Terms of Service

1.1. Hound (the “service”) is provided by [legal entity name], [entity type] registered in [state or country of registration], with its address at [registered address] (“we”, “us”, “our”).

1.2. The service is a web application, available at https://www.hound.page and related addresses, for tracking equipment, its custody, events, borrow requests, tickets, maintenance, software licences, floor plans, and printed QR and NFC labels.

1.3. These terms are an agreement between us and (a) the organisation on whose behalf the service is used (the “customer” or “your organisation”) and (b) each individual who signs in to the service (a “user” or “you”). Where a term applies only to one of them, we say so. In sections 12 to 15 and 21, “party” means us or the customer, and “parties” means both of us.

2.1. You accept these terms by ticking the box confirming that you agree to them when you sign up or accept an invitation, or when we ask you to accept a new version. We record the version you accepted and the time you accepted it. If you do not agree, do not create an account or use the service. When we publish a new version, we may require you to accept it before you continue using the service.

2.2. Business use. The service is designed for organisations such as production companies, rental houses, schools, venues and event teams. It is not intended for personal, family or household use. If you use it as a sole trader, you are both the customer and a user.

2.3. Authority. If you create an organisation, or accept these terms as an owner or administrator, you confirm that you are authorised to bind that organisation, and these terms bind it. If you are not authorised, you must not create the organisation, and you are personally responsible for your use.

2.4. Minimum age. You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority where you live if that is higher, to create an account. The service is not directed to children. The customer must not invite anyone under 16 as a user, and must not record anyone under 13 in the service in any way, including as a borrower without an account. If the customer records a person aged 13 to 17 as a borrower (for example a student), the customer is responsible for giving any notice and obtaining any consent, including a parent’s consent, that the law requires.

2.5. You may not use the service if you are barred from doing so under applicable law, or if we have previously suspended or terminated your account for breach of these terms.

3.1. Accurate information. You must give accurate information when you sign up and keep your name and email address current.

3.2. Credentials. Each account is for one person. Do not share your password or one-time codes. Keep your password secret and use one you do not use elsewhere.

3.3. Multi-factor authentication. Sign-in normally requires a one-time code sent to your email address. Keep your email account secure, because anyone with access to it may be able to receive those codes. We may change, add or temporarily disable authentication methods, for example during an incident.

3.4. Sessions. Sessions expire after a period of time and are ended when your password is reset. If you use a shared or public device, sign out when you finish. Some preferences and cached data are kept in your browser (see the Privacy Policy) and you should clear them on shared devices.

3.5. Report problems. Tell us promptly at [security contact email] if you believe your account, an organisation’s data, or the service has been accessed without permission, or if you find a security vulnerability. Do not test the service’s security without our written permission.

3.6. Responsibility. You are responsible for activity under your account. The customer is responsible for activity by everyone it invites, adds or allows to use the service under its organisation, including placeholder people it records as borrowers.

4.1. Organisations. Data in the service belongs to an organisation workspace. A user can belong to more than one organisation.

4.2. Roles. Each organisation has an owner and may have administrators, managers and members, and custom roles. Owners and administrators control who is invited, what roles they have, which departments and locations they can see, and the organisation’s settings and integrations.

4.3. What admins can see. Organisation administrators can see and manage the data of members of their organisation, including names, contact and profile details, the equipment each member has checked out, custody and audit history, borrow requests, tickets and notifications related to the organisation. If you join an organisation, information about your activity in it is visible to people in that organisation according to their role.

4.4. The customer’s instructions. We act on the instructions of the organisation’s owner and administrators for that organisation’s data. If a member asks us to change or delete data that the organisation controls, we may refer them to the organisation.

4.5. Leaving an organisation. Removing a member ends their access to that organisation. Records of what they did while a member (for example custody logs) remain part of the organisation’s history.

4.6. Ownership of the organisation. Only the owner can permanently delete an organisation. Disputes between people about who controls an organisation are for those people to resolve. We may rely on the current owner’s instructions, or ask for reasonable evidence before acting.

4.7. Seat limits and licences. We may issue an organisation a product licence that sets a type (for example trial or standard), an expiry date and a maximum number of members. If a seat limit is reached, new members cannot be added until seats are freed or the limit is raised. If a licence expires, we will show a notice in the service and the organisation keeps access for a grace period of at least 14 days. We will give at least 14 days’ notice before applying any further consequence of expiry, such as limiting access.

5.1. Definition. “Customer data” means all data and files that a customer or its users submit to the service, including asset records, people records, custody and audit records, notes, attachments, images, floor plans, imported spreadsheets and settings.

5.2. Ownership. As between us and the customer, the customer owns customer data. We do not claim ownership of it.

5.3. Licence to us. The customer grants us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, copy, process, transmit and display customer data only as needed to provide, secure, maintain and support the service, to comply with law, and to enforce these terms. This licence ends when the customer data is deleted from the service, subject to section 17.

