Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Geniva mobile application, geniva.co.uk, and related services (together, the "Services"). Please read them carefully. By creating an account or using the Services, you agree to these Terms.

Who we are. The Services are operated by Joshua Hinder, trading as Geniva, a sole trader based in the United Kingdom ("Geniva", "we", "us" or "our"). If the business that operates the Services ever changes (for example, if it later incorporates), we will update these Terms and tell you as described in "Changes to these Terms" below.

How we handle your personal information is explained in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms.

If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not use the Services.

Table of contents

• Eligibility and your account
• The Services
• Societies and organisers
• Your content and conduct
• Community standards, moderation and safety
• Intellectual property
• Third-party services
• Apple and the App Store
• Disclaimers
• Limitation of liability
• Your indemnity to us
• Suspension and termination
• Changes to these Terms
• Governing law
• Contact us

01Eligibility and your account

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Services. By creating an account, you confirm that you are 18 or over and that the information you provide is accurate and kept up to date.

You must sign up with a university email address that belongs to you and that you can receive email at. You must not create an account using someone else's email address, or pretend to be someone else.

Unconfirmed accounts. After you sign up, we email you a link to confirm your address. Until you tap it, your account is unconfirmed. You can use Geniva straight away, but some features stay locked until you confirm. You must confirm your address within 30 days of signing up, or your account will be deleted, together with anything you have posted. We will send you reminder emails 7 and 21 days after you sign up. We may close an unconfirmed account if we have reason to believe the email address does not belong to the person using it.

You are responsible for keeping your account credentials secure and for all activity that takes place under your account. Let us know promptly at [email protected] if you believe your account has been accessed without your permission. You may not share your account, or create an account on someone else's behalf without their authority.

02The Services

Geniva is a platform that helps university societies and their members discover and manage events, and communicate through society and event group chats. It is free to use. Geniva does not sell tickets, does not process payments and charges no fees. We may add, change or remove features over time, and we may set reasonable limits on use of the Services.

The Android app. Geniva for Android is downloaded directly from geniva.co.uk/android rather than from an app store. Only install it from that page, and never install a Geniva file that someone sends you. When a new version is out, the app tells you and links you back to that page. Please keep the app up to date: we may stop supporting older versions, for example where they are no longer secure.

We aim to keep the Services available and reliable, but we do not guarantee that they will always be uninterrupted or error-free. We may suspend the Services for maintenance, updates or operational reasons.

03Societies and organisers

Some users act as organisers — for example, society committee members who create events and run group chats. If you use the Services as an organiser, you additionally agree that:

• you are authorised to act on behalf of your society;
• you are responsible for the events you create, the accuracy of your listings, and your dealings with attendees;
• you will comply with all laws that apply to running your events and handling attendee information, including data protection law; and
• where you process personal information about your members through Geniva, you do so as the controller of that information, and Geniva acts as your processor in line with our Privacy Policy and any separate data processing terms we provide.

04Your content and conduct

You may post messages, images and other content through the Services ("Your Content"). You keep ownership of Your Content. By posting it, you grant Geniva a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, display and distribute Your Content as needed to operate and provide the Services.

You are responsible for Your Content, and you confirm you have the rights to share it. You agree not to use the Services to post or do anything that:

• is illegal, or facilitates illegal activity;
• is harmful, abusive, harassing, threatening, hateful or discriminatory;
• encourages, promotes or gives instructions for suicide or self-harm;
• encourages, promotes or gives instructions for an eating disorder, or for behaviour linked to one;
• is pornographic or sexually explicit, or is harmful to or exploitative of any person;
• is abusive about, or stirs up hatred against, people because of their race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, disability or age;
• bullies, humiliates or intimidates another person;
• shows or encourages serious violence against people or animals, including realistic depictions of serious injury;
• encourages dangerous stunts or challenges that could cause serious injury;
• encourages people to swallow, inhale or otherwise take harmful substances, or to take substances in harmful amounts;
• infringes anyone's intellectual property, privacy or other rights;
• is false or misleading, including impersonating others;
• contains malware, or attempts to disrupt, hack or gain unauthorised access to the Services; or
• spams or sends unsolicited marketing to other users.

05Community standards, moderation and safety

Geniva is a user-to-user service and we take our responsibilities under the Online Safety Act 2023 seriously. We may review, moderate, remove or restrict access to content, and we provide tools for users to report content and block other users.

Community standards. Geniva has zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users. You must not post content that is hateful, threatening, harassing, sexually explicit, or that sexualises minors, and you must not use Geniva to bully, intimidate or target another person. Accounts that do so will be suspended or permanently removed.

Automated checks. We use automated tools (sometimes called proactive technology) to help keep illegal and harmful content off Geniva, as described in the next two paragraphs. They decide only whether a piece of content can be posted or needs a closer look; decisions to warn, suspend or ban an account are always made by a person.

Filtering. Everything you write on Geniva — posts, comments, messages, society pages and profile details — is checked by an automated content filter before it is saved. Hate speech, threats and child-safety terms are rejected outright and cannot be posted. Other explicit or offensive language is accepted but automatically flagged for review by our moderation team. The filter runs on our servers, not in the app, so it cannot be switched off.

Image checks. Every image you upload — profile photos, post photos, event banners, society logos and so on — is checked automatically by an image-safety service before it is stored. Images that clearly break these standards, such as explicit nudity, graphic violence or hate symbols, are refused. Borderline images are accepted but flagged for review by our moderation team. If the check cannot be completed, the upload is refused and you can try again.

