Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

HerCircle is a personal safety app built by Ingenious Digital, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. By downloading, installing, or using HerCircle, you agree to these Terms of Service. If you do not agree to them, please do not use the app.

These terms apply to everyone who uses HerCircle — you, and anyone you add to your circle.

2. What HerCircle Is

HerCircle lets you share your real-time location with a trusted circle of people during journeys, check-ins, and emergencies. It also lets you raise an alert, and lets you signal distress discreetly when you cannot safely do so openly.

HerCircle is a communication and coordination tool. It helps the people you trust know where you are and that you need them. It does not change the world outside the phone.

HerCircle Is Not an Emergency Service

This matters enough to say plainly, more than once:

• HerCircle is not a replacement for police, ambulance, fire, or any other emergency service. It does not contact anyone on your behalf and it does not dispatch anyone.
• If you are in immediate danger, call your local emergency number first, then use HerCircle if it is safe to do so.
• The app depends on your phone's network, battery, location services, and our servers being available. Any of those can fail. Do not rely on HerCircle as your only means of getting help.
• Your circle members are ordinary people, not a response team. We cannot guarantee that anyone sees an alert, or responds to it, or can reach you in time.

3. Your Account

• You sign in with your email address and a one-time passcode. We do not store passwords.
• You must be at least 13 years old to use HerCircle.
• You are responsible for keeping access to your email account secure, since the one-time passcodes that let you sign in arrive there.
• You are responsible for activity that happens under your account. Tell us promptly if you think someone else has used it.
• You must provide accurate information and keep it up to date.

4. Your Circle

You decide who is in your circle. We do not add anyone to it, verify anyone in it, or vouch for anyone in it.

• You choose your circle. Add only people you trust with your location. If you add someone you do not trust, they will receive your location, your name, and — during active journeys and alerts — your battery level.
• You choose what you share. Location is only collected while a safety feature is running: an active journey, a check-in, or an alert. It is not collected passively in the background.
• You are responsible for your circle. Do not add anyone who has not agreed to be added, and do not use the app to track, monitor, or intimidate another person.
• Circle members are responsible for themselves. What they do with the information the app shows them is between them and you, not between them and us.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Use HerCircle to stalk, track, threaten, coerce, or harm any person.
• Add another person to your circle without their knowledge or consent.
• Interfere with the app's operation, probe or test its security without our written permission, or attempt to gain access to another person's account or data.
• Use HerCircle for anything unlawful.
• Resell, re-license, or redistribute the app, or use it to build a competing product.

6. Availability

HerCircle is currently in beta. We work on it, but we do not promise that it will be available at any given moment, that alerts will always be delivered, or that it will never contain errors. We may change, suspend, or withdraw features as the app develops.

7. Third-Party Services

HerCircle relies on outside infrastructure providers to operate. They act on our instructions and are bound by their own terms and privacy policies.

Service	What it does for you
Supabase	Stores your account, your circles, your journeys, check-ins, and alerts.
Firebase Cloud Messaging	Delivers push notifications about your circle's journeys, check-ins, and alerts.
OpenStreetMap and Nominatim	Draws the map and turns place names into coordinates. Your birth details and account are not sent.
OSRM	Calculates routes and distances.

Those providers' own terms apply to your use of their services, and their availability is outside our control.

8. Our Content and Your Content

• The app, its design, its name, and its underlying software are owned by Ingenious Digital or its licensors, and protected by intellectual property law.
• You keep ownership of the information you enter — your check-in notes, tags, and saved places. You grant us only the limited licence needed to store it, show it to your circle, and operate the app for you.
• Do not post content that is unlawful, infringing, or that you do not have the right to share.

9. Data and Privacy

What we collect, why we collect it, who can see it, and how long we keep it are set out in the HerCircle Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

HerCircle is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the app will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any alert will be delivered or responded to.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Ingenious Digital and anyone involved in building or operating HerCircle are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of data, arising from your use of the app or your inability to use it.

Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

12. Suspension and Termination

You can delete your account at any time — the steps are on the Delete Account page.

We may suspend or terminate your access if we reasonably believe you have broken these terms, or if the law requires it. Where we can, we will tell you why before we act.

13. Changes to These Terms

If we make a material change, we will notify you through the app or by email before it takes effect, and update the date at the top of this page. Continued use of HerCircle after that date means you accept the updated terms.

14. Governing Law

These terms are governed by the laws of Ethiopia, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Where the law allows the parties to choose, the courts of Addis Ababa have exclusive jurisdiction.

15. Contact

Questions about these terms go to support@ingeniousdigital.com.

Ingenious Digital — ingeniousdigital.com