Terms of service

Who this is with

These terms are the agreement between you and the operator of FieldWork Sync, published on Google Play as the developer of the FieldWork Sync app. In this document, "we" and "us" mean that operator, and "you" means the person or organisation using the service.

By creating an account, or by using the app or the panel, you accept these terms. If you are accepting them for an organisation, you are confirming that you may bind that organisation.

Our privacy policy explains what we do with personal data, and is part of this agreement.

What the service is

FieldWork Sync is a web panel and an Android app. An organisation designs forms in the panel, its team fills them in on their phones with or without a connection, and the records reach the organisation when a connection is available.

The app is built to work offline. Records you collect are kept on the phone and sent when there is a connection. Until they are sent, they exist only on that phone — if the phone is lost or wiped before a sync, they are gone, and we cannot recover them.

Your account

• You need an account to use the service, apart from the demo in the app, which works without one and keeps nothing.
• You are responsible for what happens under your account, and for keeping your password to yourself. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has it.
• An organisation's owner and administrators can add people, remove them, and revoke a phone. A revoked phone stops being able to sync; records it already sent stay where they are.
• The service is for organisations and their teams. It is not meant for anyone under 16.

Your data stays yours

The records, photos, signatures, positions and files your team collects — what we call field data — belong to your organisation. Using the service does not give us any ownership of them.

We store that data, synchronise it and make it available to you, and we do nothing else with it. We do not sell it, we do not use it for purposes of our own, and we do not use it to train models. We do not read it, except when you ask us to help with a problem, or the law requires it.

You can export your field data at any time, in Excel or CSV, and read it over the API. We do not charge for getting your own data out, and we never hold it hostage.

Collecting data lawfully

FieldWork Sync is a tool. What you collect with it, and from whom, is your decision and your responsibility.

If your forms collect personal data about other people, you are the one who must have a lawful basis for it, tell those people what you are doing, and answer them if they ask. When someone asks us about data you collected, we pass the request to you, because the decision is yours. We will help you answer it.

What you must not do

• Break the law with it, or help anyone else to.
• Collect data about people without a lawful basis, or in a way that deceives them about who is collecting it or why.
• Upload malware, or content you have no right to.
• Try to reach another organisation's data, probe or break the service's security, or get around the limits of your plan.
• Load the service in a way that degrades it for other organisations, including automated requests beyond the published rate limits.
• Resell the service as if it were yours, unless we have agreed that in writing.

If you do any of this, we may suspend the account. Where the problem is not serious, we will tell you first and give you a chance to put it right.

Plans and limits

A plan sets two things the service actually enforces: how many active users an organisation may have, and how much photo and file storage it may use. When a limit is reached, the service says so rather than failing silently: a new person cannot be added or reactivated, or an upload is refused. Nothing already collected is deleted because of a limit.

Every active person who signs in counts, whatever their role. Someone who has been deactivated, or who has not signed in for more than 30 days, does not.

Our pricing page describes what each plan includes. Where that page and these terms disagree about a limit, the pricing page is the one to follow.

Price, and early access

FieldWork Sync is in early access. There is no billing: we are not charging for the service, and the product cannot take a payment today.

When charging begins, we will tell account owners by email before it does, and no account will be charged without first being asked to agree to a price. Accounts created during early access keep early-access pricing for a year after the first paid release.

When charging does begin, and an organisation stops paying, collection stops but the data does not disappear: exports stay available for ninety days, so that nothing is lost while a budget is renewed.

Keep your own copies

We take care of the service, but we do not promise that data can never be lost, and no sensible agreement would. Hardware fails, mistakes happen, and an account owner can delete things on purpose.

Export your data regularly and keep the exports somewhere you control. This matters most for field work that cannot be repeated: a survey round, an inspection on a date that has passed. A record collected once and lost is not something any of us can recreate.

Availability and support

We work to keep FieldWork Sync available, but we do not guarantee that it will be uninterrupted or free of faults. We may take it down for maintenance, and we will avoid doing so without warning when we can.

The app is designed so that an interruption here does not stop work there: collection continues on the phone while the service is unreachable, and syncs when it returns. That is the point of the design, and it is the best protection against our downtime.

Support is by email at [email protected]. A person reads it.

Ending it

You can stop using the service whenever you like. To have your account and its data deleted, follow Delete your FieldWork Sync account, which says exactly what is deleted and what is kept. When an organisation closes its account, its field data and files are deleted within 30 days.

We may end this agreement, with reasonable notice, if we stop offering the service. If we do, we will give you time and a way to export everything first. We may suspend or end an account without notice only where the law requires it, or where the account is being used to harm other people or the service.

Changes

We will keep improving the service, which means it will change. We may add, alter or remove features. Where a change removes something you depend on, we will tell account owners before it happens.

When these terms change, the date at the top changes with them. If a change matters to you — anything about price, your data, or your rights here — we will tell account owners by email or in the panel before it takes effect. Carrying on using the service after that means you accept the new terms.

Liability

The service is provided as it is. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, for lost profits, or for data you did not export and we could not recover.

Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law — including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

Where our liability can be limited, it is limited to the amount you paid us for the service in the twelve months before the claim. During early access, when nothing is being charged, that amount is nil — which is a reason to read Keep your own copies rather than to rely on this paragraph.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of Mozambique, and the courts of Mozambique have jurisdiction over any dispute arising from them.

If you are a consumer in a country whose law gives you rights you cannot sign away, this clause does not take them from you.