Reporting. Any user can report a post, comment, event, society, profile or message from within the app. Reports go to Geniva's moderation team. We review every report and act on it as quickly as we can, normally within 24 hours: content that breaks these standards is removed, and the account responsible may be warned, suspended or permanently banned. Society committee members can also moderate their own society's chats. You can also report content by contacting us at [email protected].

Blocking. You can block any user. Open their profile and choose Block from the menu in the top-right corner, or long-press one of their messages in a channel and choose Block. Once blocked, neither of you will see the other's posts, comments, profile or messages, and they cannot message you. You can review and undo blocks at any time under Profile → Blocked accounts.

Child safety. Reports of child sexual exploitation or abuse are escalated immediately to the Geniva safety team, the content is quarantined so nobody can view it, and we report it to the UK National Crime Agency as the law requires.

We may remove content, issue warnings, or suspend or terminate accounts where we consider it appropriate, and we may report illegal content and activity to the relevant authorities.

Complaints and appeals. You can complain to us about content or conduct you think is illegal or breaks these Terms, about how we have handled a report, or about how we are meeting our online safety duties — by reporting it in the app or emailing [email protected]. If something you posted was removed or refused (including by our automated checks), or your account was restricted, suspended or banned, and you think we got it wrong, you can appeal: email [email protected] with "Appeal" in the subject line, the email address on your account, and what you would like us to look at again. A person will review the decision afresh and reply within 7 days with the outcome and the reason. If we got it wrong, we will restore it where we can: posts, comments and messages can be restored, but a removed profile photo, or anything our automatic checks refused, cannot — so you will be able to post it again. See also our Support page.

06Intellectual property

The Services, including the Geniva name, logo, software, design and content we provide (but excluding Your Content and organiser content), are owned by Geniva or our licensors and are protected by intellectual property laws. We grant you a limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Services for their intended purpose, in line with these Terms.

You may not copy, modify, reverse-engineer, resell or create derivative works from the Services except as permitted by law.

07Third-party services

The Services rely on third-party providers for hosting, storage, security, notifications, email and automated safety checks. Each one, and what it does, is listed in our Privacy Policy. Your use of certain features may be subject to those providers' own terms. We are not responsible for third-party services we do not control, although we choose our providers carefully.

08Apple and the App Store

If you downloaded the Geniva app from Apple's App Store, the following also applies:

• These Terms are between you and Geniva only, not Apple. Geniva, not Apple, is solely responsible for the app and its content.
• Your licence to use the app is limited to using it on Apple devices you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in Apple's Media Services Terms and Conditions.
• Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app.
• If the app fails to conform to any warranty that applies, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any) — the app is free, so there is nothing to refund. To the extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the app.
• Geniva, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims by you or a third party relating to the app or your use of it, including product liability claims, claims that the app fails to meet legal or regulatory requirements, and claims under consumer protection, privacy or similar laws.
• If a third party claims that the app or your use of it infringes their intellectual property rights, Geniva, not Apple, is responsible for investigating, defending, settling and discharging that claim.
• You confirm that you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• You must comply with any third-party terms that apply when using the app, such as your mobile network's terms.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms, and once you accept them Apple has the right to enforce them against you as a third-party beneficiary.

Our contact details for questions, complaints or claims about the app are in "Contact us" below.

09Disclaimers

The Services are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the extent permitted by law, we do not make any guarantees that the Services will be uninterrupted, secure or free of errors, or that any event listed through the Services will take place as described. Events and their content are the responsibility of the organisers, not Geniva.

Nothing in these Terms removes or limits any rights you have as a consumer that cannot be excluded under law.

10Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

• we are not liable for the acts or omissions of organisers, for events themselves, or for disputes between you and an organiser or another user;
• we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for loss of profit, data or goodwill arising from your use of the Services; and
• our total liability to you in connection with the Services is limited to £100.

We do not exclude or limit our liability where it would be unlawful to do so — including for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.

11Your indemnity to us

If you use the Services as an organiser or business, you agree to indemnify us against reasonable losses, costs and claims we suffer arising from your events, Your Content, or your breach of these Terms or the law. This section does not apply to your use of the Services purely as a consumer attending events.

12Suspension and termination

You can stop using the Services and close your account at any time. If you do not confirm your university email address within 30 days of signing up, your account is deleted automatically (see "Eligibility and your account"). If you do not use your account for 2 years, we will delete it; we will email you 30 days beforehand, and signing in or using Geniva in that time cancels the deletion. We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these Terms, if required by law, or to protect the Services or other users. Where reasonable, we will give you notice. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including those on content licences, intellectual property, liability and indemnity — will continue to apply.

13Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Every version is dated, and earlier versions stay available at geniva.co.uk/legal.

Important changes. If we make a change that materially affects you — for example to what you may do on Geniva, to your rights, or to our responsibilities — we will tell you in the app and ask you to read and accept the updated Terms the next time you open it. We will not treat you as having accepted important changes just because you kept using Geniva. If you do not accept them, you can carry on browsing Geniva as a guest without signing in, or delete your account from the same screen; your account is kept as it is until you decide.

Minor changes. For changes that do not materially affect you — such as clearer wording, corrections, or new contact details — we will update the version date, and continuing to use the Services after the change means you accept it.

14Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction over any dispute, except that if you are a consumer resident elsewhere in the UK you may also bring proceedings in your home jurisdiction.

15Contact us

If you have questions about these Terms, contact us at [email protected], or write to us at:

Geniva
124 City Road
London EC1V 2NX
United Kingdom