Terms of Service

1. About these terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of getdataspot.com and the GetData platform, run by GetData ("GetData", "we"). GetData connects organisations that need medical data ("clients" or data requesters) with healthcare institutions that can provide it ("hospitals" or data providers), and with doctors who annotate medical data ("annotators").

By creating an account, or by using the platform, you agree to these Terms. If you register on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you are authorised to bind it, and "you" means that organisation as well as you.

2. Accounts and approval

• You must be at least 18 years old and, if you register for an organisation, authorised to act for it.
• Give us accurate, complete information when you register and keep it up to date.
• Confirm your email address with the link we send you. The GetData team reviews every client and hospital registration before the account is activated; we may refuse a registration without giving reasons.
• Keep your password secret and do not share your account. You are responsible for what happens under it; tell us at once at the address below if you think someone else has used it.
• Your login email can only be changed by us, on request.

3. How the service works

GetData currently runs as a managed service: the GetData team creates, scopes and publishes data requests, finds hospitals that can provide the data, and organises its delivery. Clients and hospitals tell us what they need or can provide through the platform's contact options; the platform shows the status of their requests and commitments.

Every request is reviewed before it appears in the public catalog, and we may decline, edit for clarity, or unpublish a request. Clients and hospitals do not see each other's identity on the platform (see the Privacy Policy). Listing a request or a dataset is not an offer or a promise that data will be delivered.

The data, price, deliverables, permitted use and any licence for a specific project are agreed in a separate written agreement before any data is exchanged. If that agreement conflicts with these Terms, the agreement prevails for that project. If we later open self-service features, these Terms apply to them as well.

4. Your obligations as a client (data requester)

• Use data obtained through GetData only for the purposes and under the conditions agreed for the project, and in line with the law that applies to you, including data protection law.
• Never try to re-identify any person in the data, alone or by combining it with other information, and do not let anyone else do so.
• Keep the data secure, do not pass it on to anyone not covered by the project agreement, and delete or return it when that agreement says so.
• Obtain the approvals your own use requires (for example ethics approval or regulatory clearance).
• Tell us at once if you find information in the data that could identify a person; stop using that part of the data until we tell you how to proceed.

5. Your obligations as a hospital (data provider)

When you offer or provide data through GetData, you warrant that:

• you are entitled to share the data, and you have a valid legal basis and every approval, consent or authorisation the law requires to do so (for example from an ethics committee or from patients, where needed);
• the data has been de-identified before you share it, in line with the law that applies to you: direct identifiers are removed, including from file metadata (such as DICOM headers) and from text burned into images, and no one can reasonably identify a patient from it;
• the descriptions and volumes you declare for your datasets are accurate; and
• sharing the data does not breach any contract, professional secrecy duty or third-party right.

6. Annotators

Doctors who register as annotators also accept these Terms. Annotators can browse requests once their email address is confirmed, and can take part in annotation work only after we have verified their medical license. Each annotation project is agreed separately. How we handle annotators' personal data is described in the annotator privacy notice.

7. Acceptable use

You must not:

• upload or send data that identifies a patient, or any content that is unlawful or that you have no right to share;
• give false information, impersonate anyone, or register more than one account to get around a decision we made;
• probe, scan or test the security of the platform, get around its access controls or rate limits, or access data that is not meant for you;
• copy, modify, decompile or reverse engineer the platform's software, or build a competing service from it;
• copy the platform's content in bulk by automated means, or interfere with its operation (for example with malware or excessive traffic).

8. No medical advice

GetData does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The content on the website (including articles and topic pages) is general information. Data obtained through GetData is supplied for research and development; you alone are responsible for validating it and for any product, model or decision you build on it, including its compliance with medical device and other regulations.

9. Intellectual property

The platform, its software, design, texts and the GetData name and logo belong to GetData or its licensors. You may use them only to use the service as these Terms allow.

You keep the rights you have in what you submit (such as request descriptions and dataset declarations). You give GetData a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, process and display it, in the anonymised form described in these Terms, for as long as needed to run the service. Rights in data exchanged for a project are set by the project agreement.

10. Feedback

If you send us ideas, suggestions or other feedback about GetData, we may use them freely, without any obligation or payment to you. This does not give us any right to your data or to the confidential information of your organisation.

11. Fees

Creating an account and using the website is free of charge. Fees for data, annotation or other services are agreed in writing before any work starts.

12. Privacy

How we process personal data is explained in our Privacy Policy.

13. Electronic communications

You agree that we may communicate with you electronically, in particular by email and through the platform, and that notices, agreements and other communications we send this way meet any legal requirement that they be in writing, to the extent the law allows.

14. Availability and changes to the service

We work to keep the platform available and secure, but we provide it "as is" and "as available" and do not promise that it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may change, suspend or discontinue features, telling you in advance where a change significantly affects you.

15. Liability

To the extent the law allows, GetData is not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost profits, lost data, or loss caused by how you or another user uses data obtained through the platform. Our total liability to you under these Terms is limited to the amount you paid GetData in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim. Nothing in these Terms limits liability for damage caused intentionally or through gross negligence, or any other liability that cannot be limited by law.

You are responsible for, and will compensate GetData for, claims by third parties (including patients and authorities) that result from your breach of these Terms, in particular from sharing data you were not entitled to share or from misusing data you received.

16. Suspension and termination

You can stop using GetData at any time and ask us to close your account by writing to the address below (annotators can also delete their account from their profile page). We may suspend or close an account if you breach these Terms, if the information you gave is false, if required by law, or if we stop offering the service. Sections that by their nature should continue (such as obligations on data already received, liability and governing law) survive the end of your account.

17. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. The version date above shows when they last changed. We tell registered users by email about material changes before they take effect and may ask you to accept the new version; if you do not agree, you can close your account.

18. Governing law and disputes

Before going to court, you and GetData will try to settle any dispute amicably: the party raising it writes to the other with a description of the problem, and both negotiate in good faith for at least 30 days. This does not prevent either party from seeking urgent interim relief, for example to stop a misuse of data.

These Terms are governed by the law of the country where GetData is established. If the dispute is not settled, the competent courts at GetData's registered seat have jurisdiction over any dispute arising from them, without affecting any mandatory protection that the law of your country gives you.

19. General provisions

• Entire agreement: these Terms, the Privacy Policy and any project agreement are the whole agreement between you and GetData about the platform.
• Assignment: GetData may transfer these Terms and its rights and obligations under them to another company, for example in a reorganisation, a move of its registered seat, a merger or an acquisition; we will tell you if this happens. You may not transfer your account or these Terms without our written consent.
• Severability: if a provision of these Terms is found invalid or unenforceable, the rest remains in force, and the provision is replaced by a valid one that comes as close as possible to its purpose.
• No waiver: if we do not enforce a provision at once, we have not given up the right to enforce it later.
• Force majeure: neither party is liable for a delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control, such as natural disasters, war, epidemics, actions of authorities or failures of public networks or of hosting providers.
• No partnership: these Terms do not create a partnership, joint venture, employment or agency relationship between you and GetData.

20. Contact

GetData. Email: office@getdataspot.com.