Effective date: 29 September 2026 Document status: Default draft. The Master Super Admin must complete every bracketed field and obtain legal review before treating this as the Operator’s final terms.
1. Important information and agreement
These Terms and Conditions (“Termsâ€) govern access to and use of Luo Heritage, including its websites, mobile experiences, accounts, learning tools, cultural collection, community submissions, search, chatbot, APIs, and related features (together, the “Platformâ€). The Platform is operated by [FULL LEGAL NAME OF OWNER / INSTITUTION], of [REGISTERED OR PRINCIPAL ADDRESS] (“Operatorâ€, “weâ€, “usâ€). By visiting, creating an account, uploading material, or using a feature, you agree to the Terms and the Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not create an account or use the Platform. Feature-specific notices may also apply; if they conflict with these Terms, the specific notice controls only for that feature and only to the extent stated.
These Terms are intended to explain the relationship clearly. They do not remove consumer, privacy, intellectual-property, cultural, or other rights that applicable law does not allow the Operator to exclude. The Platform is being developed for language learning, cultural preservation, research, and community participation; its exact institutional operator, funding, and support arrangements must be accurately stated by the Operator before publication.
2. Who may use the Platform
You may use the Platform only if you can form a binding agreement under the law that applies to you. If you are under the age of legal capacity, a parent or legal guardian must review these Terms, provide any legally required authorization, and supervise your use. The Operator may impose age limits or additional safeguards for particular features. Do not create an account using another person’s identity or details.
The Platform may include information contributed by elders, learners, researchers, teachers, administrators, and community members. A selected user role describes intended participation; it does not certify a person’s qualifications, grant professional authority, or make the Operator responsible for that user’s statements. Users must comply with community protocols and any access labels displayed on a record.
3. Account registration and truthful information
Provide complete and accurate information when registering, and update it when it materially changes. Do not use disposable or misleading identity information to evade safety, age, moderation, or account controls. The Operator may ask for reasonable information to verify an account, contribution permission, or administrator appointment, subject to the Privacy Policy and applicable law.
Accounts are personal unless the Operator expressly creates an institutional or shared account. You must not sell, rent, lend, transfer, or share credentials, authentication tokens, or administrator access. You are responsible for maintaining reasonable control of your devices and sign-in methods. Notify [ACCOUNT SECURITY EMAIL] promptly if you suspect unauthorized access. The Operator may temporarily restrict an account while investigating a credible compromise or safety concern.
4. Account security and administrator privileges
You must use strong, unique credentials where available, keep recovery channels current, and protect devices used to access the Platform. Administrators and super administrators must use elevated privileges only for assigned duties, protect privileged credentials, avoid shared administrator accounts, and promptly report suspected compromise to [SECURITY CONTACT]. Never request another user’s password or one-time authentication code.
Administrator status is permission to perform specified platform tasks, not ownership of the Platform or authority to act for the Operator outside those tasks. The Operator may review administrator actions, revoke roles, require additional verification, or suspend access when reasonably necessary to protect users, records, or system integrity. Users must not claim to be an Operator representative unless formally authorized.
5. Acceptable use
Use the Platform lawfully, honestly, and in a way that respects people, language communities, and cultural protocols. You may browse, learn, search, and contribute for legitimate educational, preservation, research, and community purposes, subject to applicable licences, visibility settings, and permissions. You are responsible for checking that your use of a record is permitted; public visibility does not necessarily mean unrestricted reuse.
Do not use the Platform to harm, threaten, exploit, deceive, or unlawfully target another person or community. Do not misrepresent a cultural account as universally accepted where it reflects one contributor’s perspective. Do not pressure another person to reveal private, sacred, restricted, or sensitive knowledge. Do not use Platform records to harass, profile, discriminate against, or make consequential decisions about individuals or groups.
