Terms and Conditions

1. Foraging safety: please read

• The scanner can be wrong. It is an automated model that gives a "best match" and a confidence score. A high score does not mean the identification is correct. It can be affected by lighting, angle, growth stage, regional variation, and species it hasn't been trained on.
• Identifications are not advice. Nothing in ForageFinds, including the scanner, spot notes, tags such as "Edible", or content from other users, is expert, medical, nutritional or safety advice.
• Always verify. Confirm every identification from several reliable sources, such as a reputable field guide and an experienced forager or mycologist, before you eat or handle anything. If you are not completely certain, don't eat it.
• Spots from other users are unverified. We don't check what other people pin, tag or describe. A public spot may be misidentified, out of date, contaminated (for example by roadside pollution, pesticides or animal waste), or on land you may not access.
• Allergies and reactions. Even correctly identified wild foods can cause allergic or other reactions. Try small amounts first and take extra care if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, have a medical condition or take medication.
• Outdoor risks. Foraging can involve difficult terrain, water, weather and wildlife. You are responsible for your own safety and for anyone with you, especially children.

If you think someone has eaten something poisonous, get medical help immediately. In the UK call 999 in an emergency or 111 for urgent advice. Take a sample or photo of what was eaten if you can do so safely.

2. Who can use ForageFinds

You must be at least 13 years old. If you're under 18, you should have permission from a parent or guardian, and you should only forage with a responsible adult.

3. Your account

ForageFinds creates an anonymous account on your device when you first open the App. You're responsible for activity on your device. Anonymous accounts are tied to the installation: if you uninstall the App, clear its data or change device, you may lose access to your spots, and we may not be able to recover them.

4. Your content

"Your content" means the spots, titles, notes, tags, locations and photos you add.

• You own it. You keep ownership of your content.
• Licence to us. You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, copy, process and display your content as needed to run ForageFinds, and to show it to the people allowed by the visibility you choose. For public spots this includes showing it to all users. The licence ends when you delete the content, except for copies kept in backups for a limited time or as required by law.
• Your responsibility. You confirm you have the rights to everything you upload, including photos, and that it doesn't break these terms or the law.
• Visibility. You control who can see each spot. If you make a spot public, other users can see its exact location and act on it. We can't undo that once others have seen it.
• Moderation. We may review, hide or remove content, or change a spot's visibility to private, if we reasonably believe it breaks these terms, puts people or wildlife at risk, or is reported to us. We aren't obliged to monitor content.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• publish spots that encourage trespass, or that are on private land without the landowner's permission;
• publish the locations of legally protected, rare or endangered species, or of sensitive sites, where doing so could lead to harm;
• deliberately mislabel a poisonous species as edible, or post information you know to be false or dangerous;
• post content that is unlawful, harassing, hateful, sexually explicit, or that infringes anyone's rights, including other people's personal information or photos of identifiable people without consent;
• use ForageFinds to organise commercial harvesting where that's not allowed;
• scrape, bulk-download or harvest spot data, or use automated tools to access ForageFinds;
• try to access other users' private spots, interfere with our systems or security rules, or reverse engineer the App or its identification model, except where the law allows;
• use ForageFinds in any way that breaks the law.

6. Land, law and conservation

You are responsible for knowing and following the laws and rules wherever you forage. Tags such as "Public" land status are entered by users and may be wrong. In the UK, for example:

• it's an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to uproot any wild plant without the landowner's or occupier's permission, and some plants and fungi are specially protected;
• picking on Sites of Special Scientific Interest, National Nature Reserves and some other protected areas may be restricted or banned;
• picking wild fruit, flowers, foliage and fungi for commercial purposes without permission can be theft under the Theft Act 1968;
• landowners, local byelaws and organisations such as Forestry England or the National Trust may have their own rules.

Different rules apply in Scotland, Northern Ireland and other countries. Please forage sustainably: take only what you need, leave plenty behind for wildlife, and avoid damaging habitats.

7. Third-party services

ForageFinds uses services from Google, including Google Maps, Places and Firebase. Your use of maps features is also subject to the Google Maps/Google Earth Additional Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy. We're not responsible for third-party services or websites. Map data may be inaccurate, and you shouldn't rely on it for navigation in dangerous terrain.

8. Our intellectual property

ForageFinds, including its software, design, identification model, name and logo, belongs to us or our licensors. We give you a personal, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the App on devices you own or control, for your own non-commercial use, in line with these terms and the terms of the app store you downloaded it from (Apple App Store or Google Play). If you send us feedback or ideas, we can use them without paying you.

9. Availability and changes

ForageFinds is currently free. We may add, change or remove features, or stop offering ForageFinds, at any time. We'll try to give reasonable notice of major changes, and if we shut the service down we'll try to give you a way to export your spots first. We don't guarantee that ForageFinds will always be available, error-free or that your content will never be lost, so keep your own record of spots that really matter to you.

We may update these terms. We'll change the date at the top and, for significant changes, tell you in the App. If you keep using ForageFinds after a change takes effect, the new terms apply.

10. Ending your use

You can stop using ForageFinds at any time by deleting your spots and uninstalling the App, and you can ask us to delete your data as described in our Privacy Policy. We may suspend or end your access if you seriously or repeatedly break these terms, or if we have to for legal reasons. Sections 1, 4 (as it relates to content already shared), 8, 11 and 12 continue to apply after your use ends.

11. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that can't be limited or excluded by law. If you are a consumer, nothing in these terms affects your legal rights.

Subject to that:

• ForageFinds is provided "as is" and "as available". We don't promise that identifications, spots, tags, map data or other content are accurate, complete, safe or suitable for any purpose.
• We're not responsible for the consequences of eating, handling or using any plant, fungus or other material, or for entering any land, based on information in ForageFinds. Section 1 explains why you must verify identifications independently.
• We're not responsible for content posted by other users.
• We're not liable for losses that weren't reasonably foreseeable, for business losses, or for loss of data you could have backed up.
• Because ForageFinds is free, our total liability to you for any claim arising from these terms or your use of ForageFinds is limited to £100.

12. General

• Governing law. These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. Disputes will be dealt with by the courts of England and Wales, except that if you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland you can bring proceedings there, and if you live in the EU you can rely on the mandatory consumer laws of your country and bring proceedings in your local courts.
• Whole agreement. These terms and our Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about ForageFinds.
• Severability. If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest stays in effect.
• No waiver. If we don't enforce a right straight away, we can still enforce it later.
• Transfer. We may transfer our rights under these terms to another organisation. We'll make sure your rights aren't reduced. You may not transfer yours.
• Third parties. No one other than you and us has any right to enforce these terms.

13. Contact

Questions or reports about content: foragefinds.app@gmail.com