Guardian Terms of Use

Effective date: [FILL]

These terms are an agreement between you and [FILL: LLC legal name] ("we", "us") about your use of the Guardian app and website ("Guardian"). By using Guardian you agree to them. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your data.

1. Guardian is not an emergency service

Guardian does not replace 911 or any emergency service. If you are in danger, call 911.

Guardian only tells the people you chose. It does not contact the police, ambulance or fire services, and nobody at Guardian watches your walk.

Guardian can fail, and you should plan for it. Among other things:

• your phone may have no signal, no battery, location turned off, or be lost or broken;
• texts and calls can be delayed, filtered as spam, or not delivered by phone carriers, and your contacts may not see or answer them;
• GPS can be inaccurate, especially indoors or between tall buildings;
• our servers or our providers (for example Twilio) can be down;
• iOS can delay notifications (Focus, Low Power Mode) or stop the app in the background;
• safe places, streetlights, routes and hazard reports come from public and crowd-sourced data and can be wrong or out of date. A place marked "open" may be closed. A lit route may not be lit.

Guardian may lower your risk; it cannot guarantee your safety. Use your own judgment.

2. Who can use Guardian

You must be at least [DECIDE: 13 with a parent's permission / 16 / 18] years old and able to form a binding contract (or have your parent or guardian agree for you). You need a Google account to sign in. Keep your phone and account secure; you're responsible for activity on your account.

3. Your circle and messages

When you add someone to your circle, you confirm that:

• the phone number belongs to them, and you have a genuine reason to list them as a safety contact;
• you understand we'll text them to ask for their consent, and send them emergency alerts (texts and phone calls) with your location if you send an SOS or miss a check-in, even before they reply.

Message and data rates may apply. Your contacts can reply STOP to stop all messages and HELP for help. We limit how many texts and calls each account can trigger, to keep the service working for everyone.

4. Things you must not do

• Use Guardian to track, monitor, harass or stalk anyone, or add someone to your circle to frighten or pressure them. Location sharing is always yours to start and stop; you may not use it on another person's phone without their knowledge.
• Send false SOS alerts or fake check-in failures, or use Guardian to prank or alarm people.
• Post false, misleading, illegal, hateful or private information (including other people's photos or faces) in map reports, notes or photos.
• Use Guardian to send spam or anything other than personal safety messages; try to get around our limits; or probe, overload, reverse-engineer or break into Guardian or other users' accounts.

We may suspend or close accounts that break these rules, and remove content.

5. Map contributions

Streetlights, reports, notes and photos you add help everyone. You keep ownership of them, and you give us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual license to use, display, modify and share them as part of Guardian's map (including after you delete your account, without your name). Only contribute what you saw yourself and have the right to share. [DECIDE: if contributions will ever flow back to OpenStreetMap, they must be ODbL-compatible; add that here.]

5a. Bunks, Camp Solara and anything you post [NEW 2026-10-10: for App Store guideline 1.2]

Bunks are invite-only groups; the Clubhouse, the Gallery, map reports and marker tags can be seen by other people. We don't tolerate objectionable content or abusive users. In anything you write, draw, name or share you must not: bully, harass, threaten or impersonate anyone; post hate, slurs, sexual content, or anything involving minors in a sexual way; encourage self-harm; share anyone's private information (where they live, their school, phone numbers, photos of them without permission); or spam.

• Report anything that breaks these rules from the message, person, tag, post or bunk itself (long-press or its menu). Reports go to a real person, who reviews them, normally within 24 hours [DECIDE: the promise you can keep]. Content that several people report is hidden until it's reviewed.
• Block anyone: you stop seeing their messages, camper and tags. Hide removes one thing from your own view.
• We remove content that breaks these rules and suspend or close the accounts that posted it.

If someone is in danger, call 911 first.

6. Our content and other people's

Guardian, its design and code are ours. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) and the other sources listed in the app's Credits, used under their licenses.

7. Changes and ending

We may change or stop Guardian or any feature. We'll give notice in the app before changes to these terms take effect; continuing to use Guardian after that means you accept them. You can stop using Guardian and delete your account at any time (Settings › Your data).

8. Disclaimers

[Lawyer review] Guardian is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose and that Guardian will be uninterrupted, error-free, accurate or secure, or that any alert will be delivered or received.

9. Limitation of liability

[Lawyer review] To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for harm resulting from an alert that was delayed, not delivered or not acted on, from inaccurate location or map data, or from the acts of other people. Our total liability for any claim about Guardian is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim (today: nothing) or US$100. Some places don't allow these limits, so they may not apply to you.

10. Indemnity

If you misuse Guardian (section 4) or add someone to your circle without a right to, and a claim is made against us because of it, you'll cover our reasonable costs.

11. Disputes

[Lawyer review / DECIDE] These terms are governed by the laws of [FILL: state], without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Disputes go to the state or federal courts in [FILL: county, state]. [DECIDE: arbitration clause and class-action waiver, or not.]

12. Apple

These terms are between you and us, not Apple. Apple isn't responsible for Guardian or its support, and has no warranty obligation beyond refunding the price (Guardian is free). Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them.

13. Contact

[FILL: legal name, address, support email]

Questions: support@guardianwalk.com