6. Prohibited content and conduct
You must not, and must not help another person to:
upload or distribute threats, targeted harassment, hate, unlawful discrimination, extortion, stalking, non-consensual intimate material, child sexual abuse material, or content that exploits or endangers a child;
publish personal, confidential, health, location, contact, financial, or identifying information about another person without a lawful basis and required consent;
submit material that infringes copyright, trade marks, privacy, confidentiality, publicity, moral, database, or other rights, or that breaches a licence or contract;
impersonate a person, community, institution, government body, rights holder, moderator, or administrator, or falsify provenance, consent, source, credentials, or research findings;
upload malware, ransomware, spyware, destructive code, phishing material, deceptive links, spam, scams, or instructions intended to facilitate unlawful acts;
probe, scan, test, exploit, bypass, or interfere with authentication, authorization, moderation, rate limits, security controls, databases, backups, or another user’s account without written authorization;
overload, disrupt, degrade, or impair the Platform or another user’s access, including through denial-of-service activity, automated abuse, or excessive requests;
scrape, harvest, bulk-download, index, or commercially exploit Platform material or personal information by automated means without written permission, except where applicable law permits;
reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive source code, model weights, credentials, or protected system information, except to the extent applicable law gives a non-waivable right;
evade a restriction, suspension, rate limit, geographic control, access label, content removal, or moderation decision by using another account or technical method;
misuse the chatbot or generated output to deceive people, make high-impact decisions, provide professional services without qualification, or falsely claim that a response is official, verified, or endorsed by the Operator; or
encourage, coordinate, or conceal any of the above.
This list gives examples and does not limit other conduct prohibited by law or reasonably harmful to Platform safety. For reporting, see Section 15: Reporting, complaints and appeals.
7. Contributions and your promises
You retain any ownership rights you already have in material you submit (“Contributionâ€). You are responsible for your Contribution and represent that: (a) it is accurate to the best of your knowledge and is not knowingly misleading; (b) you own it or have all rights and permissions needed for the uses described here; (c) any identifiable person has given any consent required for their image, voice, name, story, or personal data to be collected and displayed; (d) you have authority to share the cultural knowledge and the chosen audience or access level is appropriate; and (e) your Contribution does not violate these Terms or another person’s rights.
Where a Contribution reflects oral knowledge or a community account, include source, speaker, context, date, permission, attribution preference, and restrictions where appropriate and safe. Do not identify a source who requested anonymity. Do not submit sacred, confidential, restricted, endangered, or community-controlled material unless authorized under the applicable protocol. The Operator cannot determine every community’s authority structure; you must not treat upload approval as proof that all relevant people consented.
8. Licence needed to operate the Platform
You grant the Operator a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence, for the duration of applicable rights, to host, store, reproduce, back up, secure, review, moderate, format, adapt for accessibility, translate, index, search, display, communicate, distribute, and preserve your Contribution as reasonably needed to operate, maintain, secure, improve, and promote the Platform’s language and cultural preservation purposes. The licence includes providing the Contribution to contracted service providers acting for the Operator and allowing users to view or interact with it according to its selected publication and access settings.
The licence does not transfer ownership to the Operator and does not grant every user permission to reuse your Contribution outside the Platform. Any separate reuse permission must be shown with the material or obtained from the rights holder. You may request correction, restriction, or removal using Section 15. Removal from public view may take reasonable time and may not erase lawful copies already downloaded, cached, quoted, cited, preserved in secure backups, or required for legal or safety purposes. These Terms do not override a valid withdrawal or other right required by applicable law.
9. Cultural knowledge, consent, attribution and access
Language and cultural knowledge may be collectively held, contested, sensitive, seasonal, sacred, or subject to local protocols. The Platform is not a declaration that a contributor can authorize every use of collective knowledge. Users must follow restrictions shown on a record and should seek guidance from the relevant knowledge holders before reuse, adaptation, publication, or commercial use.
The Operator may label content with attribution, consent, access, or sensitivity information when available. A label is not a guarantee that every permission has been verified. Users must not remove provenance or attribution in a way that misleads, expose sources who requested confidentiality, or infer that a public record is free of copyright or community restrictions. Contact [CULTURAL CONTENT CONTACT] if a record may have been published without appropriate authority.
10. Review, moderation, removal and preservation
The Operator may, but is not obligated to, review Contributions before or after publication. To protect users, rights holders, cultural protocols, quality, legal compliance, and system integrity, the Operator or its authorized administrators may label, correct formatting, request evidence or clarification, limit visibility, disable sharing, reject, unpublish, remove, preserve relevant records, restrict features, suspend accounts, or terminate access. A review or publication decision does not certify factual accuracy, legal ownership, complete consent, or cultural authority.
Where practicable, the Operator may notify the affected user and explain the reason, subject to safety, confidentiality, security, legal restrictions, and the risk of evidence destruction. The Operator may preserve relevant logs or copies for security, legal claims, safeguarding, or compliance, with access limited as appropriate. Content removal from the Platform does not automatically remove third-party copies, search caches, backups, or records lawfully retained for a defined purpose. See the Privacy Policy.
