Terms of use

1. What these terms cover

SpeakUpSafe is a speak-up and case-management service for companies in India, the Middle East and the European Union. These terms apply to this website, its pages under speakupsafe.com, and every web portal or app of ours that links to them (together, the "site").

By using the site you accept the terms in force at that time. We may change them; the date at the end shows the latest version, so please look again from time to time.

If you use a portal for your employer or another organisation that has signed an agreement with SpeakUpSafe, that agreement comes first wherever it and these terms differ.

2. Privacy

Our Privacy statement is part of these terms. It also explains the few cookies the site needs to work. We use no advertising or tracking cookies.

3. Who may use the site

You may use the site if you are an adult under the law where you live, acting for yourself or for an organisation. By using it you confirm this.

An employee portal may also be used by anyone your employer allows to report, whatever their role.

4. Our content

The text, pictures, films, guides, software, design and other material on the site (the "content") belong to SpeakUpSafe or to the people who licensed it to us. We keep every right in it, including copyright and trade marks.

These terms give you no licence to the content except the one written in section 5.

5. Guides and other free material

Our guides, articles, checklists, sample policies, release notes and similar pages are free to read and to use for your own information, not for sale. When you use them:

• keep every copyright notice, trade mark and author line as it is;
• do not change them or use them in another way without our written permission;
• do not copy them in bulk, republish, post or send them on to others;
• do not use them, or anything taken from them, to build or train a product, a service or any software, including artificial intelligence and machine learning.

6. Not legal advice

Our guides explain the law in plain words to help you get started. They are not legal advice. For a decision about your company, ask your own lawyer.

7. Changes to the site, and stopping

We may change, add to or take away any part of the site at any time, with or without notice.

You may stop using the site at any time. These terms still apply to how you used it before you stopped.

8. Fair use

You agree not to use the site against the law, against anyone's rights, against these terms, or in a way that harms how it works. In particular:

• report honestly. Raising a concern in good faith is protected even if it turns out to be unfounded;
• do not use a portal to harass anyone or to make a report you know is false;
• do not try to find out who made an anonymous report, or to open cases you are not allowed to see;
• keep your sign-in to yourself. Case team and admin staff use two-step sign-in;
• do not probe, scan or test the site's security except as our Security page allows.

We may look into how the site is used, stop anyone who breaks these terms, and take legal action where needed.

9. What we provide

SpeakUpSafe provides each company's portal and keeps it secure and available. We fix problems as quickly as we can and show the current state on our Status page. A company's plan and its agreement with us say what it gets.

10. Signing your company up

• Sign up only for a company you work for and may act for. The person who signs up becomes the portal's first admin.
• One portal per company. A company that already has a portal is pointed to it instead.
• Sign up yourself, not with a script or a bot. Sign-ups from personal email addresses, and names that look like another company or brand, wait for a person at SpeakUpSafe to look at them.
• We may refuse or close a portal that breaks these terms, and we tell the admin why.

11. Data Processing Agreement

Your company decides why and how its reports are handled; SpeakUpSafe processes them for your company and only on its instructions (the data processor under the DPDP Act 2023 and GDPR article 28). In short:

• we use the portal's data only to run the portal for your company, and never sell it or use it for advertising;
• reports and messages are encrypted, and only the people your company gives access can read them;
• our staff open a company's portal only when its admin starts a support session, and every step is in its log;
• we use only the suppliers listed in our Trust centre, under written terms as strict as these;
• we tell your company without undue delay if its data is involved in a security incident;
• when your company leaves, it can export its data, and we delete it after the period in its agreement.

Your company's signed agreement with SpeakUpSafe, when it has one, takes the place of this summary.

12. Emergencies

The site is not an emergency service. If someone is in danger, call 112 or your local emergency number.

13. Links to other sites

The site links to other websites, for example a law on a government site or a sign-in with Google or Microsoft. We do not run those sites, do not vouch for what they offer, and are not responsible for any loss they cause. Their own terms apply to them, not these.

14. What we do not promise

As far as the law allows, the site and its content are provided as they are and as available. We give no promise, written or implied, that they are fit for a particular purpose, of a certain quality, or free of others' rights. Within that, we do not promise that:

• the site will always be secure, or that messages to and from it can never be intercepted;
• the site will run without a break or an error, or that every error will be fixed;
• the site and its servers are free of viruses or other harmful code;
• the content is always accurate, complete and up to date.

Nothing in these terms takes away a right that the law of your country gives you and does not let a contract remove, for example as a consumer in the European Union.

15. Limits on our liability

As far as the law allows, SpeakUpSafe is not liable for any indirect, special, incidental, punitive or consequential loss, or for lost data, use, income or profit, from your use of the website or its free content, even if we were told it might happen, and whatever the legal ground (contract, negligence or otherwise).

If you are unhappy with the website or its free content, your remedy is to stop using them. A company's liability to us, and ours to it, for its portal is set by its agreement with us.

16. If you break these terms

If you use the site or its content against these terms, the law or someone else's rights, you agree to cover SpeakUpSafe and its people for the claims and reasonable costs (including lawyers' fees) that follow, and to help us defend them if we ask.

You also agree not to bring a claim against SpeakUpSafe or its people for loss from your own use of the site in that way.

17. The most we owe

Where the law does not let us limit or exclude a liability, our total liability to you for the website and its free content, on any ground, is no more than ₹10,000.

18. Settling a dispute

• First write to us at [email protected], saying what the dispute is about and what you are asking for. We may write to you at the contact details we have.
• We will both try in good faith to settle it within 45 days of that letter.
• If it is not settled, it goes to arbitration by a sole arbitrator under India's Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996, seated in India and held in English. The decision is final and can be enforced like a court order.
• Either side may still go to a court for an urgent order to protect its rights, for example its intellectual property, or bring a claim that a small-claims or consumer forum must hear.
• Each side pays its own lawyers unless the law or the arbitrator decides otherwise.
• Where the law allows, claims are brought by each person for themselves and not as a group or on behalf of others.

19. The law that applies, and time limits

Indian law governs these terms and your use of the site, without regard to rules that would apply another country's law. Subject to section 18, the courts of India have jurisdiction.

A claim must be brought within the time Indian law allows. If you are a consumer in the European Union, you also keep the protection of the law where you live.

20. If something on the site infringes your rights

Write to [email protected] with the subject "Copyright notice". Say which work is yours, where it appears on the site, how to reach you, and that you believe in good faith that its use is not allowed. We act on notices as the Copyright Act 1957 and the Information Technology Rules 2021 require.

21. The whole agreement

These terms, with the Privacy statement, are the whole agreement between you and us about using the site and its content, and replace anything said or written before about it, except a company's signed agreement as section 1 says.

If a court finds part of these terms cannot be enforced, that part is narrowed or removed only as far as needed, and the rest stays in force.

22. Contact

Questions about these terms: [email protected].