Terms of Use

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing and using Urban Biome services ("the Service"), you accept and agree to be bound by the terms and provisions of this agreement.

The Service is provided by Urbanbiome Ltd, trading as Urban Biome, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16520770) whose registered office is Flat 2-6, 34 Upper Cheltenham Place, Bristol, BS6 5HR. In these Terms, "Urbanbiome Ltd", "Urban Biome", "we" and "us" mean that company.

If you do not agree to abide by the above, please do not use this service.

2. Service Description

Urban Biome provides free tools for looking after small green and blue spaces in towns and cities:

• The Urban Biome app for iPhone and Android - a shared map on which people aged 18 and over record sites such as street trees, planters, rain gardens and green walls, with their condition, species and photos, and follow how they change over time. Organisations can say that they own or maintain a site.
• The Urban Biome web map at sightings.urbanbiome.co.uk - the same public map in a web browser. It is view only: you can't record anything through it.
• Urban Biome Explorer - an interactive map of environmental challenges across Bristol, such as air quality, flood risk, urban heat and lack of vegetation

New records appear on the public map overnight, a day or two after they're added.

All tools are currently provided free of charge. We may introduce paid features in the future, which will be clearly communicated.

3. Donations and Support

Urban Biome is supported by voluntary donations through Open Collective. Donations are entirely optional and do not affect your access to the Service.

Donations are used to support the development and maintenance of our tools. Open Collective provides transparent financial tracking of all contributions.

Donation refunds are handled by Open Collective according to their policies.

4. User Accounts

You must be 18 or over to hold an Urban Biome account. By creating one you confirm that you are.

Some features may require you to create an account. You are responsible for:

• Maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials
• All activities that occur under your account
• Notifying us immediately of any unauthorised use

5. Acceptable Use

You agree to use the Service only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You agree not to:

• Use the Service for any illegal or unauthorised purpose
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to any portion of the Service
• Interfere with or disrupt the Service or servers
• Reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works without permission
• Use the Service to transmit viruses, malware, or other harmful code
• Scrape or harvest data in an automated manner without permission
• Upload, post, or submit any content (including photos, observations, and notes) that is unlawful, abusive, harassing, threatening, defamatory, obscene, hateful, or otherwise objectionable
• Impersonate any person or misrepresent your affiliation with any person or organisation

We operate a zero-tolerance policy for objectionable user-generated content and abusive behaviour. You can report content or another user from within the Urban Biome app, or by emailing reports@urbanbiome.co.uk. We review reports and may remove content, and suspend or terminate accounts, at our discretion and without notice. We aim to act on reports of objectionable content within 24 hours.

5a. Illegal content, and how to complain

The Urban Biome app lets people share photographs and written observations with each other, so we have duties under the Online Safety Act 2023. This section sets out how we meet them.

What is not allowed

You must not use the Service to share content that is illegal. That includes, and is not limited to: child sexual abuse material; content that encourages or assists terrorism; threats to kill; harassment, stalking or content intended to cause serious distress; content inciting racial or religious hatred; the non-consensual sharing of intimate images; content facilitating the supply of controlled drugs or weapons; and fraud.

How we find it

We use proactive technology to find harmful content before anyone sees it:

• Every photograph is automatically screened by Sightengine, an automated moderation service, before it is shown to anyone else. Photos showing explicit nudity, a real firearm, serious gore or a hate symbol are rejected and not stored. Photos with a face that got past the phone's blur, a knife (often a garden tool) or a rude gesture are held: only the person who added them can see them until one of us has checked them. If screening can't run at the time, the photo waits, unpublished, for a later automatic check.
• The text of notes, species names, and organisation names and descriptions is checked automatically, by Sightengine, before it is saved. Notes that contain a phone number or an email address are refused.
• Anyone can report content from the Urban Biome app, including a whole site, a single photo or a single timeline entry, or by email to reports@urbanbiome.co.uk. You do not need an account to email us.

What we do about it

Reports go to a moderation queue that a person reviews. We aim to act within 24 hours of a report, and we record when each report was received and when it was resolved. Where content is illegal, we remove it swiftly once we are aware of it. We may also suspend or ban the account responsible. Banned accounts cannot sign in, and their content is hidden from everyone.

We remove terrorism content as soon as we are aware of it, and suspend or ban the account that posted it.

We remove child sexual exploitation and abuse content as soon as we are aware of it, will report it to the National Crime Agency, and suspend or ban the account that posted it.

You can also block another person from within the app at any time, without reporting them and without telling them. That hides their photographs and observations from you.

If you disagree with a decision

If we remove your content or restrict your account and you think we were wrong, email support@urbanbiome.co.uk. Tell us what was removed and why you think the decision was mistaken. A person will look at it again and reply. You can complain the same way if you report something and are unhappy with how we handled it.

