Terms of Service

1. Agreement to these terms

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) form an agreement between you and C.A.R.E. (“C.A.R.E.”, “we”, “us”) governing your use of the C.A.R.E. mobile application, website and related services (together, the “Service”).

By creating an account or using the Service you confirm that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Please read section 5 (The permanent record) and section 13 (Closing your account) with particular care. They describe the central characteristic of the Service: information you record about a shared case cannot be edited or deleted, including by you.

2. Definitions

• Case — a shared record within the Service relating to one co-parenting relationship, to which two parents may belong.
• Case Record — the sequential log of Entries belonging to a Case, together with associated content such as messages, attachments and child information.
• Entry — a single, numbered, timestamped record of an action taken within a Case.
• Content — anything you submit to the Service, including text, images, documents and financial information.
• Other Parent — the other individual who is a member of a Case with you.
• Professional — a lawyer, mediator, parenting coordinator or similar practitioner granted access to a Case.

3. Eligibility and your account

You must be at least 18 years old and legally capable of entering into a binding contract to use the Service. The Service is not intended for use by children, and children may not create accounts.

You must provide accurate registration information, including a valid email address which you control. You must verify that email address before the Service can be used. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your credentials and for all activity under your account. Notify us promptly at contact@thecareapp.ca if you believe your account has been accessed without your authorisation.

Your verified email address is also the means by which a closed account may later be reopened (section 13). You should keep it current and under your sole control.

4. What C.A.R.E. is, and is not

C.A.R.E. is a record-keeping tool. It allows co-parents to record expenses, payments, communications, child information and related matters in a form designed to be tamper-evident.

C.A.R.E. is not:

• A law firm, and does not provide legal advice. Nothing in the Service constitutes legal advice, and using it does not create a lawyer–client relationship with us. For advice about your circumstances, consult a qualified lawyer in your jurisdiction.
• A provider of medical advice. Health information you record is stored exactly as you enter it. We do not check, interpret or act upon it.
• A financial institution or payment processor in its current form. Recording an expense or payment in the Service does not transfer any money.
• A monitored or emergency service. We do not review Content in real time. If a child is at risk or you are in danger, contact your local emergency services or child protection authority.
• A guarantee of admissibility. We design the Case Record to be tamper-evident and verifiable, but whether any record is admitted as evidence, and what weight it is given, is a matter for the court concerned. We make no representation that any record will be accepted in any proceeding. [for review]

5. The permanent record

This section describes how the Service is built, not a setting you can change.

5.1 Entries are permanent

Entries in a Case Record are appended in sequence and are never edited or deleted. This applies to you, to the Other Parent, and to us. Where the Service offers a correction, the correction is recorded as a new Entry which references the original; the original Entry remains part of the Case Record and remains visible to both parents.

5.2 Integrity

Each Entry carries a timestamp and a cryptographic hash derived from the preceding Entry. Attachments are hashed at the time of upload. These measures are intended to make later alteration detectable. They are not a guarantee against every possible form of tampering, and we do not warrant that the record is incapable of being compromised.

5.3 You cannot withdraw Content from a Case

Once submitted to a Case, Content forms part of a shared record which the Other Parent is entitled to rely upon. You may not require us to remove it, and we will not do so at the request of one party, save where we are compelled by law or where removal is necessary to comply with a legal obligation. [for review]

5.4 Messages cannot be recalled after sending

Where enabled, the Service provides a short delay between your instruction to send a message and the message being written to the Case Record. During that window you may cancel the message, and nothing is recorded. After that window the message is permanent and cannot be edited, deleted or recalled.

5.5 Read receipts

The Service records when a message is read, and this record is visible to the sender and forms part of the Case Record. This behaviour cannot be disabled by either party. By using the Service you consent to this in respect of your own reading activity. [for review]

6. Cases and the other parent

A Case is created by one parent and joined by the other using an invitation code. Both parents have equal access to the Case Record.

Within a Case, the Other Parent can see the shared record: expenses, payments, messages, child information and related Entries. The Other Parent cannot see your contact details, home address, notification preferences, private notes, or which messages you have marked privately. Only your name is disclosed to them.

You are responsible for your own Content. We do not verify the accuracy of anything either parent records, and the existence of an Entry is not an endorsement of its accuracy.

7. Messages

Messages sent within a Case are part of the Case Record and are subject to section 5. You may attach images and documents; attachments are stored privately and are accessible to members of that Case.

You may mark messages privately for your own reference. These marks are not visible to the Other Parent. You may share selected messages outside the Service; if you do so, you are responsible for the use you make of them and for compliance with any applicable order or undertaking.

8. Financial records

Recording an expense or a payment creates a record of a claim or an assertion. It does not move money, does not create a legal obligation on the Other Parent, and does not constitute a determination of what is owed.

The Service calculates a running balance from confirmed payments and recorded expense shares as a convenience. That figure is arithmetic, not an accounting or legal determination, and should not be relied upon as a statement of account.

Child support and expense reimbursement are treated as separate obligations and are never netted against one another automatically.

9. Children’s information

The Service allows you to record information about children in your care. This information is collected from you as a parent or guardian, not from the children themselves.

Information about a child is shared with both parents on the Case, so that both have access to information relevant to that child’s wellbeing. One parent maintains each child’s record; the other can view it and, where the Service provides for it, request changes.

