Photographer Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a legally binding agreement between you and HPK AI Labs, a sole proprietorship, registered as a Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) under the Udyam registration scheme, with its principal place of business at 22, Ellora Commercial Center, Relief Road, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380001, India ("HPK AI Labs", "we", "us", "our"). They govern your use of SpotMe, our AI-powered event photo delivery service available at https://spotme.hpklabs.ai, including its installable web app (the "Service").

These Terms apply to photographers, studios and their authorised staff who create a SpotMe account ("you", "your"). Couples and guests who view Event galleries are covered by our separate Guest and Couple Terms of Use.

By ticking the checkbox on the sign-up page and creating an account, or by using the Service, you confirm that you have read, understood and agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you are accepting on behalf of a studio or business, you confirm that you are authorised to bind it, and "you" includes that studio or business. If you do not agree, do not create an account or use the Service.

These Terms are an electronic record under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules made under it. They are generated by a computer system and do not require a physical or digital signature. They are published in accordance with Rule 3(1) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 ("IT Rules").

1. Documents that form this agreement

The following documents are part of these Terms and are incorporated by reference:

• our Privacy Policy;
• our Acceptable Use Policy;
• our Data Processing Addendum;
• our Refund and Cancellation Policy;
• our Face Data Notice; and
• any Order: the written confirmation (by email, invoice, WhatsApp or other written message from us) of the Plan, Fees, storage, duration or Free Trial agreed with you.

If there is a conflict, the following order applies: (a) the Data Processing Addendum, for the processing of personal data; (b) an Order, for commercial terms such as Fees, storage, duration and Free Trial details; and (c) these Terms, for everything else.

2. Definitions

• "Account" means your SpotMe photographer account.
• "Client" means the person or people who engaged you to photograph an Event, such as a wedding couple or their family.
• "Couple" means anyone who logs in to an Event through its Master Link.
• "Guest" means anyone who logs in to an Event through its Guest Link.
• "End User" means a Couple or a Guest.
• "Event" means an event you create on the Service, and the photos, folders and settings within it.
• "Event Content" means the photos and other material you upload to the Service, and the versions we generate from them (such as web-optimised copies, thumbnails and watermarked copies).
• "Event Data" means the personal data contained in or derived from Event Content (including Face Data), and the personal data of End Users of your Events.
• "Face Data" means face templates (numerical representations of facial features), face positions and quality scores, people groups and face thumbnails that the Service creates from Event Content and from Guest selfies.
• "Master Link" and "Guest Link" mean the links the Service generates for each Event, which let Couples and Guests respectively log in to the Event.
• "Plan" means the paid subscription or package, and "Fees" means the amounts payable for it, as stated in an Order.
• "Free Trial" means free access to the Service that we grant under Section 11.
• "Data Protection Law" means the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the rules under it ("DPDP Act"), the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules under it (including the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011 (the "SPDI Rules") and the IT Rules), and any other data protection law that applies, such as the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation.

3. Eligibility and your Account

3.1 Eligibility. You must be at least 18 years old and competent to enter into a contract under the Indian Contract Act, 1872. The Service is for professional photographers and studios using it for their business. You must have a valid Indian mobile number and email address.

3.2 Accurate information. You must give accurate, current and complete information when you sign up and keep it up to date. We verify your mobile number and email address with one-time passwords (OTPs).

3.3 Security. You are responsible for keeping your password, OTPs and devices secure, and for all activity under your Account. Do not share your login credentials. Tell us immediately at spotme@hpklabs.ai if you suspect unauthorised access.

3.4 One studio, one Account. An Account is personal to you or your studio. You may not sell, transfer or sublicense it.

3.5 Our right to refuse. We may refuse an Account or verification if we reasonably believe the information given is false, or that the Account would be used in breach of these Terms.

4. The Service

4.1 What we provide. The Service lets you upload Event photos, organise them into folders, apply your watermark, detect and group faces, and share each Event through a Master Link and a Guest Link. Couples can see all photos of the Event. Guests log in with an OTP, take a selfie, and see the photos in which their face was matched, plus any photos the Couple has chosen to share with all guests. You decide whether End Users may download photos.

4.2 Changes to the Service. We continuously improve the Service and may add, change or remove features. If we remove a feature that is material to a Plan you have paid for, we will tell you in advance where reasonably possible.

4.3 Availability. We aim to keep the Service available at all times but do not guarantee that it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may suspend the Service temporarily for maintenance, upgrades, security or reasons beyond our control. Face processing runs on separate computing resources and may take time to complete, especially for large Events.

