Terms of Service

About these terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and [Legal entity name and legal form], registered at [Registered address] under number [Company registration number and register] (“spareachair”, “we”, “us”). They apply to the spareachair mobile app, the website spareachair.com and everything we offer through them (the “Service”).

By creating an account you accept these Terms and our Community Guidelines, which form part of these Terms. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your personal data.

What spareachair is

spareachair hosts scheduled online Evenings. At an Evening you sit at small tables of about four to six verified adults, chosen so that people with different perspectives meet. Tables change every round. You can chat by text, and each person decides whether to turn on their own microphone or camera. If you and a tablemate both choose “keep in touch”, you become Connections and can message each other and, if both accept, call each other.

The Service is currently free of charge.

Who can use spareachair

To use the Service you must:

• be at least 18 years old;
• live in the European Union or European Economic Area (EU/EEA) and hold an identity document issued by an EU/EEA country;
• verify your email address and complete identity verification (an ID document check and a selfie match) before you can take part in Evenings or message anyone;
• have only one account, and not have been banned from the Service before.

Identity verification is carried out by our verification provider. We receive only the result (for example, “verified”, “over 18” and the country that issued your document) and a keyed hash that lets us enforce bans; we do not receive or keep copies of your ID document or selfie. See the Privacy Policy for details, including how we ask for your explicit consent to the biometric check.

Your account

• Give accurate information and keep it up to date.
• Keep your password secure. You are responsible for activity on your account.
• Do not share, sell or transfer your account, or let anyone else use it.
• Do not impersonate anyone or choose a display name that is offensive or misleading.
• Tell us at [DSA single point of contact email address] if you think your account has been compromised.

Acceptable use

You must follow the Community Guidelines. In particular, you must not:

• harass, threaten, bully or intimidate anyone, or post hate speech;
• share sexual content, make sexual advances, or appear nude or in a sexual manner on camera;
• involve or show anyone under 18;
• spam, advertise, solicit, recruit, fundraise or run scams;
• share anyone’s personal information without their permission;
• post or share content that is illegal under EU law or the law of an EU/EEA country;
• try to evade a suspension or ban, create multiple accounts, or verify with someone else’s identity;
• interfere with the Service — for example by scraping, automated access, reverse engineering, attacking our systems or disrupting an Evening.

No recording

Do not record, capture, stream or share audio, video or screenshots of other participants without their clear consent. Conversations at spareachair are meant to stay at the table.

We do not record audio or video. Voice and video are transmitted live between participants through our media server and are not stored.

Your content

You keep ownership of what you write and say. You give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, transmit, display and process your content only as needed to run, secure and moderate the Service, for as long as we keep it under our Privacy Policy. Messages are deleted automatically after 30 days, unless they are attached to a report.

You are responsible for your content and must have the right to share it.

Content moderation

We want Evenings to be safe and respectful. To do that:

• Automated moderation. Text messages are checked by an automated moderation system before or after delivery. It can block a message or flag it for review. Automated tools can make mistakes; you can ask for any decision to be reviewed by a person (see Complaints and appeals).
• Reports. Anyone can report a person or content from any screen. A report includes the last messages from that conversation so we can understand the context. Reports about suspected minors or threats are handled with priority.
• Human review. Our moderators review reports and flagged content and decide what to do under these Terms, the Community Guidelines and applicable law.

What we may do

Depending on how serious the problem is and whether it has happened before, we may:

1. remove or block content;
2. warn you;
3. suspend your account for a set period, which stops you joining Evenings and messaging;
4. ban your account permanently.

We usually follow this ladder (warn → suspend → ban), but we will ban immediately for severe violations — for example, sexual content involving minors, credible threats of violence, or evading a ban. Banned people may not create a new account; we use a keyed hash of identity-document attributes to prevent it.

Statement of reasons

Whenever we restrict your content or account, we will send you a statement of reasons by email explaining what we decided and its scope and duration, the facts we relied on, whether automated means were used, which rule or law it is based on, and how you can challenge it.

If we become aware of information giving rise to a suspicion that a criminal offence involving a threat to someone’s life or safety has taken place or is likely to take place, we will inform the competent authorities as required by law.

Complaints and appeals

If you disagree with a moderation decision — or with our decision not to act on something you reported — you can complain to us within six months of being told about the decision:

• reply to the statement-of-reasons email, or write to appeals@spareachair.com;
• if your account is suspended, you can also appeal in the app.

Tell us which decision you are challenging and why. A person (not only an automated system) will review your complaint, and we will tell you our decision and the reasons without undue delay. If we find we were wrong, we will reverse the decision.

You can also refer the dispute to an out-of-court dispute settlement body certified under Article 21 of the EU Digital Services Act, or go to court. Using our internal complaint process does not affect these rights.

Ending your account

You can delete your account at any time in the app’s settings. Deletion is permanent; what we keep afterwards and for how long is explained in the Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or end your account as described in Content moderation, or if we stop offering the Service (in which case we will give you reasonable notice where possible).

Availability and changes to the Service

We are continuously developing spareachair and may add, change or remove features. We aim to keep the Service available but cannot guarantee that it will always be uninterrupted or error-free, for example during maintenance.

Liability

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes our liability where that is not permitted by law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for intent or gross negligence, or under mandatory consumer protection law.

Subject to that, and to the extent permitted by law:

• we are not responsible for what other users say or do, although we act on reports as described above;
• we are not liable for losses that were not reasonably foreseeable, or for losses caused by events outside our reasonable control.

As a consumer you keep all the rights that mandatory law in your country of residence gives you.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms, for example to reflect new features or legal requirements. Each version has a version number and effective date shown at the top of this page. If we make a material change, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect, and you will need to accept the new version before you can continue to take part. If you do not agree, you can delete your account.

Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of [Governing law (country)]. If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory rules of the country where you live, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence or in [Competent courts].

Contact

• Questions about these Terms or illegal content: [DSA single point of contact email address] — see Contact.
• Appeals: appeals@spareachair.com.
• Privacy: privacy@spareachair.com.