11. Intellectual property and infringement notices
The Platform software, layout, marks, logos, documentation, and Operator-created content are owned by or licensed to the Operator and protected by applicable law. Except for access and use expressly allowed by the Platform, no right in that material is granted. You must not use the Luo Heritage name, marks, or institutional identity to imply endorsement without written permission.
If you believe a Contribution infringes your rights or was published without authority, send a notice to [COPYRIGHT AND CONTENT NOTICE EMAIL] with your name and contact details, the relevant page or record identifier, the rights or permission at issue, a good-faith explanation, and the action requested. The Operator may request additional information, temporarily restrict disputed material, notify the contributor, or restore material if a report is unsupported. Knowingly false or abusive notices may be rejected. This process does not limit statutory remedies or lawful counter-notices.
12. AI assistant, search and generated content
The chatbot and search tools may use automated models, embeddings, and content supplied by the Platform or third-party providers. Answers can be wrong, incomplete, outdated, biased, or generated without a matching Platform source. A source citation indicates material retrieved for a response; it is not a warranty that the response accurately represents the source. Images, recordings, translations, and titles returned by search may also be mismatched.
Use AI output as a starting point for learning, not as a substitute for a qualified professional, legal advice, medical care, financial advice, emergency service, or community knowledge holder. Verify important claims against primary sources and knowledgeable people. Do not make decisions that determine a person’s legal status, eligibility, health care, employment, education, credit, safety, or access to essential services solely from AI output. Do not enter secrets, passwords, payment information, or sensitive personal information into the chatbot. Data processing details are in the Privacy Policy.
13. Third-party services and external links
The Platform may rely on external identity, hosting, database, media, analytics, email, AI, payment, or other providers and may link to external websites. Those providers and sites are not controlled by the Operator. Their own terms, privacy notices, availability, security, and content apply to their services. The Operator does not endorse a third-party statement merely by linking to it. Your use of a third-party service remains subject to its terms and applicable law.
The Operator will select and manage providers as appropriate to its responsibilities, but cannot promise that a provider will never fail, change its service, suffer an incident, or process data outside an expected location. The Operator’s current data practices and rights request route are described in the Privacy Policy.
14. Availability, maintenance and changes
The Operator may add, change, suspend, or discontinue a feature, record, or part of the Platform for maintenance, security, legal compliance, funding, operational, or community reasons. The Operator will take reasonable steps to avoid unnecessary disruption but does not promise uninterrupted, error-free, permanently available, or permanently preserved access. You should keep your own lawful copy of material you are entitled to retain.
The Operator may revise these Terms. The current version and effective date will be published here. If a change materially affects users or renewed consent is required by law, the Operator will take reasonable steps to provide notice and request acceptance before continued use of the affected feature. Continued use after the effective date may indicate acceptance only where applicable law permits that method. If you reject a material change, stop using the affected feature and contact [TERMS CONTACT EMAIL] about account closure or content removal.
15. Reporting, complaints and appeals
Report security incidents, harmful material, copyright concerns, privacy issues, inaccurate data, safeguarding concerns, or cultural access concerns to [SUPPORT AND SAFEGUARDING EMAIL]. Include the page or record URL, a description of the issue, and the action requested. Do not send unnecessary sensitive information or passwords. For personal-data rights requests, use [DATA PROTECTION CONTACT EMAIL] as described in the Privacy Policy.
The Operator will assess reports in a manner appropriate to their seriousness and applicable obligations. It may ask for enough information to verify identity or locate the record, take interim protective action, or refer a matter to an appropriate authority. If your content or account is restricted, you may request review by writing to [APPEALS EMAIL] and explaining why the decision should be reconsidered. An appeal does not guarantee restoration or delay urgent safety action. Nothing in this process prevents a report to a regulator, law-enforcement body, court, or other competent authority.
16. Suspension, termination and account closure
You may stop using the Platform at any time and request account closure through [ACCOUNT SUPPORT EMAIL]. The Operator may suspend or terminate all or part of access when reasonably necessary for a breach, credible safety risk, security incident, legal obligation, prolonged inactivity, service closure, or protection of users and the Platform. Where appropriate, notice and an opportunity to respond may be provided; urgent situations may require immediate action.
