Terms and Conditions

1. Acceptance of Terms

These Terms and Conditions (“Terms”) govern access to and use of DemocracyOps.org, app.DemocracyOps.org, and the websites, applications, communications systems, software, tools, and services provided by Democracy Ops (“Democracy Ops,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) (together, the “Services”).

By accessing or using the Services, accepting an invitation to an organization, joining through an invitation link, or otherwise using Democracy Ops, you agree to these Terms.

If you use Democracy Ops on behalf of an organization, you represent that you are authorized to act on behalf of that organization and agree that the organization is responsible for use of the Services by its authorized users.

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

2. Description of the Services

Democracy Ops is an access-controlled technology platform that helps authorized organizations run volunteer phone banks and related outreach.

Features may include:

• Contact-list import and contact management
• Volunteer access through invitation links and user roles
• Telephone calling placed by a person, one call at a time
• Follow-up text (SMS) messaging after a call, where enabled
• Scripts and message templates
• Call outcomes and interaction history
• Suppression (do-not-contact) lists
• Reporting and data export
• Audit records
• Administrative tools

Features may be added, changed, suspended, or discontinued from time to time.

3. Platform Provider and Organization Responsibilities

Democracy Ops provides technology.

Organizations using Democracy Ops remain responsible for their own activities conducted through the platform, including:

• Determining who may be contacted
• Determining the legal basis or authorization for possessing contact information
• Determining whether consent is required
• Obtaining required consent, including the consent confirmed by a caller before any text is sent
• Maintaining evidence of consent where required
• Selecting and approving scripts
• Selecting and approving message templates, including identifying the organization as the sender in each message
• Providing legally required disclosures
• Complying with opt-out requests
• Complying with federal, state, and local laws
• Complying with telecommunications carrier requirements
• Complying with applicable election and campaign-finance laws
• Complying with contractual restrictions applicable to data they upload
• Ensuring authorized users receive appropriate training

Democracy Ops does not grant an organization permission to contact an individual merely because the individual’s information can be entered into or processed through the platform.

4. Eligibility and Authorized Access

You may use an organization’s Democracy Ops access only if you are authorized by the organization controlling it.

You must provide accurate information when you join or sign in.

You may not:

• Impersonate another person
• Join or sign in using false information
• Share your invitation link or credentials with unauthorized persons
• Access another organization’s data without authorization
• Circumvent access restrictions
• Attempt to elevate your access privileges
• Permit unauthorized persons to use your access

You are responsible for activity conducted through your access to the extent permitted by applicable law.

You must promptly notify Democracy Ops or your organization administrator if you believe your access has been compromised.

5. Organization Administrators

Organization administrators may:

• Invite or remove users
• Assign roles
• Configure operations
• Upload authorized contact information
• Configure scripts
• Configure message templates
• Review operational history
• Review reports
• Manage permitted exports
• Configure communication settings

Organizations are responsible for determining which individuals receive administrative privileges.

6. Acceptable Use

You may use Democracy Ops only for lawful and authorized purposes.

You may not use the Services to:

• Engage in unlawful communications
• Harass, threaten, intimidate, or abuse another person
• Send communications after a valid applicable opt-out
• Deliberately evade suppression controls
• Send unlawful spam
• Misrepresent the identity of a sender
• Spoof telephone numbers unlawfully
• Conduct phishing or fraud
• Distribute malware
• Facilitate illegal activity
• Access information without authorization
• Scrape or extract platform data without authorization
• Interfere with platform security
• Attempt to reverse engineer security controls except where applicable law expressly permits it
• Overload or intentionally disrupt the Services
• Sell access to contact information without authorization
• Use stolen, unlawfully obtained, or unauthorized contact lists
• Falsify consent records
• Circumvent telecommunications provider requirements
• Use Democracy Ops in violation of an applicable telecommunications provider’s acceptable-use or messaging policies

7. Telephone Calling

Democracy Ops enables authorized users to place telephone calls through an integrated telecommunications provider. Calls are placed by a person, one call at a time. Democracy Ops does not use prerecorded or artificial voices, and it does not automatically dial the next number; the caller starts each call.

Organizations and users are responsible for determining whether a particular telephone call is legally permissible.

Availability of a telephone number in Democracy Ops does not constitute consent to call that number.

Organizations must comply with applicable federal and state laws governing telephone communications, including requirements that may apply to automated telephone dialing systems, prerecorded or artificial voice communications, telephone solicitations, telephone banks, caller identification, do-not-call requests, and political communications.

Democracy Ops may impose additional restrictions designed to protect communication recipients, platform integrity, telecommunications provider relationships, or legal compliance. These include limits on when calls may be placed (based on the recipient’s local time) and on how many calls a user or link may place.

8. SMS Messaging Program Terms

This section describes the Democracy Ops Follow-Up Texts program and sets minimum requirements for text messages sent through Democracy Ops. A summary appears at the top of this page.

8.1 Consent

Democracy Ops sends a text message only to a person who has told an authorized caller, during a telephone call, that it is okay to text them. The caller confirms this in Democracy Ops before each text, and the system will not send the text without that confirmation.

