Ground Truth

Terms of Service

Effective [Effective date]

In short: Ground Truth is a record-keeping and review tool. It does not perform engineering, inspection or certification, and it does not replace the judgement of the engineer of record. Your organisation owns its project data and is responsible for the rules, specs and decisions it records here. The service is provided as is, and our liability is limited. The full terms below control.

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are an agreement between [Legal entity name, state of incorporation] (“Ground Truth”, “we”, “us”) and the organisation or person using Ground Truth (“you”). They govern your use of the Ground Truth website, web application, offline app and related services (the “Service”). If you use the Service on behalf of a company or other organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind it to these Terms, and “you” includes that organisation. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

If your organisation has signed a separate written agreement with us for the Service, that agreement controls where it conflicts with these Terms.

1. The Service

Ground Truth helps pile-driving contractors, inspectors and engineers record piles in the field, check those records against project rules, review exceptions, and produce reports. We may change, add or remove features over time. Features labelled beta, preview or demo are provided for evaluation and may change or be withdrawn without notice.

2. Not engineering, inspection or professional advice

Ground Truth is a software tool. It does not provide engineering, geotechnical, surveying, inspection, testing or certification services, and nothing in the Service is professional advice. In particular:

  • Acceptance criteria, tolerances, refusal criteria and other rules in a project are set or approved by you. A pile shown as “approved”, “passed” or in tolerance means only that the data entered met the rules configured for that project. It is not a determination that the pile, foundation or structure is adequate, safe or compliant.
  • Final acceptance of any pile or foundation rests with your engineer of record, inspectors and the other qualified professionals on your project, under your contract documents and applicable codes.
  • You are responsible for the accuracy and completeness of the data your users enter or import, including field measurements, driving logs, coordinates and elevations.
  • You are responsible for keeping any records your contracts, owners or regulators require. Export your records regularly; do not rely on the Service as your only copy.

3. AI features

Some features use machine-learning models to extract rules from specifications, read documents, answer questions, flag anomalies or summarise activity (“AI Output”). AI Output can be incomplete or wrong, including in ways that look plausible. You must review AI Output before relying on it, and you must confirm any extracted rule against the source specification before using it to accept or reject work. You are responsible for decisions made using AI Output.

4. Accounts and organisations

  • You must give accurate information when you create an account and keep it up to date.
  • You are responsible for everything that happens under your account and your organisation, for keeping credentials secure, and for the people you invite and the roles you give them. Tell us promptly at [legal@yourdomain.com] if you believe an account has been compromised.
  • You must be at least 18 years old, and the Service is intended for business use only.
  • An organisation’s owners and administrators control its projects, members and data, including the ability to remove users and their access.

5. The public demo

The “Try the demo” workspace is shared with other visitors and is reset on a regular schedule. Anything you enter there may be seen, changed or deleted by others and will be erased at the next reset. Do not enter real project data, confidential information or personal information in the demo. Demo use may be limited or withdrawn at any time.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to, and not to let anyone else:

  • use the Service in violation of any law or anyone else’s rights;
  • probe, scan or test the Service’s security, or bypass any access control, rate limit or usage cap, except under a written security-testing arrangement with us;
  • access another organisation’s data, or interfere with or disrupt the Service or other users;
  • upload malware, or content that is unlawful, infringing or that you have no right to share;
  • copy, resell, sublicense or provide the Service to third parties as a service bureau, except to your own clients and project partners as part of your normal use;
  • reverse engineer the Service, or use it or its output to build a competing product, except as applicable law expressly permits; or
  • use automated means to access the Service other than through features or interfaces we provide.

7. Your data

You own your data. “Customer Data” means the projects, specifications, plans, pile records, driving logs, documents, reports and other content you or your users submit to the Service. As between you and us, you retain all rights in Customer Data.

You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, copy, process, transmit and display Customer Data only as needed to provide, secure and support the Service, to comply with law, and as described in our Privacy Policy. We use sub-processors (such as hosting, database and AI model providers) to do this.

You confirm that you have the rights and any consents needed to submit Customer Data, including personal information about your crews and project contacts, and that doing so does not breach any contract, such as a confidentiality obligation to a project owner.

We may collect and use information about how the Service is used, and data derived from Customer Data that is aggregated and de-identified so it does not identify you, your users, your clients or any project, to operate, secure and improve the Service. We will not sell Customer Data or disclose it to other customers.

