Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of terms

By accessing, registering for, or using the platform, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service and the related Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. If you do not agree with these terms, you should not use the platform.

2. Purpose of the platform

ER Democracy Bologna provides a structured digital environment for civic participation, consultations, assessments, result visibility, and related administrative review. The platform is intended to support transparent, secure, and accountable participation and governance-related processes.

3. Eligibility and account registration

To use authenticated areas of the platform, you may be required to create an account and provide accurate, current, and complete information. You are responsible for ensuring that your registration details remain accurate and for updating them where necessary.

You may only register and use an account where you are legally permitted to do so and where your use does not violate any applicable law, regulation, or valid platform rule.

4. Account security

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for activities carried out through your account. You must not share your password or knowingly allow unauthorized access to your account.

The platform may apply security protections such as verification, refresh token controls, failed login tracking, temporary account locks, and other safeguards designed to protect users and the integrity of the service.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to misuse the platform, interfere with its operation, attempt unauthorized access, bypass permissions, automate abuse, manipulate consultations, submit fraudulent or misleading information, or use the platform in a manner that could damage the service, other users, or public trust in consultation outcomes.

You must also not introduce malicious code, attempt credential attacks, scrape restricted areas without authorization, or use the platform for unlawful, harmful, or deceptive purposes.

6. Consultations, assessments, and submissions

Participation in consultations must follow the rules, timing, visibility settings, and methodology applicable to each consultation. Depending on the consultation type, participation may involve standard voting, assessment-based weighting, or self-assessment inputs.

Users are responsible for reviewing the available options and consultation information before submitting a vote or related input. The platform may restrict, validate, or reject participation where rules are not met or where security and integrity controls require it.

7. Results, analytics, and public visibility

Consultation results and participation analytics may be displayed according to the visibility settings configured for each consultation. Some consultations may show no results, limited results, raw results, weighted results, or both, and visibility may depend on whether the user has voted or whether the consultation has closed.

Aggregated or anonymized data may be displayed publicly where the platform configuration allows it. Individual personal information is not intended to be publicly exposed beyond what is necessary for legitimate platform administration and authorized functionality.

8. Administrative roles and internal access

Certain users may hold administrative roles with elevated permissions. Administrative access is limited by role-based permissions and may include the ability to manage consultations, review analytics, inspect participation records, manage published content, or view audit-related information as permitted by the system.

Administrative use is expected to be responsible, authorized, and consistent with the purpose of the platform. Administrative actions may be logged for accountability and security purposes.

9. Content and intellectual property

Platform structure, interface design, text, branding, code, and related content are protected to the extent permitted by applicable law. Except where otherwise stated, you may not copy, redistribute, modify, reverse engineer, or commercially exploit the platform or its protected content without appropriate authorization.

10. Suspension, restriction, and termination

The platform may suspend, restrict, or terminate access where necessary to protect security, enforce these terms, respond to misuse, address fraud or abuse, comply with legal obligations, or preserve the integrity of consultations and administrative operations.

Restriction or termination may occur without advance notice where immediate action is reasonably required for security or legal reasons.

11. Service availability

The platform is provided on an “as available” and “as provided” basis. While reasonable efforts may be made to maintain availability, reliability, and security, uninterrupted access, error-free operation, and permanent availability cannot be guaranteed.

Maintenance, updates, security actions, infrastructure failures, or external provider issues may affect platform performance or availability from time to time.

12. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, ER Democracy Bologna is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or special damages, including loss of opportunity, loss of data, or service interruption arising from or related to platform use, user conduct, third-party services, infrastructure issues, or events outside reasonable control.

Nothing in these terms excludes liability where exclusion is not permitted by applicable law.

13. Privacy and data protection

Use of the platform is also governed by the Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. Those pages explain how personal data is processed, what cookies are used, and what rights may apply to users under relevant data protection law.

14. Changes to these terms

These Terms of Service may be updated periodically to reflect legal, operational, technical, or policy changes. Continued use of the platform after an updated version is published may constitute acceptance of the revised terms, unless applicable law requires a different form of notice or acceptance.

15. Governing law and interpretation

These terms are intended to operate in accordance with applicable law, including relevant European Union legal standards where applicable. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue to apply to the extent permitted by law.

16. Contact

For questions about these terms, platform use, or legal requests, please use the platform contact page or the designated administrative contact channel made available by ER Democracy Bologna.