Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

Academic Ally is operated by ACADEMIC SUPPORT LIMITED, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 12520772), with its registered office at 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, England, WC1N 3AX.

By creating an account or using the app you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, please do not use the service.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data and forms part of these terms.

2. Eligibility and your account

• You must be at least 18 years old, or have reached the age of majority where you live, and be able to enter into this agreement.
• Give accurate account details and keep your sign-in method secure. Activity carried out under your account is treated as yours.
• Use one account per person. Do not share credentials or impersonate anyone else.
• Using the app does not replace your university's rules: you must still follow your institution's academic integrity, data protection and IT policies.

3. What Academic Ally is — and what it is not

Academic Ally provides ethical academic mentoring and guidance: study and research planning, structuring your own work, academic skills and writing guidance, source verification, responsible AI literacy, and signposting to institutional services.

We do not provide, and will not accept requests for: ghostwriting, written assignments or any work intended to be submitted as your own, completion of exams or assessments, fabricated sources or data, plagiarism or AI-detector evasion, guaranteed grades, admissions, visas, scholarships or recognition decisions.

We do not guarantee any academic outcome. You remain responsible for your own work and submissions.

4. Your responsibilities

• