Terms of Service

1 Acceptance of these Terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") form a binding agreement between you (and, where you act for an organisation, that organisation) and Carlo Andrea Cossu ("we", "us", "the operator"). By creating an account, accepting these Terms at registration or sign-in, or otherwise using the hosted Aleph∞One service, you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

When you accept, we record the exact version identifier of these Terms (currently 2026-06-29) together with the date and time of acceptance.

2 The service

Aleph∞One is a One Health relational platform for integrated epidemiological data management. It lets you register samples and results across the animal–human–environment interface (wildlife, livestock, humans and environmental samples), track laboratory work and biobank storage, manage literature, and coordinate teams. The hosted service is provided at aleph-one.com and app.aleph-one.com.

3 Eligibility and accounts

• You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter into a binding contract.
• The service is intended for research institutions, veterinary and public-health bodies and their authorised personnel. If you register on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to bind it to these Terms.
• You must provide accurate registration information (including full name and title, email, occupation and organisation) and keep it up to date.
• You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your credentials and for all activity under your account. Notify us promptly of any unauthorised use.
• You must not share your account, or let anyone use it, except as permitted by your organisation's role-based access configuration within the platform.

4 Software licence vs. hosted service

The Aleph∞One software is free and open-source, licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.0 (AGPL-3.0). Your rights to the source code — to use, study, modify and redistribute it — are governed by that licence, not by these Terms. You may obtain the source and run your own independent instance under the AGPL-3.0.

These Terms govern only the hosted service we operate (the running instance, infrastructure, support and any related services at aleph-one.com). Accepting these Terms is not a condition of the AGPL-3.0 software licence, and these Terms do not add restrictions to, or otherwise modify, the rights the AGPL-3.0 grants you in the software. In keeping with the AGPL-3.0, users interacting with our hosted instance over a network are offered access to the corresponding source code at github.com/CarlVet/aleph-one.

If any conflict arises between these Terms and the AGPL-3.0 as they apply to the software source code, the AGPL-3.0 prevails for the software; these Terms continue to govern the hosted service.

5 Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• use the service unlawfully, or in breach of any applicable data-protection, health, export or research-ethics law;
• upload data you have no lawful basis or authority to process (see sections 6 and 7);
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to the service, other accounts, or the underlying systems, or probe, scan or test their vulnerability without our written permission;
• disrupt or overload the service, or circumvent access controls, rate limits or usage quotas;
• upload malware, or content that is unlawful, infringing, or harmful;
• misrepresent your identity, affiliation or authority;
• use the service to re-identify individuals from data that has been pseudonymised or anonymised, except where you are lawfully entitled to do so.

Legitimate security testing of your own self-hosted deployment under the AGPL-3.0 is, of course, your own affair; this section concerns the hosted service we operate.

6 Your data and research responsibilities

You (or your organisation) retain all rights in, and ownership of, the research and epidemiological data you upload or enter ("User Data"). We do not claim ownership of User Data. You grant us only the limited rights needed to host, process, back up and display the User Data in order to provide the service to you, and to comply with your instructions.

You are responsible for your User Data — its accuracy, legality, and the way it is collected and used. In data-protection terms, you act as the controller of the User Data and we act as your processor; this relationship is described in our Privacy Policy and is governed by a data processing agreement (see section 8). You are responsible for maintaining your own copies/backups of important User Data.

7 Lawful basis and ethics approvals

The platform may store personal identifiers and human, animal and environmental subject data. Before entering such data, you represent and warrant that you have:

• a valid legal basis for processing it (and, for health or other special-category data, a valid Article 9 GDPR condition);
• any required ethics committee, institutional review board (IRB) or animal-ethics approvals for the study;
• provided any information notices to, and obtained any consents from, the relevant data subjects that the law requires;
• complied with the rules of your institution and of the jurisdiction where the data was collected, including for data originating outside the EU.

We do not review or validate your legal basis or approvals and are not responsible for your compliance. We recommend pseudonymising or anonymising subject data wherever possible before uploading it.

8 Privacy and data protection

Our handling of personal data is described in the Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms. For User Data you upload, our processing is additionally governed by a data processing agreement (DPA) under Article 28 GDPR. In case of conflict between these Terms and the DPA regarding the processing of User Data, the DPA prevails.

9 Availability, changes and suspension

We aim to keep the service available and reliable, but it is provided on an "as available" basis. We may modify, suspend or discontinue features, and perform maintenance, from time to time. Any service-level commitments apply only if expressly agreed in writing; otherwise no SLA is offered. We may suspend or restrict access where we reasonably believe these Terms have been breached, or where necessary to protect the service, its users or third parties.

10 Intellectual property

The Aleph∞One software is licensed under the AGPL-3.0 (section 4). The "Aleph∞One" name, logo and brand elements are the property of their owners and are not licensed to you under the AGPL-3.0; you may not use them in a way that implies endorsement or affiliation without permission. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

11 Disclaimer of warranties

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the hosted service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy or uninterrupted or error-free operation. Consistent with the AGPL-3.0, the software is provided without warranty. We do not warrant that the service will meet your requirements, that results obtained through it are accurate or reliable for any regulatory, diagnostic or clinical purpose, or that data will never be lost. You are responsible for validating outputs before relying on them.

12 Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we (and our affiliates, contributors and suppliers) will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, research results or goodwill, arising out of or relating to your use of, or inability to use, the service.

The service is provided free of charge. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we accept no liability to you for any damages arising out of or relating to these Terms or the service.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law — including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, for wilful misconduct or gross negligence (Italian Civil Code, Article 1229), or any statutory rights that cannot be waived.

13 Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from claims, losses and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your User Data, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of any law or of the rights of a third party — including any claim that your collection or use of subject data lacked a lawful basis or required approvals.

14 Termination

You may stop using the service and close your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially breach these Terms, if required by law, or if we discontinue the service. On termination, your right to use the hosted service ends. We will make your User Data available for export, and delete or return it, in accordance with the Privacy Policy and DPA: your data remains exportable for 30 days after termination and is then deleted, unless otherwise agreed. Sections that by their nature should survive (including 6, 10–13 and 16) survive termination.

15 Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will change the version identifier and the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. For material changes, we will provide reasonable notice through the service, and you may be asked to accept the new version to continue using it. The version you accepted is recorded against your account. Your continued use after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance, where permitted by law.

16 Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of Italy, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The competent court is the Court of Padua (Tribunale di Padova), Italy, which will have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, subject to any mandatory consumer-protection rights you may have in your country of residence.

17 Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent to hello@aleph-one.com, or by post to the operator in Padova, Italy (full postal address available on request).