This includes photos and notes rejected or held automatically when you add them. If you think one was stopped by mistake, email support@urbanbiome.co.uk and tell us roughly when you uploaded it and what it showed. A person, not the automated system, will review the decision, and we aim to reply within 14 days.

You can also complain to us, the same way, if you think we are not meeting our duties under the Online Safety Act, for example in how we deal with illegal content or with reports.

Protecting children

Accounts are for people aged 18 and over (section 4). We do not knowingly allow under-18s to hold accounts, and we do not operate any feature intended to appeal to children.

6. Data and Privacy

We take your privacy seriously. Our collection and use of personal information is governed by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

You retain ownership of any content you upload to the Service, including photographs and written observations.

Licence you grant us. So that we can actually run the Service, you grant Urbanbiome Ltd a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for example resizing a photograph, or having it analysed automatically as described in our Privacy Policy), publish and display the content you submit, and to sublicense those rights to the providers who host and process it on our behalf. This licence exists only for the purposes of operating and improving the Service. It is not a transfer of ownership, we do not sell your content, and we do not license it to anyone for advertising.

The licence continues for as long as the content remains published. If you delete a photograph, the licence over it ends and we delete it. When you delete your account, we delete all your photos too, unless you turn off Also delete my photos. Photos you keep stay published without your name, and the licence over them continues. Site records that remain published without your name after account deletion also remain covered, as described in the Privacy Policy.

You confirm that the content you upload is yours to license: that you took the photograph or have permission to use it, and that publishing it does not breach anyone else's rights or privacy.

7. Intellectual Property

The Service and its original content, features, and functionality are owned by Urbanbiome Ltd and are protected by international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws.

Environmental data and satellite imagery used in the Service may be subject to third-party licences and attribution requirements.

8. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied.

Environmental data and analysis provided by the Service are for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as the sole basis for important decisions. Professional consultation may be required for specific use cases.

9. Locations and Site Visits

Before anything else in this section: we do not exclude, and cannot exclude, our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud. Nothing in these Terms does. That is the law, not a concession, and a term that appeared to say otherwise would simply have no effect. Everything below is subject to it.

Sites and locations shown in the Service are recorded by users. We do not check where they are, who owns them, or whether it is safe or lawful to go there, and their inclusion is not an invitation or permission to visit. Where an organisation has claimed a site, "Owned by" and "Maintained by" are what the organisation tells us. We don't check them.

If you choose to visit a location, you are responsible for your own safety and for having the right to be there. Only record from places you are allowed to be; you do not need to get close to a site to record it.

Condition information in the Service is for information only. Sites are looked after by their owners, such as a council or landowner. Do not try to repair or maintain a site yourself; if something is dangerous, report it to the owner or the council.

Urban Biome is not monitored and is not an emergency service. If something could fall or hurt someone, phone the council, the landowner or 999.

Only record green spaces and features on public land or that can be seen from a public place. Do not record private gardens or homes, schools, nurseries or playgrounds, farmland, cemeteries, or railway or motorway land. When you place a pin, place it on the site itself: the location is the public record of where the site is, not of where you are.

Some wildlife is protected by law, and it can be an offence to disturb it. The app refuses a record that names a protected or sensitive species together with where it lives or breeds, such as a badger sett, a bat roost or a peregrine's nest. Sites whose records mention one of these species are shown on the public map only to within about a kilometre.

Do not photograph people, vehicle number plates or private homes. The app blurs faces it detects before a photo is uploaded, but you remain responsible for what you share.

Sites on your property. If a site is on your property, you can remove it from the map yourself: sign in to the app, open the site, tap … and choose This is on my property. It's hidden straight away. If you can't use the app, email support@urbanbiome.co.uk and we will remove it within 5 working days. Removals are logged, limited in number, and may be reversed if they are misused.

10. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Urbanbiome Ltd shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of your use of the Service, including any visit to a site made in connection with the Service.

Subject to the paragraph below, and except where we have acted unreasonably, our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or in connection with the Service is limited to £1,000.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for breach of the terms implied by the Consumer Rights Act 2015, or for any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under English law. If you are a consumer, nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights.

11. Service Availability

We strive to maintain reliable service availability but cannot guarantee uninterrupted access. We may temporarily suspend the Service for maintenance, updates, or other operational reasons.

We reserve the right to modify or discontinue the Service at any time with reasonable notice where possible.

12. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time. We may terminate or suspend your access to the Service for violation of these Terms or for any other reason at our discretion.

13. Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales, without regard to conflict of law principles.

14. Changes to Terms

We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. Material changes will be communicated through the Service or via email where possible.

Continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the modified Terms.

15. Contact Information

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us at: