Terms of Use SOFIA online learning platform

Version May 2018

These Terms of Use refer to the Sofia Platform (https://www.sofialearn.com,https://www.sofialearn.be, https://www.sofialearn.nl,https://www.sofialearn.eu). ACCO recommends that you read these Terms of Use carefully in order to be aware of your rights and obligations.

If you have questions about these Terms of Use, please do not hesitate to contact us via infosofia@acco.be.

Article 1 Definitions

Account:
the personal section created and managed by the User when registering with the Platform to use the Service

Agreement:
the Agreement the User concludes with Sofia to use the Service

Code:
the information that gives users access to the Content on the Platform

Content:
all information posted on the Platform by the User, including but not limited to exercises, videos, text, PDF files, Word documents and PDF documents

Intellectual Property Rights:
all Intellectual Property Rights and other associated rights, such as copyright, trademark rights, patent rights, design rights, trade name rights, database rights and related rights

Login Details:
the user name and password giving the user access to the Service

Platform:
the Platform accessible on https://www.sofialearn.com,https://www.sofialearn.be,https://www.sofialearn.nl, https://www.sofialearn.eu and its subpages providing access to the Service

Service:
the service provided by Sofia to the User based on the Agreement concluded between Sofia and the User as specified in Art. 4 and on the Platform

Sofia:
the name under which ACCO cvba offers the Service. ACCO cvba is based at Blijde Inkomststraat 22, 3000 Leuven, Belgium, BE 0403 547 615.

Terms of Use:
these Sofia terms of use

User:
person who has entered into an Agreement and uses the Service, referred to below as ‘you’ and ‘your’ in these Terms of Use

Article 2 Applicability

2.1 These Terms of Use are applicable to all use of the Service by the User, all agreements concluded on the Platform and the legal acts or legal relationships between the User and Sofia.

2.2 Sofia is entitled to modify or make additions to these Terms of Use at all times without putting you at a disadvantage. The latest Terms of Use will be available on the Platform.

Article 3 Access to the Service

3.1 In order to use the Service, you need to create an Account as described on the Platform. You guarantee Sofia that the information you provide when creating your Account is complete and correct. Access to the Content on the Platform can be obtained via a Code or acceptation of an invite received bij e-mail. This Code and invite are strictly personal and not transmissible to a third party.

3.2 You are responsible for ensuring that the information you provide is accurate and complete and for updating the information if it is no longer correct. The information you provide during the registration process is stored in a database and is processed according to the Privacy Policy which you can consult as described below. Similar to the General Terms and Conditions, this Privacy Policy must be accepted when registering to the Platform.  By clicking the privacy opt-in check box on the forms on the Website, you declare that you have indeed read this Privacy Policy and agree with it. You declare that you understand for what purpose your personal data is processed. You also agree with the fact that your continued use is understood as continued permission.

3.3 You are responsible for keeping your Login Details confidential. Your Login Details may not be provided to any third parties. Sofia shall assume that you are the person actually signing in with your Login Details. As soon as you find out or have any reason to suspect that the Login Details have fallen into the hands of an unauthorised party, you must notify Sofia.

3.4 Login Details Login are strictly personal and not transmissible to a third party. Sofia reserves the right to modify the login procedure and/or Login Details if it considers it necessary in the interest of the Platform’s operation.

Article 4 The Service and use of the Service

4.1 The Service consists of giving you access to the Platform, where you can create and/or access Content.

4.2 Without prejudice to the other provisions of these Terms of Use, your use of the Service and Platform must not:

Contain viruses, Trojan horses, worms, bots or other software that may damage, delete, appropriate or render unusable or inaccessible any automated processes or that aims to circumvent the technical protection of the Sofia Platform, Service and/or computer systems.

Make available the personal information of others.

Use tools other than those offered by the Service to search the Platform or to use data mining, robots or other means of gathering data.

Use any software and/or hardware tools and/or solutions (developed in-house or provided by a third party) to adopt any information provided by the Service or to spider, scrape, search, use and/or access the Platform in any other way.

Be for a purpose other than the purpose described in these Terms of Use.

Be of a commercial character without Sofia’s prior explicit written consent.

Put an unreasonable or disproportional burden of the Platform’s infrastructure or interfere with the functionality of the Service.

Be contrary to Sofia’s view of moral values or good taste.

Violate these Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy or any valid legislation and/or regulations.

Infringe on the rights of Sofia and/or third parties, including but not limited to Intellectual Property Rights and privacy rights.

Be unlawful in any other way, or

Damage Sofia’s interests and reputation.