4.4 Support. We provide support by email at spotme@hpklabs.ai.

5. Face recognition and accuracy

5.1 Automated processing. Face detection, grouping and matching are automated. They are statistical by nature and will sometimes miss a person or match the wrong person, for example because of lighting, angle, blur, obstructions (such as sunglasses or veils), similar-looking people or image quality. Faces that appear to belong to children under about 5 years old are automatically excluded from matching.

5.2 Your controls. You can turn each Event's Master Link and Guest Link on or off, enable or disable downloads, and delete photos at any time. You should review your Events before sharing links.

5.3 Permitted purpose. Face Data is used only to deliver photos to the people in them within the same Event. You must not use the Service to identify unknown people, for surveillance, for security or access control, or to build a database of faces.

5.4 No training, no cross-event matching. We do not use your Event Content, Face Data or any other data to train, test or improve AI or machine-learning models, and we never match faces across different Events or different photographers' Accounts.

6. Your content

6.1 You keep ownership. As between you and us, you own all rights in your Event Content, your logo and your watermark. Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership to us.

6.2 Licence to us. You grant HPK AI Labs a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence, for as long as your Event Content is stored on the Service, to host, store, copy, back up, process, resize, compress, watermark and transmit your Event Content; to run face detection, grouping and matching on it; and to display it to you and to End Users who access your Events. This licence is only for providing, securing and supporting the Service and complying with the law. It ends when the Event Content is deleted from the Service, except for copies that remain in backups until those backups expire (within 7 days).

6.3 No other use. We will not sell your Event Content, use it for advertising or marketing, or show it to anyone other than you and people who access your Events, except as required by law or with your prior written permission.

6.4 Branding. You grant us a licence to display your studio name, logo and watermark on your Events' galleries, links and login screens. We will not list your studio or logo as a customer of SpotMe in our marketing without your prior consent.

7. Your responsibilities for Event Data

7.1 Your role. For Event Data, you decide the purpose and means of processing, so you are the Data Fiduciary (controller) under Data Protection Law, and HPK AI Labs is your Data Processor under our Data Processing Addendum. You must comply with Data Protection Law in relation to Event Data.

7.2 Rights in photos. You confirm that you own, or are licensed to use, the copyright and all other rights in the Event Content you upload, and that you are authorised by your Client to upload and deliver the photos of their Event through the Service.

7.3 Notice and consent. Before you upload Event photos and run face detection, you must make sure that:

• your Client has been told that the Event's photos will be uploaded to SpotMe, processed with face recognition and shared through links, and has agreed to it;
• your Client has been asked to let guests know (for example, through the invitation, a sign at the venue or the message sharing the Guest Link) that photos will be delivered through SpotMe using face recognition; and
• any consent required by law has been obtained, including the consent of a parent or lawful guardian for children.

SpotMe separately shows every Couple and Guest a notice and records their agreement when they log in.

7.4 Sharing links responsibly. A Master Link gives access to all photos of the Event, its people groups and their face thumbnails. Share it only with your Client or people your Client authorises. A Guest Link lets anyone who has it log in with a verified Indian mobile number and see photos that match their own face, and any photos the Couple has shared with all guests. You are responsible for who receives your links, and you can turn them off at any time.

7.5 Guest information. Your dashboard shows the name, mobile number and activity of verified guests and couples of your Events, and lets you export it. You must:

• use it only to deliver the Event's photos and to communicate with those people about that Event;
• not sell, rent or share it with anyone else;
• not send marketing or promotional messages to them unless they have separately consented, and then only in compliance with the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 and Data Protection Law;
• keep any export secure and delete it when you no longer need it for that purpose; and
• honour any request from them to stop using or to delete their information.

7.6 Requests from individuals. Couples and guests cannot delete Event Data themselves in the Service; our documents tell them to send access, correction and deletion requests (including withdrawal of consent to face matching) to you, as the owner of the Event. You must act on each such request within 15 days, for example by deleting the photos concerned or the Event, or ask us to help. If a person contacts us instead, or tells us you have not acted, we will forward the request to you, and where the law requires it we may act on it ourselves and inform you.

7.7 Minimum data. Upload only photos that you are delivering to the Client. Do not upload identity documents, medical information or any other sensitive material that is not part of the Event's photos.

