Terms of use

HAUS is operated by [TODO: registered company name], [TODO: registered office address] (registration [TODO: company registration number]), is “we”. By creating an account, or by using one created for you, you agree to these terms on behalf of yourself and the organisation you are registering is “you”. If you are agreeing on behalf of a company, you confirm you are authorised to do so.

• An account belongs to one organisation. Everything created under it (properties, buildings, units, registers) belongs to that organisation and is invisible to every other account on the service.
• Owners may create further logins with the roles the product provides. You are responsible for who you give a login to, for the role you give them, and for the buildings you assign them.
• Logins are personal and must not be shared. A shared login makes the register unable to say who recorded an entry, which is most of what a register is for.
• Tell us promptly if a login is compromised. Until you do, activity under it is treated as yours.
• You must be at least 18 and able to enter into a contract.

HAUS records and organises. It keeps a unit register, an access log, house rules and their acknowledgement, and the ordinary records of running property: rent, bills, works, stock and staff.

It is not, and must not be relied on as:

• a security service. It records who was signed in; it does not admit, refuse or watch anybody. Those are decisions made by your staff at the door.
• legal advice. House rules, tenancy records and acknowledgements are documents you supply and evidence of what a visitor was shown, not an opinion on whether any of it is enforceable.
• an accounting system of record for tax or audit, unless you have satisfied yourself that it meets that requirement.
• a guarantee that anyone has read anything. The reader records that pages were open for the time required and that the visitor pressed accept. It cannot tell you what was understood.

The records you put into HAUS remain yours. We hold and process them to provide the service and for no other purpose. We do not sell them, mine them, or use them to train models.

Under the Data Protection Act, 2019 (Kenya) you are the data controller for the personal data in your account (residents, tenants, staff and visitors) and we are your data processor. That division is not a formality; it means the following are yours to get right:

• having a lawful basis for registering visitors and recording their documents at all, and being able to say what it is;
• telling people at the point of collection what is being recorded and why: a notice at the barrier, and staff who say so;
• collecting only what the building genuinely needs, and keeping it accurate;
• answering requests from residents and visitors about their own data, and asking us for help where the answer is in the system rather than in your files;
• registering with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) where the Act requires it of you.

We will assist you with those obligations as far as the product allows, and will tell you without undue delay if we become aware of a breach affecting your data.

Photographing strangers’ identity documents is the most sensitive thing this product does, so it carries its own conditions. By using the check-in features you agree that:

• identity documents are recorded for building access and safety, and are not to be used for marketing, screening, credit decisions, immigration reporting, or any purpose the visitor was not told about;
• you will not work around the retention rule. Photographs are deleted automatically 7 days after a visit is closed at the gate, and taking screenshots or photographs of the screen in order to keep copies longer defeats the promise your building has made to its visitors;
• visits are to be signed out when people leave. An access log full of visits nobody closed is inaccurate, and, because the deletion clock starts at check-out, it also means holding documents you told people you would discard;
• a downloaded access log is your responsibility from the moment it leaves the product. It contains names and document numbers; treat it as you would any confidential file, and delete it when the question it answered is closed;
• children are not to be photographed or asked for documents. The product counts them and deliberately does not scan them.

You must not:

• upload a house-rules document, image or record you have no right to use;
• attempt to reach another organisation's data, probe for records outside your assigned buildings, or test the service's security without our written agreement;
• scrape, bulk-extract or resell the service or its contents, or use it to build a competing product;
• use the register or the email features to send anything unsolicited to residents or visitors;
• upload malware, or anything unlawful.

Some features send content to Anthropic’s Claude API: rewriting an uploaded house-rules document into plain language, translating it, and transcribing a photographed identity document into the check-in form. Section 7 of the privacy policy describes what is sent.

These produce drafts, not decisions. A transcription is checked by the person at the desk against the document in their hand before it is saved; a simplified or translated set of rules is a reading aid and the document you uploaded remains the rules. You are responsible for reviewing published rules before visitors are asked to accept them, and we are not liable for a mistranslation you published without reading.

The service emails visitors their house rules, tells unit owners that somebody has arrived, and sends the reminders you have switched on. These go out in your name. You are responsible for the addresses you enter and for the content of the documents you publish.

We aim to keep the service available and to improve it, but it is provided without any guarantee of uptime. Maintenance, third-party outages and faults happen. Features may change; where a change removes something you rely on, we will give reasonable notice.

Where the service is unavailable, your building still has to run. Keep a way of recording arrivals on paper. A gate that cannot admit anybody because a website is down is a worse failure than the one it was protecting against.

[TODO: state the plan, the price, the billing period, what happens on non-payment, and any free tier. Until this clause is completed the service is provided on the terms agreed with you in writing.]

The software, its design and its documentation are ours. Nothing here transfers any right in them to you beyond the right to use the service while your account is open. Your records, documents and house rules remain yours; you grant us only the licence needed to host, process and display them to you and to the people you send them to.

• You may close your account at any time.
• We may suspend or close an account for a serious or repeated breach of these terms, or where continuing would put other people's data at risk. Except where the risk is immediate, we will tell you first and give you a chance to put it right.
• On closure you may export your records. After a reasonable period for that, no less than 30 days, your data is deleted, and backups holding it are overwritten on the ordinary cycle within a further 30 days.
• Deletion is deletion. Ask for your export before you close the account, not after.

The service is provided “as is”. To the extent the law allows, we exclude implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free, nor that any automated transcription, simplification or translation is accurate.

Neither party excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Subject to that, we are not liable for loss of profit, loss of business, or indirect or consequential loss, and our total liability in any twelve-month period is limited to the fees you paid us in that period. [TODO: confirm this cap is the one you intend, and that it is consistent with any signed order form.]

You will indemnify us against claims arising from your use of the service in breach of these terms, in particular claims by a visitor, resident or member of staff about data you collected without a lawful basis or without telling them, and claims about documents you uploaded without the right to use them.

We may change these terms. Material changes will be emailed to account owners before they take effect and the date at the top of this page will change. If you do not accept a change, close your account before it takes effect.

These terms are governed by the laws of Kenya, and the courts of Kenya have exclusive jurisdiction. Before starting proceedings, both sides agree to raise the dispute in writing and to try in good faith to settle it within 30 days.

[TODO: registered company name]
[TODO: registered office address]
[TODO: contact@example.com]