Article 5 Availability

5.1 Sofia is always entitled to (temporarily) shut down and/or restrict the use of (components of) the Service, the Platform and/or the Content without any prior notice and without becoming liable for compensation to you, if it deems it necessary in order to maintain the Platform, for example.

5.2 In addition to the other (legal) means available to Sofia, Sofia can always (temporarily) restrict, suspend or shut down your activities in terms of the Service, temporarily or permanently remove your Account, issue a warning or terminate or withhold the Service, without having to provide a reason or advance explanation, specifically in – but not limited to - the following cases:

If you act in violation of these Terms of Use.

If Sofia considers that your actions may damage other users or may cause you, Sofia or others to be liable in any way.

Sofia cannot be held liable in these cases.

5.3 Sofia does not guarantee the constant accessibility of the Platform and Service without any interruptions or disturbances. Disruptions to the Service may be the result of failures in the internet or telephone connection, viruses, errors/defects or other causes. In no way will you be entitled to compensation for any damage resulting from or caused by the Service’s (temporary) unavailability or (temporary) failure.

5.4 You are responsible for the purchase and/or good operation of the infrastructure and adequate telecommunications facilities (including the internet connection) required for using the Service.

Article 6 Intellectual Property Rights

6.1 Sofia and/or its license providers own the Intellectual Property Rights with respect to the Service and Platform. None of these Terms of Use are intended to transfer any Intellectual Property Rights to you.

6.2 Under these Terms of Use and for the duration of the Agreement, Sofia gives you the limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Platform and Content and to view it in the way and in the format provided by the Platform.

6.3 No notices or statements regarding Intellectual Property Rights shall be removed, made illegible, hidden or changed.

6.4 Your actions must not infringe on Sofia’s Intellectual Property Rights for example by registering domain names, brands or Google AdWords, querying or reusing substantial parts of the Platform or Content or repeatedly and systematically querying or reusing non-substantial parts of the Platform or Content as referred to in the Legal Protection of Databases Act.

Article 7 Guarantees

7.1 Sofia guarantees that it will provide the Service with reasonable care.

7.2 You accept that the Service only includes the functionality, Content and other properties as you find them when using the Service (on an “as is” basis). Sofia does not provide any guarantees, promises or warranties in terms of the quality, safety, legality, completeness, integrity and accuracy of the Content and the Service, unless otherwise stipulated in these Terms of Use. Sofia is not required to add any specific Content to the Platform at your request.

7.3 In particular, Sofia does not guarantee that using the Service will produce certain results for you, for example improvement of your study results. No rights can be derived from any results, progress reports, statistical reports or other information obtained through the Service.

7.4 Sofia is not liable for any decision based on information obtained through the Service.

Article 8 Liability

8.1 Sofia will put reasonable care into the Platform’s maintenance.

8.2 Sofia does not accept any liability for damage resulting from the provision of the Service, an unlawful action or any other cause.

8.3 Sofia shall never be liable for consequential damage, including pure economic loss, loss of turnover and profit, loss due to switched, lost or damaged electronic data and/or delay in data traffic transport and immaterial damage.

8.4 Sofia is not liable for any damage resulting from a third party’s unauthorised access to or use of the Service.

8.5 The limitation of liability contained in this article does not apply in case of intentional action and/or deliberate recklessness by Sofia itself and/or its management.

Article 9 Force Majeure

9.1 Sofia cannot be held responsible for not delivering the Service in case of unforeseen circumstances or situations beyond Sofia’s reasonable control, including but not limited to natural disasters, war, actions by civil or military authorities, etc. This also includes the (temporary) unavailability of hosting services and third-party software used by Sofia and contributing to the good operation of the Sofia Platform.

9.2 In case of such a delay, Sofia can be exempted from the Agreement’s execution, provided that the execution is delayed or hindered by such a cause.

Article 10 Duration and termination

10.1 The Agreement always has a fixed term, unless otherwise stipulated in additional agreements.

10.2 If the Agreement is terminated for whatever reason, your right to use the Service lapses immediately and access to the Service is immediately denied to you and the third parties you may have given access to your Account. In case of termination for whatever reason, Sofia shall immediately remove your Account. After the Agreement is terminated, Sofia is not required to convert and/or give you any information from the Platform.

Article 11 Miscellaneous

11.1 If any provision of these Terms of Use is declared null and void or voidable or otherwise become wholly or partially invalid, the other provisions of the Terms of Use will remain in full force. Sofia shall replace the invalid provision with a valid provision whose legal consequences correspond to those of the invalid provision as much as possible in terms of the content and scope of these Terms of Use.