Consent must be voluntary. Agreeing to receive texts is not a condition of purchasing anything, volunteering, donating, or taking part in any activity.

Consent to receive messages from one organization does not constitute consent to receive messages from another organization. Consent for one subject or program does not authorize materially different messaging.

We do not sell, rent, transfer, or share SMS consent for unrelated third-party or affiliate marketing or promotional purposes.

8.2 The Messaging Program

People who agree to receive texts may receive a follow-up message related to the conversation, such as volunteer information, event information, or other information they asked about during the call. The message is sent from a phone number assigned to the sending organization and identifies that organization. Message content is approved in advance by the organization.

8.3 Message Frequency

Typically one follow-up text per call on which the person agrees to it. Democracy Ops allows no more than one follow-up text per contact in a calling campaign. An organization may run more than one calling campaign.

8.4 Hours

Texts are sent only during permitted hours in the recipient’s local time. By default these are the same hours as calls, 8 AM to 8 PM, and an organization may narrow them.

8.5 Message and Data Rates

Message and data rates may apply. Your wireless carrier’s message, data, and other charges are your responsibility.

8.6 Opting Out

You may opt out at any time by replying:

STOP

Other standard opt-out words (such as STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT, OPTOUT, and REVOKE) are also recognized.

After a valid opt-out is processed, you will receive no further texts from that organization through Democracy Ops, and the organization will not place calls to your number through Democracy Ops. You may receive one final message confirming your opt-out.

Opting out of one organization’s messages does not necessarily affect communications from a different organization for which you separately provided consent.

8.7 Help

For help, reply:

HELP

You may also contact us at support (at) democracyops (dot) org . The sending organization may provide additional support information in its messages.

8.8 Carrier Liability

Wireless carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. Message delivery depends on your carrier and other telecommunications providers and is not guaranteed.

8.9 Supported Carriers

Messaging availability may depend on your carrier, device, service plan, location, and telecommunications provider. Not all features may be available through all carriers.

8.10 Changed or Reassigned Numbers

If you change, deactivate, surrender, or transfer a telephone number that has agreed to receive texts, you should reply STOP before giving up the number when reasonably possible.

Organizations using Democracy Ops must take reasonable steps to avoid messaging telephone numbers known to have been reassigned or to belong to the wrong person.

9. Consent Records

Organizations using Democracy Ops may be required to maintain records demonstrating how and when an individual consented to receive communications.

Democracy Ops records the following for each text sent:

• The telephone number and the contact record
• The date and time
• That the caller confirmed the contact’s consent before sending
• The caller who sent the text
• The organization and calling campaign
• The message template used
• Delivery status

Organizations may also hold other evidence of consent, and Democracy Ops may require an organization to provide it when necessary to investigate a complaint, respond to a telecommunications provider, comply with law, or protect the platform.

10. Opt-Out and Suppression Requirements

Users may not intentionally contact an individual through Democracy Ops in violation of an applicable opt-out or suppression record.

Democracy Ops automatically prevents calls and texts to numbers on an organization’s suppression list. A STOP reply, a “do not call” outcome, or a “wrong number” outcome adds the number to that list.

Users may not:

• Remove a suppression solely to circumvent an opt-out
• Reimport a contact to bypass a suppression
• Alter a telephone number to evade suppression matching
• Use another organization, account, link, or telephone number to evade an applicable opt-out

Democracy Ops may retain limited suppression information even after other information has been deleted where reasonably necessary to honor an opt-out.

11. Contact Data

Organizations may upload or otherwise process contact information only when they have appropriate authority to do so.

By uploading information, the organization represents that its possession and use of that information through Democracy Ops is lawful and consistent with any contractual restrictions applicable to the data source.

Organizations must not knowingly upload data obtained through:

• Theft
• Unauthorized system access
• Fraud
• Illegal data brokerage
• Breach of confidentiality
• Prohibited scraping
• Other unlawful means

12. Data Ownership

As between Democracy Ops and an organization using the platform, the organization retains its rights in information it lawfully provides to Democracy Ops, subject to the applicable agreement.

Democracy Ops retains all rights in:

• Democracy Ops software
• Platform architecture
• User interfaces
• Source code
• APIs
• Documentation
• Designs
• Branding
• Trademarks
• System-generated technology
• Platform improvements

No ownership of Democracy Ops intellectual property is transferred by use of the Services.

13. License to Process Organization Data

Organizations grant Democracy Ops a limited right to host, copy, transmit, process, display, secure, back up, and otherwise handle organization-provided information as reasonably necessary to provide, secure, maintain, and improve the Services and fulfill applicable contractual and legal obligations.

This permission does not authorize Democracy Ops to sell mobile opt-in information or use messaging consent for unrelated third-party marketing.

14. Privacy

Use of Democracy Ops is also governed by the Democracy Ops Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

15. Security

Users must take reasonable precautions to protect their access and the information available through Democracy Ops.

