Terms of Service

Devote is operated by Devote Democracy Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (14094396) with its registered office at 20-22 Wenlock Road, London N1 7GU, United Kingdom ("Devote", "we", "us"). These Terms of Service ("Terms"), together with our Privacy Policy, govern your access to and use of the Devote websites, mobile applications and related services (the "Service").

By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service. Where we materially change these Terms, we publish a new numbered version, give you notice in the Service before it takes effect, and — for major changes — ask you to accept again before continuing.

Devote is a civic platform: a place to read real legislation, record your position on it, see how representatives vote, take part in polls and discussion, and communicate with elected officials.

Three things Devote is not, stated plainly:

• Devote is not a government service and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, any government, parliament, electoral commission or political party.
• Votes and positions you record on Devote are expressions of your opinion. They are not official ballots, they have no legal effect on any election or legislative process, and they do not replace registering to vote or voting in official elections — which we hope you do.
• Devote is politically neutral. We do not campaign for parties, candidates or outcomes, and we build the Service so that it does not favour any of them.

You may use Devote if you are at least 16 years old and resident in the United Kingdom, or at least 18 years old and resident in the United States, matching the voting franchise of each pilot region. If we expand to other regions, the applicable minimum age will be shown at sign-up. You must be a real, individual human being: no organisational, automated or shared accounts unless we expressly provide account types for them (for example, verified representative accounts).

Devote only works if every voice belongs to one real person. You agree to:

• create and operate only one account, and provide accurate information;
• keep your sign-in method secure and tell us promptly at [email protected] if you believe someone else has accessed your account;
• not sell, rent, share or transfer your account or verification status.

We use identity checks (including the duplicate-detection described in §5) to protect the one-person-one-account principle, and we may suspend accounts that violate it.

Some features — such as verified constituency status, verification stickers and representative communication — require you to verify your identity and address. Verification is performed by a specialist provider (currently Didit; we may change provider) and involves checking an identity document, a liveness check and matching your live image to your document, and may include comparison against previously verified users to detect duplicate accounts. Verification is optional, but the features that depend on it are unavailable without it. What is collected, what we receive and what we never store are set out in our Privacy Policy, and we will ask for your explicit consent before verification begins.

Because constituency status depends on where you live, you will need to re-verify when your address changes. Verification is included in paid subscriptions; otherwise it is available for a one-time fee, and free of charge through our financial hardship programme — apply in the app.

Voting on Devote is, and will remain, free. Verification affects how your participation is badged and weighted by those who read it — never whether you can participate.

Devote is a place for genuine civic participation. You agree not to:

• impersonate any person, and in particular any elected official, candidate or public body;
• operate multiple accounts, use another person's verification, or otherwise manufacture false participation;
• attempt to manipulate votes, polls or rankings, including by automation, coordinated inauthentic behaviour, or offering or accepting anything of value for votes or positions;
• post content that is unlawful, that harasses, threatens or defames others, or that incites violence;
• scrape, harvest or bulk-collect data from the Service, or probe, disrupt or overload it;
• use the Service to break any law that applies to you, including electoral law applicable to your own conduct.

We publish community guidelines with more detail; they form part of these Terms.

You own the content you post. By posting, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for technical display purposes), display and distribute that content as needed to operate, improve and promote the Service, including through our service providers. This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except: (a) where your content has been shared or re-used by others within the Service; (b) for aggregated or de-identified data that no longer identifies you; and (c) where we must retain content to comply with law.

Feedback and suggestions you choose to send us may be used to improve the Service without restriction or compensation — but this covers ideas about Devote, not your posts, positions or personal data.

We moderate to keep the room usable for everyone. Depending on severity, we may label, restrict, or remove content, and warn, suspend, restrict or terminate accounts. Except where the law requires otherwise or the violation creates urgent risk, we will tell you what action we took and why, and you can appeal any enforcement decision through the in-app process or at [email protected]. We apply the same rules across the political spectrum.

Your individual votes and positions are handled according to your visibility settings and our Privacy Policy. Two commitments sit at the centre of the Service:

• We never sell or disclose data that identifies you — your identity, your individual votes, your verification records — to advertisers, data brokers, political campaigns or anyone else.
• We do produce and commercially license aggregated, de-identified statistics — for example, how verified constituents of an area, in aggregate, view a bill. These datasets are built with a minimum group size of 100 people, and everyone who licenses them is contractually prohibited from attempting to re-identify anyone.

The Privacy Policy explains both in full. Poll creators see responses in the form the poll's settings state before you respond.

Some subscription tiers include AI features: contextual explanations of bills and votes, and the AI Voting Collective, which — only if you opt in — generates provisional positions based on your own past voting and stated preferences. Provisional positions are marked as such, you can review and change any of them at any time, and you can leave the feature whenever you like. AI outputs can be wrong; they are assistance, not authority, and the position of record is always yours. Our use of your data for these features is described in the Privacy Policy.

Devote's core civic functions are free at the Civic Spectator tier. Paid tiers — Political Patron, Democracy Devotee and Voting Visionary — add features described at purchase, for a recurring fee.

