Terms for use of our web services
Web services include any of our APIs and websites such as AccessInfo.hk.
What we collect
While we are proud of the services we provide, we make no promises about them. All web services are certain to fail some of the time. We adapt and change our services from time to time, so you may find that something that worked for you may cease to work. We may also stop supplying any service, temporarily or permanently or block access to our services to anyone for any reason.
We are not a law firm and nothing we do is intended to be taken as legal advice. In particular:
- We encourage the use of creative commons licences but we cannot give any warranty that they will work in the way expected or should be used for any specific purpose. If in doubt, you should contact creative commons or take your own legal advice.
What you agree
You agree not to use our websites or data to do any of the following:
- Anything which is illegal either where you are in the world, or where we are.
- Try to access our systems that interfere with their normal running, or cause nuisance to other users (e.g. use a web crawler that does not respect a robots exclusion policy).
Other websites
Some of our activities are carried out on web platforms provided by third parties. For example the source code for AccessInfo is based on Alaveteli and hosted on github. If you make use of any service where that is the case, you are responsible for complying with any terms of service of the third party platform.
Accounts
Some of our services may require you to create an account in order to make certain kinds of, or any, use of the service, or submit data and forms. All our accounts are subject to the following rules.
You must be at least 13 years old and human.
- If asked for any personal details, you must answer truthfully (see our privacy policy for what we do with those details). You must supply us with a valid e-mail address.
- You are responsible for the security of your accounts and making sure that any contact details in the account are kept up to date. If we need to contact you but are unable to do so, for example because your e-mail address is no longer valid, then any consequences of that failure will be your responsibility.
- You must not let anyone else use your account. If pressure is applied to you to do so please inform them that their attempt to subvert your agreement with us will mean that they have no permission to use any of our services. You must let us know of any unauthorised use of your account as soon as you are able to after becoming aware of it.
- We may suspend or terminate your account at any time. Equally, you may close it at any time.
Content and intellectual property
What we do with your content
CivicSight is an Open Data organisation that promotes under the principle of Open Data by default whenever legally and ethically possible. If you contribute content to any of our services, for example by commenting on a blog, or uploading data, then as a general rule you agree to licence that content to us under the same licence as prevails for that service or website. For example: any comment you make on our blog, which is licensed under a CC-BY licence, will be licensed to us under the same licence.
Our Content
Unless otherwise stated all our services are offered under open content or data licences and you should refer to the provisions of the licence in question to find out what you are allowed to do. Some of our content belongs to third parties. Most third party data is subject to an open licence, but we cannot guarantee it. You should refer to the third party if you are in doubt.
Ownership does not change
As a general rule, this agreement will not change the ownership of any intellectual property belonging to either party. Where your content is used by us or vice versa both you and we would do so under a licence (see above).
Liability
Indemnities — where you may owe us
If you breach any of your obligations under this agreement and, as a result, cause us to be sued by anyone else, you will have to compensate us for any loss we have suffered as a result, which includes any costs, such as paying lawyers, or for our own time, we incur defending a claim as well as any damages awarded.
If your breach causes you to be sued by someone else, you will not sue us for any loss you suffer as a result.
Exclusion — what we do not owe you
We limit our liability in several different ways — all of which we believe to be fair. In case any one of them is found to be unenforceable by a court, each of the following limitations of liability is separate and our liability to you is limited by all of them.
All exclusions of liability are only in so far as we are allowed to do so by whatever law applies to the situation.
We will not be liable for any damage that was not reasonably foreseeable at the time we made this agreement.
- Any liability to you is limited by the amount you have paid us for a service, where:
- Our liability is zero for a free service.
We are not liable for any loss which is indirect or consequential. That includes any loss of profit or business.
We exclude, in so far as we are allowed, any warranties that would be implied by law.
General conditions
This agreement
We may update these terms and conditions at any time. If we do so, we will announce the change on our blog. Any changes will be binding on you from the moment we announce them.
Boilerplate
These final “boilerplate” terms of should go without saying, but we are saying them anyway just to be clear.
If any part of this agreement is ineffective (for example because it is unlawful) then the rest of the agreement should be read without it.
This agreement is between you and us and is not intended to give anyone else any rights.
We may sometimes fail to enforce our rights under this agreement (for example because we decide not to, or we did not realise you were in breach of contract). Just because we have not enforced any of our rights, does not stop us from doing so in the future.
Neither party is liable for anything which is beyond their reasonable control.
If for some reason beyond CivicSights reasonable control, we are unable to or it would not be commercially viable for us to, continue to supply any of our services, we may cease to supply that service, ending any agreement between us for its supply. If we do so, we will return to you a fair proportion of any sum you have paid us in advance for the supply of that service, taking into account the service we have already supplied to you.