8. Offline use and syncing

The Service can store data on your device so crews can work without a connection. Records saved offline exist only on that device until they sync. Data that has not synced can be lost if the device is lost, reset, or its browser storage is cleared, and records changed by others while you were offline may need to be reconciled. You are responsible for syncing devices and for the security of devices your users use.

9. Fees, trials and billing

  • Paid plans are billed in advance, on a subscription basis, at the prices shown when you subscribe or in your organisation’s billing settings. Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled.
  • We may offer a free trial. When it ends, access to paid features may be limited until you subscribe. We may change or end trial offers at any time.
  • Payments are processed by our payment provider, Stripe. You authorise us and Stripe to charge your payment method for all fees and applicable taxes. Fees do not include taxes, which you are responsible for (other than taxes on our income).
  • Changes to the number of billable projects may change your charges, prorated as shown in billing. You can cancel at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period.
  • Except where required by law, fees are non-refundable, including for partial periods and unused projects.
  • If payment fails or an account is past due, we may restrict the organisation to read-only access or suspend it after notice. We may change prices on at least 30 days’ notice, effective at your next renewal.

10. Third-party services

The Service relies on and may link to services we do not control, such as map imagery, payment processing, email delivery and AI model providers. Your use of them may be subject to their terms. We are not responsible for third-party services, and they may change or become unavailable.

11. Our intellectual property and feedback

We and our licensors own the Service, including its software, design, templates, rules engine and documentation, and all rights in them, except Customer Data. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service for your internal business purposes during your subscription. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them without restriction or obligation to you.

12. Confidentiality and security

We treat Customer Data as confidential and use reasonable administrative, technical and organisational measures designed to protect it, including access controls that keep each organisation’s data separate. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee that Customer Data will never be accessed, lost or disclosed without authorisation. We will notify you without undue delay if we become aware of a breach affecting your Customer Data, as required by law.

13. Term, suspension and termination

  • These Terms apply for as long as you use the Service.
  • You may stop using the Service and cancel your subscription at any time.
  • We may suspend or end your access immediately if you breach these Terms, fail to pay, create a security or legal risk, or if required by law. Where reasonable, we will give notice first.
  • After termination, we will make Customer Data available for export for 30 days on request, after which we may delete it, subject to backups that expire on their normal schedule and any data we must keep by law.
  • Sections that by their nature should survive termination survive, including 2, 3, 7 (licence to aggregated data), 9 (unpaid fees), 11 and 14 through 18.

14. Disclaimer of warranties

The Service, AI Output and all content are provided “as is” and “as available”. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement and accuracy. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, that data will not be lost, that calculations, rule evaluations, coordinate conversions or AI Output will be accurate, or that use of the Service will satisfy any specification, contract, code or regulatory requirement.

15. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law: (a) we will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, business or goodwill, loss or corruption of data, cost of rework, delay, liquidated damages, cost of substitute services, property damage or personal injury arising from reliance on the Service, however caused and even if we were advised of the possibility; and (b) our total liability arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of the fees you paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or US$100.

These limits apply to every theory of liability, including contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability and statute, and they are an essential basis of the bargain. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so some of them may not apply to you.

16. Indemnity

You will defend, indemnify and hold harmless Ground Truth and its officers, employees and agents from any third-party claim, and the resulting losses, damages, fines and reasonable legal fees, arising from: (a) Customer Data; (b) your or your users’ use of the Service, including decisions to accept, reject or rework any pile or foundation; (c) work performed on projects managed with the Service; or (d) your breach of these Terms or of law. We will give you prompt notice of the claim and reasonable cooperation, and you may not settle a claim that imposes obligations on us without our consent.

17. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of [State], without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The state and federal courts located in [County, State] have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service, and both parties consent to their jurisdiction. Either party may seek injunctive relief in any court to protect its intellectual property or confidential information.

18. General

  • Changes. We may update these Terms. If a change is material, we will give notice through the Service or by email at least 15 days before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Service after that means you accept the change.
  • Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets.
  • Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond its reasonable control, other than your obligation to pay.
  • Export and sanctions. You will not use or allow access to the Service in violation of US export or sanctions laws.
  • Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between us about the Service. If any part is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Failing to enforce a right is not a waiver. There are no third-party beneficiaries.
  • Notices. We may send notices to the email address on your account. Send notices to us at [legal@yourdomain.com] or [Mailing address].