11.2 Sofia may transfer rights and obligations under the Terms of Use to third parties and shall notify you if this is the case. If you do not find this transfer of obligations to a third party acceptable, your sole remedy is to discontinue the use of the Platform and terminate your Account.

11.3 These Terms of Use are governed by - and interpreted in accordance with - Belgian law. The courts and tribunals of the district of Leuven are competent to hear any disputes concerning these Terms of Use, unless otherwise enforced by statutory provisions.

Privacy Policy Sofia

Version May 2018

This Privacy Policy applies to data collected from the online platform Sofia (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Platform’) with the URLs https://sofialearn.com,  https://sofialearn.be, https://sofialearn.nl  and https://sofialearn.eu  and all possible sub-domains of this Platform which are processed by ACCO cvba, Blijde Inkomststraat 22, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.

By using this Platform you aknowledge that you have read this Privacy Policy carefully and you agree with it it without reservation. You agree that these data are used in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

The Platform may contain links to other websites that may not be subject to this Privacy Policy and for which ACCO cannot be held responsible or liable.

ACCO reserves the right to modify this Privacy Policy at all times without any prior notice in order to meet legal obligations and/or improve its service to you. Such changes will be communicated on the Platform. We advise you to consult this Privacy Policy regularly on the Platform.

Collection and use of personal data

ACCO gathers identifiable personal data through the Platform. The Platform user hereby unequivocally and irrevocably authorizes ACCO to use these personal data under the terms described in this Privacy Policy.

ACCO shall not store the collected data for longer than is necessary to achieve the objectives mentioned below.

The data provided by the visitor when using the Platform shall be processed in accordance with Regulation of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (GDPR) and with the Belgian Law of 8 December 1992 on the protection of privacy as amended by the laws of 11 December 1998 and 13 June 2005 regarding electronic communication.

ACCO is responsible for processing and using of personal data, such as name and surname, related school/university, addresses, e-mail addresses, etc. with the following purpose: admission to the Platform, Platform user management, improvement of the Platform’s functional and technical quality, learning analytics management to offer personalized learning paths and other services, and general monitoring of activities on the Platform.

ACCO shall not retain the collected data collected longer than necessary for the purposes stated above.

ACCO takes all reasonable measures to guarantee the confidentiality of the personal data provided by the user. However, every visitor acknowledges that the disclosure of personal information on the internet is never without risk. The visitor also accepts that ACCO can never be held responsible or liable for any direct or indirect damage the visitor may incur following the illegal or unauthorized use of his or her personal data by a third party.

ACCO will only process your identifiable personal data in the EEA.

Your rights

Every user is entitled to access, modify, correct, transfer (if technically possible), restrict the processing of and delete his or her data or withdraw prior given consent. Notice that withdrawing permission can imply that you will no longer be able to use all or part of the Services.

You can exercise your rights by sending a request to infosofia@acco.be. Such request must clearly state what right you wish to exercise and why. It must also be dated, signed and accompanied by a digitally scanned copy of your valid identity card prooving your identity.

Data sharing with third parties

Although ACCO may share personal data with so-called service providers processing the information on its behalf, ACCO shall not share any data with third parties for secondary or unrelated purposes, unless otherwise mentioned at the time of collecting the information. ACCO staff or third parties engaged by ACCO are obliged to respect the confidentiality of the data on the Platform.

Where appropriate or necessary, ACCO shall provide personal data to law enforcement authorities, regulatory or other government bodies, or other third parties, if this is necessary or desirable to comply with legal or regulatory obligations or in the context of the above objectives.

 

Cookies

Cookies are small text files stored on a user’s hard drive while the user is visiting a website, often to guarantee and optimize the use of that website.

Cookies may be placed on your computer’s hard drive when you are visiting the Platform, for the sole purpose of ensuring the optimal use of the Platform.

Your internet browser allows you to prevent the use of cookies. You’ll receive a warning when a cookie is installed or will have the possibility to remove cookies from your hard drive. For more information, use the help function of your web browser. This information is used anonymously and can in no way be linked to a specific person.

For further information on removing or blocking cookies, visit the following website: http://www.aboutcookies.org/Default.aspx?page=2.

Miscellaneous

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy contact us via infosofia@acco.be. This Privacy Policy is governed by and interpreted in accordance with Belgian law.

The courts and tribunals of the district of Leuven (Belgium) are competent to hear any disputes concerning this Privacy Policy, unless otherwise enforced by statutory provisions.