Terms of use

1These terms

These terms are an agreement between you and Andrew Franklin, trading as PaddleScout, a sole trader based in the United Kingdom. By creating an account or using paddlescout.co.uk you accept them. If you do not accept them, do not use the service.

Questions about these terms go to privacy@paddlescout.co.uk. How we handle your data is covered by the privacy notice, which sits alongside these terms.

2Your account

• You must be 18 or older to use PaddleScout.
• Give accurate details when you register and keep them current.
• Keep your password to yourself. You are responsible for what happens under your sign-in, so tell us if you think someone else has access.

3Paddling is at your own risk

This is the section that matters most. Read it before you rely on anything PaddleScout shows you.

Paddling carries real risks: cold water shock, offshore wind, currents, tides, weirs, shipping, and weather that turns faster than any forecast. PaddleScout cannot see the water in front of you.

• Condition summaries on PaddleScout are derived from a third-party weather forecast. Forecasts are wrong at times, and ours is no exception.
• The app knows nothing about water temperature at your spot, local hazards, the state of the tide beyond what the forecast carries, your equipment, or your ability.
• PaddleScout describes conditions and offers guidance. It does not certify that any place or time is safe, and nothing on the service should be read that way.
• The decision to go on the water is yours alone. Check conditions yourself from sources you trust, wear a buoyancy aid, use a leash suited to the venue, carry a means of calling for help, paddle within your ability, and tell someone where you are going.
• Spots, comments, and photos in the directory come from other paddlers. They describe someone else's experience, may be wrong or out of date, and say nothing about access rights or hazards on the day. Verify both yourself.

4Your content

• You own the trips, photos, and words you put on PaddleScout.
• You grant us a licence to store, process, and display that content so the service can work: parsing your track files, generating thumbnails, re-encoding photos, creating the share images and link previews a shared trip needs, and showing the content to the people your visibility settings allow. The licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except that deleted content can persist in routine backups for a short period before those backups cycle out.
• You choose each trip's visibility. Public means anyone, including search engines. Unlisted means anyone holding the link.
• A tag on another paddler takes effect only when they accept it.
• The public directory is a shared resource, so content in it works differently. When you offer one of your spots for listing, or submit a photo or note to a listed location page, you tick a consent box confirming that we may publish the content once approved, edit it where needed (a crop, a corrected place name, a tidied description), and keep it in the directory after you delete your account. A listed spot and its approved contributions stay published if you leave; your name comes off them, and deleting your account removes the remaining link between them and you. To ask for something to be taken down, email privacy@paddlescout.co.uk and name the email address your account used; we keep a one-way fingerprint of it for 2 years to verify the request, as the privacy notice describes.
• Only upload what you have the right to share. That means your own photos, and no personal information about someone else without their agreement.

5Acceptable use

Do not:

• break the law, or post content that is abusive, threatening, or harassing;
• post another person's private information, including where they live or launch from;
• impersonate anyone;
• probe, scan, or test the security of the service, or access data that is not yours;
• scrape, bulk-download, or republish other people's content or location data;
• use the service to send spam or run automated bulk access.

6Moderation

You can report content that breaks these terms. We may hide or remove content, decline directory submissions, and restrict or disable accounts that breach this agreement. Where we act on your content or account, we will tell you why by email unless the law prevents it. If you think we got it wrong, reply or email privacy@paddlescout.co.uk.

7PaddleScout Pro

• Pro is an optional monthly subscription. The price is shown before you subscribe and on your billing page.
• Payment is handled by Paddle, our merchant of record. Paddle's own terms apply to the payment itself, and your card details never reach us.
• The subscription renews monthly until you cancel. Cancel any time from Settings → Billing; Pro then runs to the end of the period you have paid for and no further payment is taken.
• If you delete your account while subscribed, we cancel the subscription straight away and refund the unused part of the current period.
• If the price changes, we will email you in advance. The new price applies from your next renewal, and you can cancel before then if you do not accept it.
• None of this affects your statutory rights.

8The service

PaddleScout is a small, independently run service, provided as is. We work to keep it available and your data safe, but we do not promise uninterrupted access. Features may change or be retired. If the service ever closes, we will give you notice and time to export your data first.

9Liability

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that the law of England and Wales does not allow to be excluded, including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud.

Subject to that:

• You accept the risks described in section 3. We are not liable for injury, loss, or damage arising from your decision to go on the water, or from reliance on forecasts, condition summaries, or community content.
• We are not liable for indirect losses, or for business losses of any kind.
• Our total liability to you is limited to the amount you have paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

10Ending the agreement

You can end it at any time by deleting your account from Settings → Profile; deletion is immediate and the privacy notice describes what happens to your data. We may suspend or close your account if you breach these terms, with notice and reasons by email except where the breach is serious or the law prevents it.

11Changes to these terms

When these terms change, we update the date at the top. If a change matters, we will email you or show a notice in the app before it takes effect. Continuing to use PaddleScout after that means you accept the new terms; if you do not, delete your account.

12Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and disputes belong to 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 here affects your statutory consumer rights.