5.4. No other use. We do not sell customer data, use it for advertising, or use it to train artificial intelligence models.

5.5. Customer responsibilities. The customer is responsible for the accuracy, quality and legality of customer data and for having the rights, notices and lawful basis needed to put it into the service. This includes personal data about its staff, freelancers, borrowers and any other people it records, for example people it adds by name as event borrowers who do not have an account.

5.6. Sensitive data. Do not put special-category or highly sensitive data in the service (for example health, biometric, government identity or payment card data), except where the service has a field designed for it. If you store software product keys or passwords for equipment in free-text or licence fields, you do so at your own risk.

5.7. Personal data processing. When we process personal data in customer data on the customer’s behalf, we act as the customer’s processor (or service provider). Our Data Processing Addendum (“DPA”), available on request at [contact email], forms part of these terms when signed or accepted by the customer.

5.8. Backups and loss. We take reasonable steps to protect customer data, but the service is not a backup service. The customer should keep its own records of anything it cannot afford to lose, and can get a copy of its customer data at any time (section 17.3).

You must not, and must not allow anyone else to:

6.1. use the service in breach of any law or regulation, or to store or share content that is unlawful, infringing, defamatory, harassing, discriminatory or harmful;

6.2. upload malware, or files designed to harm or gain unauthorised access to any system;

6.3. access or try to access data of an organisation you are not a member of, or data your role does not allow you to see;

6.4. probe, scan or test the service’s vulnerability, or breach or circumvent authentication, rate limits, seat limits, usage limits or other security or access controls;

6.5. scrape, crawl or use automated means to access the service, except through features we provide for that purpose;

6.6. send unreasonable volumes of requests, invitations or emails, or use invitation, sign-up, password reset or notification features to send messages to people who have not asked for them;

6.7. copy, modify, decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer the service, except to the extent the law allows despite this restriction;

6.8. resell, sublicense, frame or provide the service to third parties as a service bureau, unless we agree in writing;

6.9. use the service to build a competing product, or to benchmark it for publication without our consent;

6.10. create, print or attach QR codes, NFC tags or labels generated by the service in a way that is deceptive, for example to imitate another organisation’s labels, to misrepresent ownership of property, or to direct people to fraudulent content;

6.11. record a person in the service, or check equipment out to them, in order to track, monitor or harass them rather than to manage equipment; or

6.12. use the service in breach of export control or sanctions laws (section 20).

We may remove content or restrict access that we reasonably believe breaches this section.

7.1. The service relies on third-party providers for hosting, database, file storage and email. They are listed in our Privacy Policy.

7.2. Telegram. An organisation administrator may connect a Telegram bot and chat. If they do, the service sends messages about equipment activity, which can include asset names and the names of people who borrowed equipment, to Telegram. The customer chooses to use Telegram, supplies its own bot token and chat, and is responsible for who can read that chat. Telegram’s own terms and privacy policy apply to Telegram. We are not responsible for Telegram’s service or its handling of messages after we send them. The bot token is stored in our database, protected by the security measures described in our Privacy Policy, and is not shown in full again after it is saved. It is not separately encrypted. The customer should use a bot created only for this purpose and revoke the token in Telegram if it may have been exposed.

7.3. Email. The service sends transactional emails (for example verification codes, invitations, password resets, check-out notices and reminders). Delivery depends on the recipient’s email provider. We are not responsible for messages that are delayed, filtered or not delivered.

7.4. NFC hardware and helper software. NFC features may require compatible hardware or a helper program running on your own device. You are responsible for that hardware and software.

7.5. We do not control third-party services and are not responsible for them. We may stop supporting an integration if the third party changes its service or it becomes a security risk.

8.1. No service level. We aim to keep the service available but do not guarantee any particular uptime, response time or support level unless we agree a service level in writing.

8.2. Maintenance. We may suspend the service for maintenance, updates or emergencies. We will try to give notice of planned maintenance where practical.

8.3. Changes. We may add, change or remove features. If we remove a feature that a customer materially relies on, we will give reasonable notice where practical. We will not make a change that materially reduces the security of customer data.

8.4. Beta features. Features we label as beta, preview or experimental are provided for evaluation, may change or be withdrawn at any time, and are excluded from any commitments we make about the service.

8.5. Offline use. Some mobile features work offline and synchronise later. Offline changes may conflict with other changes and may not be saved if your device’s storage is cleared before it reconnects.

9.1. The service is currently provided free of charge, or under the licence terms we have agreed with your organisation.

9.2. We may introduce paid plans or fees in the future. We will give the customer at least 30 days’ notice before any fee applies to it, and the customer may stop using the service before then. No fee will be charged without the customer’s agreement to the applicable price.

9.3. Any paid plan will be governed by these terms plus the order form or plan terms presented at the time.

10.1. We and our licensors own the service, including its software, design, text, graphics, label templates and trademarks. Except for the limited right to use the service under these terms, we grant no rights in it.

10.2. Subject to these terms, we grant each customer and its users a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use the service for the customer’s internal business purposes during the term.

10.3. Labels and QR codes you generate with the service may be printed and used for your own equipment.

10.4. If you send us suggestions or feedback, we may use them without restriction or payment. Feedback does not include customer data.

10.5. The service includes open-source components licensed under their own terms.

10.6. Copyright complaints. If you believe that content in the service infringes your copyright, send a notice to [copyright agent name, postal address and email] that identifies the work, the material you believe infringes it and where it is, your contact details, a statement that you believe in good faith that the use is not authorised, and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or are authorised to act for the owner, with your physical or electronic signature. We may remove or disable access to the material and, in appropriate cases, end the accounts of repeat infringers.

11.1. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data, including account data, for which we are the controller, and customer data, for which we act on the customer’s instructions.

11.2. The customer is responsible for giving its users and any other people it records in the service the notices required by law, and for obtaining any consents required, for example for employee monitoring.

12.1. “Confidential information” means non-public information disclosed by one party to the other that is marked confidential or that a reasonable person would understand to be confidential. Customer data is the customer’s confidential information.

12.2. The receiving party will use the other’s confidential information only to perform under these terms, protect it with at least reasonable care, and disclose it only to its personnel and providers who need to know it and are bound by similar duties.

12.3. These duties do not apply to information that is public through no fault of the receiving party, already known to it, independently developed, or lawfully received from a third party. A party may disclose confidential information if required by law, after giving the other party reasonable notice where lawful.

12.4. These duties continue for 3 years after these terms end, and for customer data and trade secrets for as long as they remain confidential.

13.1. Each party confirms it has the authority to enter into these terms.

13.2. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the service is provided “as is” and “as available”. We disclaim all warranties, whether express, implied or statutory, including any warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement and quiet enjoyment, and any warranty that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, or that data will not be lost.

13.3. The service is a record-keeping tool. It does not verify the physical location, condition or ownership of equipment, and it does not replace insurance, physical security or the customer’s own checks. Reminders and notifications may be late or not delivered.

13.4. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranties to be excluded. In those places, the exclusions apply only to the extent allowed.

14.1. Excluded losses. To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party is liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, business, goodwill or data, however caused and under any theory of liability, even if it was advised of the possibility. If we cause a loss of customer data, we will use reasonable efforts to restore it from the most recent backup available to us.

14.2. Cap. To the maximum extent permitted by law, each party’s total liability arising out of or relating to these terms or the service in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of (a) the fees paid or payable by the customer to us in that period and (b) USD 100.

14.3. Carve-outs. Sections 14.1 and 14.2 do not limit liability for (a) the customer’s payment obligations, (b) a party’s indemnity obligations, (c) breach of section 6 (acceptable use) by the customer, (d) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, gross negligence or wilful misconduct, (e) death or personal injury caused by negligence, or (f) any liability that cannot be limited or excluded by law.

14.4. Consumers. If you are a consumer under the law where you live, you may have rights that these terms cannot limit, and nothing in these terms affects those rights.

14.5. Allocation of risk. The exclusions and limits in sections 13 and 14 reflect the allocation of risk for a service provided free of charge or at low cost. They apply even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose.

15.1. The customer will defend and indemnify us and our officers, employees and contractors against any third-party claim, and resulting losses, damages, fines and reasonable legal costs, arising from (a) customer data, including a claim that the customer lacked the right or lawful basis to put personal data in the service, (b) the customer’s or its users’ breach of these terms or of law, or (c) the customer’s use of third-party services it connects, such as Telegram.

15.2. We will promptly notify the customer of the claim, give it control of the defence (but it may not settle a claim that imposes obligations on us without our consent), and provide reasonable cooperation at its expense.

16.1. By the customer or user. You may stop using the service at any time. A user can delete their own account from their settings. An organisation’s owner can permanently delete the organisation from its settings.

16.2. Suspension by us. We may suspend an account or organisation immediately if we reasonably believe (a) it breaches section 6, (b) its use creates a security risk or could harm the service, other customers or third parties, (c) we are required to by law, or (d) a seat limit or licence term is being circumvented. We will give notice and the reason, where lawful, before the suspension where practical and otherwise promptly afterwards, and we will restore access once the issue is resolved. Suspension does not delete customer data.

16.3. Termination by us. We may terminate these terms for an organisation or user (a) for material breach not cured within 14 days of notice, (b) immediately for serious or repeated breach of section 6, or (c) for convenience with at least 30 days’ notice, including if we stop offering the service.

16.4. Effect. On termination, the right to use the service ends. Sections 5.2, 5.3 (only as needed to carry out section 17), 5.5, 9 (for fees already owed), 10.1, 10.4, 10.6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20 and 21 survive.

17.1. Organisation deletion. Only the owner can delete an organisation, and we recommend getting a copy of its data first (section 17.3). When an owner deletes an organisation, its data, including assets, custody and audit records, events, tickets, borrow requests, memberships, settings, the records of people it added as borrowers without accounts, and uploaded files, is permanently deleted from the live system. This cannot be undone. If an uploaded file cannot be deleted at that moment, we retry and delete it within 30 days. The accounts of users who belonged to the organisation are not deleted, because an account can belong to other organisations; each user can delete their own account. We keep a minimal record that the deletion happened (the organisation’s name and short name, the number of members, the account that deleted it, a one-way hash of their IP address, and when) for security and legal purposes. We delete the IP hash after 90 days and the rest of the record after 2 years.

17.2. Account deletion. When a user deletes their account, we remove their memberships and notifications and replace their name and profile details with “Deleted user”. Records of their past actions remain in organisations’ histories under that label. We delete your profile photo file at the same time. We keep the deleted account’s email address for 30 days to prevent abuse, handle disputes and restore the account if you ask, and then delete it.

17.3. Getting a copy of your data. Any signed-in user can download a copy of their own account data as a JSON file from /api/me/export, or ask us for it at [contact email]. While an organisation exists, its owner or an administrator can ask us at the same address for a copy of the organisation’s customer data. We will provide it in a commonly used, machine-readable format (for example JSON or CSV files) within 30 days of a verified request. If we terminate the service for a customer for any reason other than its serious or repeated breach of section 6, we will give the customer at least 30 days’ notice so that it can obtain its data, and we will provide an export on request during that time. After an organisation is deleted we cannot provide an export.

17.4. Backups. Deleted data may remain in backups held by our database provider for up to [backup window, to confirm] before being overwritten. We do not use it during that time except to recover the service after an incident, and if we restore a backup we will take reasonable steps to re-apply deletions made since the backup was taken.

18.1. Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of [governing law], without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

18.2. Informal resolution first. Before starting any formal proceeding, the party with a dispute must send a written notice describing it to the other party (to us at [legal notices email]), and both parties will try in good faith to resolve it for at least 30 days.

18.3. Venue. The courts located in [venue] have exclusive jurisdiction, and each party submits to them. Either party may seek urgent injunctive relief in any court of competent jurisdiction.

18.4. Nothing in this section limits rights a consumer has under mandatory local law to bring proceedings in their home courts.

19.1. We may update these terms. If a change is material, we will give at least 30 days’ notice by email to organisation owners and administrators, or by notice in the service, and we will ask users to accept the new version when they next sign in.

19.2. Changes take effect on the date stated. If you continue using the service after that date, you accept the change. If you do not agree, you must stop using the service and may delete your account or organisation. A change does not apply to a dispute that either party notified to the other before the change took effect.

19.3. Changes required by law, or for security reasons, may take effect immediately.

20.1. You must comply with all applicable export control and sanctions laws, including those of the United States and of [state or country of registration].

20.2. You confirm that you are not located in, organised under the laws of, or ordinarily resident in a country or region subject to comprehensive sanctions, and that you are not on, or owned or controlled by anyone on, a government list of restricted or sanctioned parties. You must not allow any such person to use the service.

21.1. Entire agreement. These terms, the Privacy Policy, any DPA and any order form or written agreement that refers to them, are the entire agreement between the parties about the service and replace any earlier understanding. If there is a conflict, a signed written agreement prevails over the DPA, the DPA prevails on data protection matters, and these terms prevail over everything else.

21.2. Severability. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, it will be changed to the minimum extent needed and the rest will remain in effect.

21.3. No waiver. A failure to enforce a term is not a waiver of it.

21.4. Assignment. The customer may not assign these terms without our consent, except to a successor to all or substantially all of its business. We may assign these terms to an affiliate or to a successor in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, with notice.

21.5. Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including outages of hosting, database, storage or email providers, other than payment obligations.

21.6. Independent parties. The parties are independent contractors. There are no third-party beneficiaries.

21.7. Notices. We may give notices by email to the address on the account of an organisation’s owner or administrators, or in the service. Notices to us must be sent to [legal notices email] and, for legal process, to [registered address]. Email notices are received when sent, unless a bounce is received.

21.8. Language. These terms are written in English. Any translation is for convenience only.

• [legal entity name], [registered address]
• Email: [contact email]
• Security issues: [security contact email]