Users may not:

• Share invitation links or credentials with unauthorized persons
• Leave signed-in devices accessible to unauthorized persons
• Disable security controls
• Attempt unauthorized penetration testing
• Introduce malicious software
• Attempt to obtain another user’s credentials

Security vulnerabilities should be reported to support (at) democracyops (dot) org .

16. Third-Party Services

Democracy Ops relies on third-party providers to provide portions of the Services, such as providers of cloud infrastructure and authentication, telecommunications and SMS, and email.

Third-party services may be subject to their own terms and policies.

Democracy Ops is not responsible for failures caused solely by third-party infrastructure outside our reasonable control.

17. Service Availability

We strive to provide reliable Services but do not guarantee uninterrupted availability.

The Services may be unavailable because of:

• Maintenance
• Software updates
• Internet outages
• Telecommunications outages
• Carrier failures
• Cloud-provider failures
• Security incidents
• Government actions
• Natural disasters
• Events outside our reasonable control

We may temporarily restrict access when reasonably necessary to protect security or platform integrity.

18. Platform Changes

Democracy Ops may add, remove, modify, or replace features.

Where reasonably practical, we will provide notice of material changes that substantially affect paid or contracted functionality.

19. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or terminate access where reasonably necessary because of:

• Violation of these Terms
• Suspected fraud
• Security risk
• Unlawful activity
• Telecommunications provider requirements
• Repeated messaging complaints
• Unauthorized communications
• Nonpayment where applicable
• Legal or regulatory requirements
• Conduct that threatens Democracy Ops or its users

Organizations may terminate their use of the Services according to their applicable agreement.

20. Intellectual Property

Democracy Ops and its associated software, logos, graphics, designs, interfaces, documentation, trademarks, and other intellectual property are owned by Democracy Ops or applicable licensors.

Except as expressly authorized, users may not copy, distribute, sell, sublicense, publicly display, reverse engineer, or create derivative commercial products from Democracy Ops intellectual property.

21. User Feedback

If you voluntarily provide suggestions or feedback concerning Democracy Ops, we may use that feedback to improve the Services without an obligation to compensate you, provided that doing so does not grant us ownership of your personal information or confidential organization data.

22. Disclaimers

THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

DEMOCRACY OPS DOES NOT WARRANT THAT:

• THE SERVICES WILL ALWAYS BE AVAILABLE
• EVERY CALL WILL CONNECT
• EVERY MESSAGE WILL BE DELIVERED
• TELECOMMUNICATIONS PROVIDERS WILL ACCEPT EVERY COMMUNICATION
• DATA PROVIDED BY ORGANIZATIONS IS ACCURATE
• USE OF THE PLATFORM AUTOMATICALLY MAKES AN ORGANIZATION’S COMMUNICATIONS LEGALLY COMPLIANT
• THE SERVICES WILL BE COMPLETELY ERROR-FREE

Organizations remain responsible for determining the legal requirements applicable to their activities.

23. No Legal or Compliance Advice

Tools, templates, warnings, suppression controls, documentation, or other features provided through Democracy Ops are intended to assist platform operations.

They do not constitute legal advice.

Organizations are responsible for obtaining appropriate professional advice regarding their particular activities where necessary.

24. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, DEMOCRACY OPS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO USE OF THE SERVICES.

Any additional limitations applicable to an organization’s paid or contracted use of Democracy Ops may be set forth in a separate written agreement.

Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

25. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, an organization using Democracy Ops agrees to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Democracy Ops and its officers, directors, employees, contractors, and agents from third-party claims arising from:

• The organization’s unlawful use of the Services
• Data unlawfully provided by the organization
• Communications initiated by the organization in violation of applicable law
• The organization’s scripts or message content
• The organization’s failure to obtain required consent
• The organization’s violation of applicable telecommunications requirements
• The organization’s violation of third-party rights

This provision does not apply to the extent a claim results from Democracy Ops’ own conduct for which liability cannot lawfully be shifted.

26. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except where federal law or another jurisdiction’s law must apply.

The venue and dispute-resolution provisions applicable to contracted organizations may also be established in a separate written agreement.

27. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is determined to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in effect to the extent permitted by law.

An unenforceable provision will be interpreted or modified only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable where permitted.

28. No Waiver

Failure by Democracy Ops to enforce a provision of these Terms does not constitute a waiver of that provision or any other provision.

29. Assignment

Users may not assign their rights under these Terms without our written consent.

Democracy Ops may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, corporate restructuring, financing, or sale of substantially all relevant assets, subject to applicable law.

30. Changes to These Terms

We may modify these Terms as the Services, laws, regulations, telecommunications requirements, or business practices change.

The current version will be posted at DemocracyOps.org/terms. The “Last Updated” date identifies the most recent revision.

Where required by law or contract, we will provide additional notice of material changes.

31. Entire Agreement

These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any applicable written service agreement constitute the agreement governing use of the Services.

If a separately executed written agreement conflicts with these general Terms, the executed agreement controls to the extent of the conflict for the parties to that agreement.

32. Contact Information