Account closure does not necessarily erase published Contributions, legal acceptance records, security logs, backups, or information retained for a lawful purpose. Applicable privacy rights remain available. Sections concerning rights and licences already granted, permitted preservation, disclaimers, liability, claims, disputes, and general interpretation survive to the extent necessary to give them effect.
17. Disclaimers
To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Platform and its content are provided “as is†and “as availableâ€. The Operator does not warrant that every record is accurate, complete, culturally authoritative, suitable for a particular purpose, free of third-party rights, uninterrupted, secure, or compatible with every device. Statements by users are those users’ statements and are not automatically the Operator’s views.
Nothing in this section excludes a warranty, representation, duty, remedy, or liability that applicable law makes non-excludable. Where consumer protection rules or another mandatory law apply, those protections prevail over inconsistent wording. The Operator will not use this section to excuse fraud, deliberate wrongdoing, or a legal duty that cannot be excluded.
18. Limitation of liability
To the extent permitted by applicable law, the Operator and its officers, employees, administrators, agents, institutional partners, and service providers will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, punitive, or consequential loss, or loss of profit, goodwill, opportunity, anticipated savings, or data arising from use of or inability to use the Platform. This does not apply where such exclusion is prohibited by law, or to loss caused by fraud, wilful misconduct, or other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.
To the extent permitted by law, the aggregate liability of the Operator and those persons for direct loss arising out of the Platform will not exceed the amount you paid directly to the Operator for the relevant Platform service in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim. If you paid nothing, the cap is the maximum amount a court may lawfully apply in the circumstances, and does not eliminate a remedy that law requires. You remain responsible for reasonable steps to limit avoidable loss. These limits apply only as far as a competent court permits and do not restrict data-subject, consumer, or other non-waivable statutory rights.
19. Your responsibility for claims caused by your conduct
To the extent permitted by law, you will be responsible for third-party claims and reasonable costs to the extent they result from your unlawful conduct, material breach of these Terms, or Contribution that you submitted without necessary rights or permissions. The Operator will give reasonable notice where practicable, allow you to assist in responding, and will not settle a claim in a way that imposes a non-monetary obligation on you without your agreement, not unreasonably withheld. This clause does not require you to cover the Operator’s own negligence, unlawful conduct, or liability that cannot lawfully be shifted to you.
20. Governing law and dispute resolution
These Terms are governed by the laws of Kenya, subject to mandatory protections and rules that apply to a user in another jurisdiction. Before starting court proceedings, the parties should attempt in good faith to resolve the issue by contacting [DISPUTE CONTACT EMAIL / POSTAL ADDRESS] and allowing a reasonable response period, except where urgent relief, safeguarding, a limitation deadline, or a complaint to a regulator makes that inappropriate.
Unresolved disputes may be brought before a court with proper jurisdiction. Nothing in these Terms prevents a user from contacting the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, a consumer authority, law enforcement, or another competent regulator, or from exercising a right that cannot be waived. For personal data rights, see Privacy Policy: your rights.
21. General legal terms
If a court finds one part of these Terms unenforceable, it should be narrowed only as much as necessary and the rest will continue to apply. A failure or delay to enforce a right is not a waiver. You may not transfer your account or obligations without written permission. The Operator may transfer Platform operation to a successor that assumes the relevant obligations, subject to applicable law and appropriate notice.
These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any clearly identified feature-specific terms form the agreement about Platform use. They do not create an employment, partnership, joint venture, fiduciary, or agency relationship. A person who is not a party has no right to enforce these Terms except where applicable law provides otherwise. Notices may be provided in the Platform or to the verified contact details associated with an account. The English text controls only if a translated version is expressly stated to be a convenience translation and the law permits that result.
22. Operator details and legal notices
Operator: [FULL LEGAL NAME OF OWNER / INSTITUTION] Physical / registered address: [ADDRESS] General support: [SUPPORT EMAIL] Privacy and data rights: [DATA PROTECTION CONTACT EMAIL / POSTAL ADDRESS] Copyright and cultural content notices: [RIGHTS CONTACT EMAIL] Security and safeguarding: [SECURITY CONTACT EMAIL] Disputes and appeals: [DISPUTE / APPEALS CONTACT]
Read the Privacy Policy for personal-data practices, or visit the About page. These default Terms are a drafting aid, not a guarantee against claims and not a substitute for advice from Kenyan counsel who has reviewed the Operator, actual service, funding, users, and data flows.