Acceptable Use Policy

1. Scope

This Acceptable Use Policy forms part of the Effective Clerking Terms of Service. It applies to you, to every user on your account, and to everything you put into or do with the Service.

Breaching it is a material breach of the Terms of Service and may lead to suspension or termination under clause 7.3 of those Terms.

2. General

You must use the Service lawfully, professionally, and only for the purpose it exists for: preparing, reviewing, approving, distributing and retaining governance records for organisations you are authorised to act for.

3. You must not

3.1 Misuse other people’s data

Put personal data into the Service that you have no lawful basis to process.

Put personal data into the Service on behalf of an organisation that has not authorised you to do so, or that has not authorised the use of a sub-processor.

Use the Service to build a database of individuals for any purpose other than the governance records it exists to produce.

Upload special category or criminal offence data outside the context of a legitimate governance record, or without an appropriate lawful condition.

3.2 Misrepresent the output

Present AI-assisted output as a finished document without professional review.

Present the compliance-check output as legal advice, a legal opinion, or a statement that any statutory duty has been met.

Present output as the work of a person who did not review it.

Remove or falsify the audit trail, reference numbers, or version history attached to a document.

3.3 Attack or degrade the Service

Attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service, to another customer’s data, or to any underlying system.

Probe, scan or test the vulnerability of the Service without our prior written consent.

Introduce malware, or content designed to disrupt or damage software or hardware.

Circumvent rate limits, plan limits, authentication, or tenant isolation.

Place unreasonable or disproportionate load on the Service, including by automated querying, scraping or bulk generation.

Attempt to reverse engineer, extract or replicate our prompts, templates or models.

3.4 Misuse the AI features

Attempt to make the AI produce content outside the purpose of the Service.

Use prompt injection, jailbreaking, or similar techniques against the AI features.

Use the Service to generate content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, discriminatory, or that infringes another person’s rights.

Use the Service to generate content intended to deceive, including fabricated records of meetings that did not happen or decisions that were not taken.

3.5 Misuse the commercial relationship

Resell, sublicense, or provide the Service to third parties as a service bureau. Using it to serve your own clerking clients is permitted and expected; reselling access to the Service itself is not.

Share login credentials between individuals, or use one account for users who should each have their own.

Open multiple accounts to circumvent plan limits or free trial terms.

Use the Service to build or assist a competing product.

4. Content you are responsible for

You are responsible for everything put into the Service under your account, including by other users. That includes ensuring:

you have the authority to record and process what you record;

material that should be held confidentially — confidential annexes, Part 2 business, staff and pupil matters — is handled using the features provided for it;

your own retention settings reflect your own legal duties;

documents circulated outside the Service are circulated to the right people.

5. Obligations passed on from our AI provider

Our AI provider’s usage policy imposes requirements that we are required to pass on to you. They are binding on you, and are set out in full in our AI Transparency & Limitations Notice. In summary:

5.1 Human review by a qualified professional. Where the Service is used to produce advice, recommendations, or subjective content that directly affects individuals, a qualified professional must review the content before it is disseminated or finalised. Governance documents are within this category, because they can involve legal interpretation and can touch employment matters.

5.2 AI disclosure. Where you present output to other people, you must disclose that AI was used to help produce it.

5.3 Accuracy checking. Factual assertions in output must not be relied on without independently checking their accuracy. It is your responsibility to evaluate whether output is appropriate for your use.

5.4 Your use of the AI features is subject to our AI provider’s usage policy as it applies from time to time. We may suspend AI features where necessary to comply with it, and we will tell you why.

6. Reporting misuse

If you become aware of misuse of the Service — by another user on your account or otherwise — tell us at support@effectiveclerking.co.uk.

If you believe you have found a security vulnerability, please report it privately to support@effectiveclerking.co.uk rather than disclosing it publicly. We will acknowledge within 5 working days and will not pursue action against anyone who reports a genuine issue in good faith, does not access or alter other customers’ data, and gives us reasonable time to fix it.

7. What we will do

7.1 Where we reasonably believe this policy has been breached, we may investigate, and may suspend access to all or part of the Service, immediately where the risk warrants it.

7.2 We will tell you what we believe has happened and give you the opportunity to explain or fix it, unless doing so would prejudice an investigation, compromise security, or breach a legal obligation.

7.3 We will restore access once the issue is resolved. For serious or repeated breaches we may terminate under clause 14.5 of the Terms of Service, without refund.

7.4 We may report unlawful activity to the appropriate authorities.

8. Changes

We may update this policy. Material changes will be notified at least 30 days in advance, in the same way as changes to the Terms of Service.