• Where you buy matters for billing. Subscriptions bought in our iOS or Android apps are billed by Apple or Google under their terms, and their processes govern payment, cancellation mechanics and refunds for those purchases. Subscriptions bought on our website are billed by us through our payment processor (Stripe). Prices may differ between channels. A subscription works across all your Devote surfaces regardless of where you bought it.
• Renewal and cancellation. Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled. Cancel any time — in the app store for store purchases, in your website account for web purchases — effective at the end of the current billing period.
• UK cooling-off for web purchases. If you are a UK consumer buying on our website, you have a 14-day right to cancel. Because your subscription starts immediately with your express consent, if you cancel within the 14 days we refund the price less a proportionate amount for the period already supplied.
• Price changes take effect at your next renewal, with at least 30 days' notice.
• One-time purchases — such as pay-as-you-go identity verification or poll promotion credits — are described, with their prices, at the point of purchase. Poll promotion credits have no cash value and expire as stated at purchase.

Purchases from the Devote merch shop are governed by our separate Purchaser Terms, shown at checkout. Subscription merch benefits (discounts, included items) are subject to the availability and redemption conditions shown in the app.

The Service — its software, design, branding and content we create — belongs to Devote Democracy Ltd or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property law. We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the apps and Service for their intended purpose. You may not copy, modify, reverse-engineer, or create derivative works from the Service except where law permits despite this clause. Legislative texts and official records available through the Service remain subject to their own public licences.

The Service works with third parties — app stores, our identity verification provider, payment processors, fulfilment partners — and may link to external sites. Their services are governed by their own terms, and we are not responsible for third-party services we do not control. This does not limit our responsibility for our own processors under data protection law, as described in the Privacy Policy.

We are an early-stage service and we iterate: features may change, be added or be withdrawn. We may suspend the Service where necessary for maintenance, security or legal compliance. If we ever discontinue the Service or a paid feature materially, we will give reasonable notice and refund any pre-paid amounts for the undelivered period.

We work hard to present legislation, voting records and civic information accurately, but we do not guarantee that any content on the Service — including AI-generated explanations and information posted by users or officials — is accurate, complete or current. Nothing on the Service is legal, financial or professional advice. Except as expressly stated in these Terms, and to the extent the law allows, the Service is provided "as is" and we disclaim implied warranties. Nothing in this section limits the rights the law gives you as a consumer, including under the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015 (for example, that a digital service be of satisfactory quality and as described).

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot be excluded by law — including your statutory consumer rights.

Subject to that: we are not liable for losses that were not a foreseeable result of our breach, for loss of profit, business or goodwill, or for losses arising from your own breach of these Terms; and our total liability to you for all claims arising out of the Service in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us for the Service in that period and (b) £100 (or US$100 if you are a US resident).

If your content or your unlawful use of the Service causes a third party to bring a claim against us, you agree to compensate us for losses and reasonable costs that result — except to the extent the claim results from our own breach of these Terms or of the law. This clause does not apply to your ordinary, lawful use of the Service.

You can stop using Devote, and delete your account in settings, at any time; deletion is handled as the Privacy Policy describes. We may suspend or terminate your account for material or repeated breach of these Terms, where the law requires, or where continuing presents a genuine risk to the Service or its users — with notice and reasons except in urgent or legally constrained cases, and with the appeal route in §8. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including §7 licence tails, §9 commitments, §17, §18 and §21) survive.

We version these Terms like software. Minor changes (clarifications, typo-level fixes) update the current version. Material changes create a new major version: we will give you at least 30 days' notice in the Service, and continuing to use Devote after the effective date — or accepting in-app where we ask you to — constitutes acceptance. If you do not accept, you may close your account; where you have a paid subscription and reject a materially adverse change, you may cancel and receive a pro-rata refund of any pre-paid period.

If you are a resident of the United Kingdom (or anywhere outside the United States): these Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and disputes may be brought in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in your local courts, and nothing in this clause deprives you of the protection of mandatory consumer rules where you live.

If you are a resident of the United States: these Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales and, where they apply, the federal laws of the United States, including the Federal Arbitration Act. You and Devote agree to resolve disputes through binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, rather than in court, except that: (a) either party may bring an individual claim in small claims court; and (b) either party may seek injunctive relief in court for intellectual-property infringement or unauthorised access to the Service. Class actions and class arbitrations are waived: disputes may be brought only in an individual capacity. Arbitration will take place in your county of residence or remotely at your option, and where AAA rules require, we will bear the arbitration fees. Before either of us starts arbitration, we agree to first send the other a written description of the dispute and attempt in good faith to resolve it within 60 days.

Your right to opt out: you may reject this arbitration agreement, without any effect on your use of Devote, by emailing [email protected] with the subject "Arbitration opt-out" within 30 days of first accepting these Terms.

If part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest continues in effect. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, and will give you notice if we do. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Purchaser Terms (where you buy merchandise) and the community guidelines are the entire agreement between us about the Service.

Devote Democracy Ltd, 20-22 Wenlock Road, London N1 7GU, United Kingdom — [email protected]. We aim to respond within five working days.