Safeguarding alerts always come from Bobbin's own email address rather than your agency's, so they reach you reliably and can't be mistaken for a message to a Client.
Letting participants know
Before anyone enters a Lesson, the join screen shows a notice explaining that the session is recorded for safeguarding purposes. Everyone joining sees it, so there's no need to explain the recording separately each time.
Review workflow
Administrators review flags through a dedicated Safeguarding dashboard, under To review in the left-hand menu. The dashboard lists flagged Lessons with their category, severity, speaker and status.
Opening a flag gives you the tools to judge it in context:
Expand the conversation. Start from the excerpt and widen the surrounding conversation to see more of what was said either side of it. Bobbin tells you when there's more of the conversation still to show, up to the maximum window.
See who was speaking. Each line shows whether the speaker was a Tutor or a Student.
Jump to the moment. Go straight to that point in the Lesson recording rather than scrubbing through it, so you can hear the tone as well as read the words.
Closing a flag
When you've finished reviewing, close the flag and record what you concluded. There are two outcomes:
Resolved — the concern was real and has been dealt with.
Not an issue — on review, the flag was a false positive.
You can add a note of up to 2,000 characters recording what you did or why you reached that view. Closed flags record the outcome, the note, and who closed them and when, maintaining full accountability throughout the process. Marking a flag as not an issue also feeds back into how the detection performs over time.
A flag can be reopened if something changes. Reopening clears the outcome and note along with the closed stamp, so the flag returns to the open list for review.
Lessons where a Student doesn't have recording consent
If a Student on a Lesson doesn't have recording consent (they've opted out, or they're still waiting for consent to be given), and your organization honors consent opt-outs, Bobbin doesn't keep a transcript of that Lesson, so it isn't scanned for safeguarding concerns.
If a Student loses consent after a flag has already been raised on one of their Lessons, the flag still appears on the dashboard and still counts towards your open flags. You can see its category, severity, speaker and the explanation of why it was flagged, and you can close it as usual. The quoted conversation is hidden, though, and you can't expand it. It shows again if the Student's recording consent is given, or if your organization turns off Honor recording consent opt-outs.
Who can see safeguarding flags
Safeguarding flags are visible to Administrators only. Tutors, Students and Clients can't see the Safeguarding dashboard or any flag raised against a Lesson, including their own.
Where a flag links through to a Lesson recording or transcript, access to that recording and transcript follows your organization's recording visibility setting, so safeguarding review doesn't open up recordings more widely than you've chosen.
Recordings linked to open flags
If your organization has set a retention period for Lesson recordings, a recording connected to an unresolved safeguarding flag is kept rather than removed on schedule, so the evidence is still there when you come to review it. Once the flag is closed, the recording follows your normal retention period again.