8. Acceptable use

You must follow our Acceptable Use Policy. In particular, you must not upload, display, share or transmit any content that:

• belongs to another person and to which you do not have any right;
• is obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another person's privacy (including bodily privacy), insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, racially or ethnically objectionable, relates to or encourages money laundering or gambling, or promotes enmity between groups on the grounds of religion or caste with intent to incite violence;
• is harmful to children;
• infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary right;
• deceives or misleads anyone about the origin of the content, or knowingly communicates information that is patently false or misleading;
• impersonates another person, including through synthetic or AI-altered images;
• threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign States or public order, incites the commission of any cognisable offence, prevents the investigation of any offence or insults any other nation;
• contains a software virus or any other computer code, file or program designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer resource; or
• violates any law in force.

Nudity is not allowed. You must not upload photos containing full or partial nudity or sexual content of any kind, including boudoir, artistic or maternity photos showing nudity.

If you breach these rules, we may remove or disable access to the content, suspend or terminate your Account, and report the matter to the authorities where the law requires. As required by the IT Rules, we will remind you of these rules at least once a year, and we will act on court orders and lawful directions of the Government within the timelines the law sets.

9. Storage, archival and deletion

9.1 Storage limit. Your Plan or Free Trial includes a storage limit, shown in your dashboard. Original photos of archived Events continue to count toward your storage limit until they are permanently deleted. You cannot upload more photos once you reach your limit.

9.2 Permanent deletion by you. You can permanently delete photos or an Event at any time. Permanent deletion removes the Event Content, Face Data, and Guest and Couple records of that Event. Stored files are purged in the background shortly afterwards, and remaining copies in backups expire within 7 days. Permanent deletion cannot be undone.

9.4 Keep your own copies. SpotMe is a delivery service, not a backup or archiving service. You must keep your own copies of all original photos. We are not responsible for loss of Event Content, except to the extent caused by our breach of these Terms, and then subject to Section 17.

10. Plans, Fees and payment

10.1 Plans. Plans, Fees, storage and duration are as set out in your Order. Plans do not renew automatically.

10.2 Payment. Fees are payable in Indian Rupees, in advance, by bank transfer or UPI to the account details stated in our invoice or Order. Only pay to account details we have confirmed in writing. Your Plan starts when we confirm receipt of payment.

10.3 Taxes. Goods and Services Tax (GST) is currently not charged on our Fees. If GST or any other tax becomes applicable, it will be charged in addition to the Fees as required by law, and we will tell you before it applies. If you are required by law to deduct tax at source, you must provide the relevant certificate.

10.4 Price changes. We may change our Fees for future Plans. Changes do not affect a Plan you have already paid for.

10.5 End of a Plan. If you do not renew a Plan before it ends, the rules in Section 11.4 apply from the date it ends, as if it were the end of a Free Trial.

10.6 Refunds. Fees are non-refundable.

11. Free Trial

11.1 At our discretion. We may, at our sole discretion, offer you a Free Trial. Free Trials are offered case by case. We are not obliged to offer one to everyone or to offer the same terms each time.

11.2 Trial details. The duration, storage limit and any feature limits of your Free Trial will be those we tell you in writing (for example, by email or WhatsApp) or show in your dashboard. If we have not told you a duration, the Free Trial continues until we tell you it has ended.

11.3 No charge and no automatic conversion. A Free Trial is free. We do not ask for payment details, and a Free Trial does not convert into a paid Plan automatically. We may change or end a Free Trial at any time; where reasonably possible, we will give you notice.

11.4 When a Free Trial ends without you buying a Plan:

• for 15 days after it ends, your Account becomes read-only: you can view and download your Event Content, but you cannot upload photos or create Events;
• from day 16 to day 30 after it ends, access to your Account and your Events' links may be suspended, but your data is kept, so you can still buy a Plan and continue; and
• after 30 days, we may permanently delete your Account's Event Content, Face Data, and Guest and Couple records. We will try to remind you by email before this happens.

11.5 As is. Free Trials are provided "as is", without any commitment of availability or support. Our total liability for a Free Trial is limited as stated in Section 17.

12. Account deletion, suspension and termination

12.1 Deleting your Account. You can delete your Account at any time from Profile in your dashboard. Your access is revoked immediately. Your Events, Event Content, Face Data, and Guest and Couple records are kept for 7 days and then permanently deleted. If you deleted your Account by mistake, email us within those 7 days and we will try to restore it. Your Events' links may continue to work until deletion is complete, unless you turn them off or delete the Events before deleting your Account. We keep your registration information (studio name, email address and mobile number) and consent records for 180 days after deletion, as required by Rule 3(1)(h) of the IT Rules, and then delete them.

