Terms of Service

CensusIO is a system of record for fish and wildlife survey data. It receives data from the tools teams already use (such as ArcGIS Field Maps, KoboToolbox, ODK Central, and spreadsheets) and from direct entry and field collectors, then validates it, runs a survey-type engine and reports, and keeps it as a durable archive. The Service both collects survey data directly and serves as the destination for data collected in other tools.

• Customer Data means the data you upload, enter, import, or generate in the Service, including survey types, survey records, locations, lab samples, attachments, and reference data.
• Organization (or workspace) means a tenant account in the Service. Every Organization is isolated from every other.
• Collector means a field data collector who submits data through a link or token without a full account.
• Public Data Layer means the public, cross-organization view of survey records that you choose to publish.
• Sub-processor means a third party we use to help provide the Service, listed in our Privacy Policy.

You must provide accurate registration information and keep it current. You are responsible for activity under your account and for keeping your credentials secure. Within an Organization, owners and admins control membership and roles (owner, admin, member, and viewer). The Service is intended for professional, agency, and academic use, and is not directed to children under 16.

You agree not to:

• use the Service in violation of any law, regulation, or third-party right;
• upload data you do not have the right to upload, or data that infringes the privacy or intellectual property rights of others;
• upload malware, or attempt to probe, scan, or circumvent the security of the Service;
• misrepresent the source, provenance, or accuracy of scientific data, which matters because the Service is a system of record;
• place an unreasonable load on the Service, scrape it, or resell, sublicense, or share access outside your Organization except as the Service allows.

You retain all right, title, and interest in your Customer Data. We claim no ownership of it. You grant us a limited, worldwide license to host, store, back up, process, transform, and display your Customer Data, and to do so through our sub-processors, only as needed to provide and maintain the Service, run the survey-type engine and reports, and follow your instructions. This license ends when your Customer Data is deleted from the Service, except for the public records and de-identified records described in Section 7.

For personal data contained in your Customer Data (for example, observer names that appear in a survey record), you are the data controller and we are your data processor. We process that personal data on your documented instructions, which include these Terms and your use of the Service. For agency, NGO, and European customers, a Data Processing Addendum is available and, once signed, controls how we handle that personal data. See our Privacy Policy for how we handle the data for which we are the controller (such as account and billing data).

Publishing a survey record to the Public Data Layer is optional and requires your explicit consent at the time you publish. Publishing is permanent. Once a record is public, it can be copied, cached, indexed, and mirrored by search engines and downstream aggregators (for example, services that build on open biodiversity data), and those copies may persist even if you later withdraw the record from CensusIO. We identify the open data license that applies when you publish.

If you withdraw a published record, we remove it from the Public Data Layer, but we cannot recall copies others already made. If your Organization is deleted, your published records are not erased; instead we de-identify them by removing the organization link and showing the source as “Withdrawn”, so the scientific record and its citations stay intact. Do not publish data you may need to fully retract.

We own the Service, including its software, the survey-type engine, the built-in reports, the AI-assisted features, the user interface, and the documentation. These Terms grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use the Service for your subscribed plan, with no right to resell or sublicense it. If you send us feedback, you grant us the right to use it without obligation to you. We may use de-identified, aggregated statistics about how the Service is used to operate and improve it.

Some features use AI to draft survey forms and to suggest analyses. These features draft and suggest only. A person reviews and signs off before anything takes effect. The Service does not make automated decisions about your data on your behalf. You are responsible for reviewing and validating any AI-assisted form or analysis before you rely on it.

Paid plans are billed through our payment processor, Stripe. By subscribing to a paid plan, you authorize recurring charges for the plan you choose. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period unless you cancel before renewal. Fees are stated exclusive of taxes, which you are responsible for where they apply. The Free plan is offered for individual researchers and academic use, subject to its stated limits.

If a payment fails, your Organization enters a past-due grace period, then moves to a read-only state, and then to a cancelled state, after which paid features are no longer available. Except where required by law, fees already paid are non-refundable. We will give you reasonable notice before a material increase in fees.

The Service connects to third-party tools you choose to use, such as ArcGIS, KoboToolbox, ODK Central, spreadsheets you import, and read-only feeds you export to business intelligence tools. We are not responsible for those third-party services or for data you move to or from them. Your use of a connected service is governed by that service’s own terms. Stripe and Cloudflare are underlying providers of the Service, as described in our Privacy Policy.

Each party will protect the other’s non-public information and use it only to perform under these Terms. We treat your Customer Data as your confidential information and do not disclose it except to provide the Service or as required by law.

We will provide the Service with reasonable skill and care, and it will perform materially as described in our documentation. Except for that commitment, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant the scientific accuracy, completeness, or fitness of Customer Data, which you supply and control.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party is liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, or data. Our total liability arising out of or related to the Service is limited to the amount you paid us for the Service in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim. These limits do not apply to a party’s breach of its confidentiality obligations or to amounts owed under Section 15.

You will defend and indemnify us against third-party claims arising from your Customer Data or your use of the Service in violation of these Terms, including claims that your data infringes a third party’s rights. We will defend and indemnify you against third-party claims that the Service itself, used as permitted, infringes that third party’s intellectual property rights.

These Terms apply while you use the Service. We may suspend access for a serious or repeated violation of these Terms, or for non-payment, with notice where practical. You may stop using the Service at any time. When you delete an Organization or your account, the deletion is a soft delete with a 30-day recovery window, after which the data is permanently removed, as described in Section 17.

You can export your full Organization data at any time, on any plan, including while read-only. When an Organization is permanently deleted after its recovery window, we remove its private data, purge its stored files, de-identify any records it published to the Public Data Layer, and record a signed Certificate of Destruction that you can retrieve as proof of deletion.

When a person deletes their individual account, we de-identify that person and remove them from the Organizations they belong to, but the Organization’s records and their provenance remain, so the system of record stays intact.

Survey data held by a government agency are often official records subject to retention schedules, and may be retained permanently. Where you are the controller of such records, we retain them according to your instructions and retention obligations. Account-level deletion de-identifies the departing person, but it does not erase the Organization’s official records.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Colorado, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. The state and federal courts located in Colorado have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms, and each party consents to that venue.

We recognize that some government agencies cannot agree to indemnification, arbitration, fee limits, or out-of-state venue. If you are a public agency and cannot agree to a provision of these Terms, contact us and we will work with you through a separate written agreement.

We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes, we will give reasonable advance notice, for example by posting the updated Terms with a new effective date or by notifying account holders. Your continued use of the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.

If any part of these Terms is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms without our consent, except to a successor of your organization; we may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger or sale. Neither party is liable for delays caused by events beyond its reasonable control. These Terms, together with any separate written agreement and our Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service.

Questions about these Terms can be sent to support@censusio.com.

Reckoned Force, LLC, Aurora, Colorado, USA.