Age Suitability and Social Features

Last updated: 17 August 2026

This page is written for app-store review teams, ratings boards and parents. It explains what Sessionist's social element is, what it deliberately is not, and how the app treats users under 16.

1. Summary

• Sessionist is a music-learning app for Irish traditional music. Its social features are restricted to music and musical listings — tunes, performances, playlists, ratings and leaderboards.
• There is no free-text communication between users: no chat, no direct messages, no comments, no forums and no free-form posts.
• Everything public is moderated before it can be seen by all. Content that any user can share to the whole community — contributed guide recordings, tune art, playlist names — is reviewed by a human moderator before it becomes visible.
• Social features are off by default and can only be turned on by users whose registered year of birth makes them 16 or older. Under-16s cannot enable any social feature.
• Year of birth is self-declared at registration; like any app without identity verification, we cannot prove it. What we control is what the app permits: nothing social is available below the declared age of 16, and a false declaration breaches our Terms of Use.
• No advertising, no third-party analytics or tracking, no data selling, no gambling mechanics, no AI-generated content.

2. What Sessionist is

Sessionist teaches Irish traditional tunes. It listens to the user playing a real instrument, scores the performance against the tune's notation, and guides practice until the tune is mastered. The core of the app — learning, practising and building a repertoire — works without any social feature.

3. The social element is music only

Sessionist has a social element, but every social surface is a musical listing, not an open communication channel. Users who opt in (16 or older) can:

• Add up to 50 friends.
• Appear on leaderboards, which show a display name, score, speed and instrument — nothing else.
• Share performances, tunes and playlists with friends, and see friends' activity and achievements.
• Rate versions of tunes, contributing to community ratings.
• Contribute a perfect-score performance as a guide recording for other learners, or contribute tune art — both only after human moderation (section 5).

Every one of these is a structured, music-shaped item. None of them carries a message from one user to another.

4. No free-text communication

There is no mechanism anywhere in Sessionist by which one user can type a message and have another user read it. Specifically, there is:

• No chat and no direct messaging.
• No comments on any content.
• No forums, walls, feeds or free-form posts.
• No profile biography or "about me" text.
• No image sharing other than moderated tune art (section 5).

The only free text a user ever enters that another user could see is a username and a playlist name. Usernames are checked at registration against an automated screen that blocks profanity and slurs. Playlist names are reviewed by a human moderator before they can become visible to other users. Users can also report any published content through the report flag, and admin can remove it before too many eyes and ears can be exposed to it.

5. Everything public is moderated first

Nothing a user creates becomes visible to the community without review. Contributed guide recordings, contributed tune art and playlist names are each held in a moderation queue and reviewed by a human moderator before publication. Content that fails review is never published.

6. Users under 16

Every user registers an account, and registration asks for a year of birth. A user whose declared year of birth makes them under 16 can do everything the app exists for — learn, practise and build a repertoire — but cannot turn on any social feature. Social features are an explicit opt-in that the app offers only at a declared age of 16 or older (Ireland's age of digital consent).

We are open about the limit of this: year of birth is self-declared, and no app can verify a user's age without identity checks we do not perform. Our protection is therefore structural — the app is fully featured for learning without any social feature, nothing social exists below the declared age of 16, giving a false age breaches the Terms of Use and may result in account suspension or closure, and everything that could reach a young user through the app (all publicly visible content) has passed human moderation.

7. Other rating-relevant facts

• No advertising of any kind.
• No third-party analytics, tracking or data selling.
• No gambling mechanics, loot boxes or randomised purchases.
• No violent, sexual or frightening content — the app's content is traditional music notation and audio.
• No AI-generated sounds or images; recordings and tune art come from real players and are moderated.
• Only over 16s can send audio off their device, and users retain full ownership over all their content, and can manually revoke sharing permission from any contributed item at any time, or have it automatically happen upon account deletion. Sessionist doesn't own or retain control of any user contributed assets.

8. Contact

Questions from review teams, ratings boards or parents: privacy@sessionist.ie — Niall Kelleher, 13 Vesey Place, Dublin, A96 R3H2, Ireland. See also our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.