Terms of Service

1. The service

SpotID (“the service”) is a research tool that proposes individual identities for leopards from camera-trap photographs by comparing spot patterns. It is intended for field researchers, conservation teams, and educational use.

The service is provided by D. Colomer Matachana (Spain), the data controller, on a best-effort basis. It is an independent project and is not affiliated with any government, university, or NGO.

2. Accounts

You must provide a valid email address to register. You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for all activity under your account. Notify us at dcolomer10@gmail.com if you suspect unauthorised access.

One account per person. Automated registration, scraping, or sharing accounts across organisations without permission is not allowed.

3. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• upload images that are not camera-trap or wildlife photographs of leopards or related species;
• upload content that infringes copyright, depicts people in a way that breaches their privacy, or is otherwise unlawful;
• attempt to identify, locate, or reveal the position of camera-trap sites in a way that could facilitate poaching;
• probe, scan, or attempt to bypass authentication, rate limits, or security controls;
• use the service to generate excessive load, train competing models on our outputs, or scrape result data programmatically without permission.

4. Your content

You retain all rights to the photographs you upload. By uploading, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store and process your images solely to provide the service to you (cropping, background removal, edge extraction, embedding, matching, and delivery of results back to you).

We do not claim ownership of your images, do not sell them, and do not share them with third parties except the sub-processors listed in our Privacy Policy.

Image metadata is your responsibility. Camera-trap photographs may contain EXIF metadata such as GPS coordinates, camera serial numbers, or timestamps. We store images as-is. If your images contain metadata that would reveal sensitive information (for example, the location of an active camera trap), you must strip that metadata before uploading. Uploading such images is at your own risk.

5. Identifications are suggestions

Matches and individual identifications produced by the service are model-generated suggestions. They may be wrong. They are intended to assist a human reviewer, not replace one. Do not rely on them for population estimates, legal proceedings, or any high-stakes decision without independent verification.

6. Service availability

The service is provided “as is” and “as available.” We do not guarantee uptime, error-free operation, or that the service will remain available indefinitely. We may modify, suspend, or discontinue the service or any feature at any time, with or without notice.

7. Termination

You may delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these terms, abuse the service, or if continued operation creates legal or operational risk. On termination, account data is removed in accordance with the retention rules described in the Privacy Policy.

8. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the service is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied. We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or exemplary damages, or for any loss of data, profit, or research output arising from your use of the service. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law (for example, for gross negligence or wilful misconduct).

9. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of Spain. Any dispute will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Spanish courts, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer-protection rights you may have under the law of your country of residence in the EU.

10. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. Material changes will be announced by email or in-app notice at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

11. Contact

Questions about these terms: dcolomer10@gmail.com.