12.2 Suspension or termination by us. We may suspend or terminate your Account, or remove content, with notice where reasonably possible, if:

• you breach these Terms or our Acceptable Use Policy;
• you do not pay Fees when due;
• we are required to do so by law or by a court or government order;
• your use creates a security, legal or reputational risk to the Service, to other users or to us; or
• your Account has been inactive, with no active Plan or Free Trial, for more than 12 months.

12.3 Effect. When your Account ends, your right to use the Service ends, and your data is handled as described in Section 12.1 and our Privacy Policy. Fees already paid are not refunded, except as stated in our Refund and Cancellation Policy.

12.4 Survival. Sections 6.1, 7, 9.4, 12.3, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20 and 22 survive the end of these Terms.

13. Our intellectual property

The Service, including its software, design, text, graphics, logos and the SpotMe name, is owned by HPK AI Labs or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use the Service in accordance with these Terms. You must not copy, modify, distribute, sell or lease any part of the Service, or reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to extract its source code or models, except where the law expressly allows it. If you give us feedback or suggestions, we may use them freely without any obligation to you.

14. Confidentiality

We will treat your Event Content, Event Data and non-public Account information as confidential, and use and disclose them only as described in these Terms and our Privacy Policy. You will treat any non-public information about the Service that we share with you as confidential.

15. Security and personal data breaches

We protect the Service and your data using the measures described in our Privacy Policy and Data Processing Addendum. You are responsible for the security of your own devices, credentials, and any photos or guest information you download or export. If we become aware of a personal data breach affecting your Event Data, we will inform you without undue delay, and we will make the notifications that Data Protection Law requires of us. You will cooperate with us and make any notifications that the law requires of you.

16. Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available". We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure at all times, that face detection or matching will be accurate or complete, or that Event Content will never be lost. Nothing in these Terms excludes any warranty or right that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

17. Limitation of liability

17.1 To the maximum extent permitted by law, HPK AI Labs will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, business, goodwill or data, however caused, even if we were told they were possible.

17.2 Nothing in these Terms limits liability for fraud, or any liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.

18. Indemnity

You will indemnify and hold harmless HPK AI Labs and its proprietor from any claims, losses, liabilities, penalties, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:

• your Event Content, including any claim that it infringes someone's rights or was uploaded without the required authority or consent;
• your failure to give the notices or obtain the consents required under Section 7;
• your use of guest or couple information in breach of Section 7.5;
• your breach of these Terms or of any law; or
• any dispute between you and your Client or any End User.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes, we may give you at least 7 days' notice as per our discretion, by email or in your dashboard, unless a change is required sooner by law or to address a security risk. The new version applies from its effective date, and we will ask you to accept it in your dashboard. If you do not agree, you must stop using the Service and may delete your Account.

20. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of India. Before starting any legal proceedings, both parties will try in good faith to resolve the dispute through discussion for at least 30 days after one party notifies the other in writing. Subject to that, the courts at Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service. Nothing in this Section prevents either party from seeking urgent interim relief, or limits any right you have under a law that cannot be waived.

21. Grievance Officer

In accordance with the IT Rules and the DPDP Act, our Grievance Officer is:

Umang Gajjar, Grievance Officer, HPK AI Labs
22, Ellora Commercial Center, Relief Road, Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380001, India
Email: spotme@hpklabs.ai

We will acknowledge complaints within 24 hours and try to resolve them within 15 days. See our Grievance Redressal page for details.

22. General

• Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the documents in Section 1, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service and replace any earlier understanding.
• Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our written consent. We may assign or transfer these Terms to a successor of the SpotMe business, including any company or limited liability partnership to which the business of HPK AI Labs is transferred. We will tell you if this happens.
• Force majeure. Neither party is liable for failure or delay in performance caused by events beyond its reasonable control, such as natural disasters, epidemics, war, civil unrest, government action, power or internet failures, or failures of our service providers.
• Severability. If any provision is found invalid or unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent possible and the rest of these Terms will remain in effect.
• No waiver. A failure or delay to enforce any right is not a waiver of it.
• Notices. We may send notices to the email address or mobile number on your Account, or show them in your dashboard. You may send notices to spotme@hpklabs.ai.
• Relationship. The parties are independent contractors. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, employment or agency relationship.
• Language. These Terms are written in English. If they are translated, the English version prevails.