You must only record information about a child in respect of whom you hold parental responsibility or an equivalent legal status, and only where doing so is consistent with any court order or agreement binding on you. [for review]

10. Professional access

Where the Service provides for it, you may grant a Professional access to a Case. Access is scoped to the role: a Professional representing one party sees that party’s view of the Case; a Professional engaged as a neutral, where both parties consent, may see both.

Granting access is your decision and your responsibility. We do not act as your agent, do not supervise the Professional, and are not responsible for their conduct or advice. You may withdraw access at any time; withdrawal does not retrieve information already seen or exported.

11. Acceptable use

You agree not to use the Service to:

• harass, threaten, abuse or intimidate any person, including the Other Parent;
• impersonate any person or misrepresent your identity or authority;
• record information you know to be false, in order to create a misleading record;
• upload unlawful content, or content you do not have the right to share;
• attempt to access another user’s account or any Case you are not a member of;
• attempt to interfere with, probe or circumvent the integrity mechanisms described in section 5;
• use automated means to access or extract data from the Service; or
• use the Service in a manner that breaches a court order, undertaking or applicable law.

Because Entries are permanent, misuse of the Service leaves a permanent record. Content which breaches these Terms will not, generally, be removed from a Case Record; we may instead restrict or terminate the offending account (section 12). [for review]

12. Reports and enforcement

You may report a message or a concern to us. Reports are confidential: the reported party is not told that a report has been made, who made it, or what it said, and no Entry recording the report appears in the Case Record.

We may review reported Content and take action we consider appropriate, which may include contacting either party, issuing a warning, restricting access to features, or suspending or terminating an account. We are not obliged to take any particular action, and we do not adjudicate disputes between parents.

Suspension or termination of an account does not remove that person’s Entries from a Case Record, and does not affect the Other Parent’s continued access to it.

13. Closing your account

13.1 What is removed

You may close your account at any time from within the Service. When you do, we remove your private information from active systems: contact details, home address, device tokens and preferences.

13.2 What remains

The Case Record remains. It belongs to the Case rather than to either individual, and the Other Parent retains the complete record of the relationship, including Entries you made. Your name remains associated with your Entries so the record stays intelligible — in the way a name appears in a transcript.

13.3 Retention and reopening

Following closure, we retain your private information for a period of six years, after which it is permanently deleted. During that period you may reopen your account by registering again with the same verified email address, at which point your access to your Cases and history is restored.

The six-year period reflects limitation and records-retention norms applicable to family and financial records in the jurisdictions we operate in, and the interest of the Other Parent in the shared record. [for review — retention period and its legal basis]

13.4 Requests for earlier deletion

If you wish your private information to be deleted before the end of that period, contact us at contact@thecareapp.ca. We will consider each request having regard to our legal obligations and the rights of the Other Parent. We cannot delete the shared Case Record. [for review]

14. Fees

Core record-keeping features are provided free of charge. Certain features may be offered on a paid basis; where they are, the price, billing period and cancellation terms will be disclosed before you are charged.

If a paid subscription lapses, you retain access to read and add to your Case Record. Only the paid features become unavailable. We will not withhold your record for non-payment.

Subscriptions purchased through a mobile app store are subject to that store’s billing and refund policies in addition to these Terms.

15. Intellectual property

The Service, including its software, design, branding and documentation, is owned by C.A.R.E. and protected by intellectual property law. We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service in accordance with these Terms.

You retain ownership of your Content. You grant us a licence to host, store, process, transmit and display your Content strictly as necessary to operate the Service, to make it available to the Other Parent and to any Professional you have authorised, and to comply with law. This licence continues for as long as the Content forms part of a Case Record, which by design extends beyond the closure of your account. [for review]

We do not use your Content to train machine learning models, and we do not sell it.

16. Third-party services

The Service relies on third-party infrastructure providers for authentication, data storage, file storage and notification delivery. These providers process data on our instructions. They are identified in our Privacy Policy.

We are not responsible for the availability of third-party services, and interruption of those services may interrupt the Service.

17. Disclaimers

The Service is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that:

• the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error-free;
• any record will be admitted in evidence or given any particular weight;
• the Service is suitable for your particular legal circumstances; or
• Content recorded by any user is accurate, complete or truthful.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability which cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud. [for review — consumer protection carve-outs applicable in Ontario]

18. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, C.A.R.E. will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or exemplary damages, or for any loss of profits, goodwill, data, or for any outcome of any legal proceeding, arising out of or in connection with your use of the Service.

Our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with the Service will not exceed the greater of the amounts you paid us in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or one hundred Canadian dollars (CAD $100). [for review — cap and enforceability]

19. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless C.A.R.E. and its officers and contractors from any claim, demand, loss or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your Content, your use of the Service, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of any law or the rights of a third party.

20. Changes

We may modify the Service, and may amend these Terms. Where an amendment is material we will give notice through the Service or by email before it takes effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance. If you do not accept an amendment, you may close your account, subject to section 13.

21. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the laws of Canada applicable in that province, without regard to conflict of laws principles. The courts of Ontario have exclusive jurisdiction, save that we may seek injunctive relief in any jurisdiction where appropriate.

Before commencing proceedings, you agree to contact us at contact@thecareapp.ca and to attempt in good faith to resolve the matter informally for a period of thirty days. [for review — whether to include arbitration and class action provisions, and their enforceability in Ontario and in any US state where the Service is offered]

22. Contact

Questions about these Terms should be sent to contact@thecareapp.ca.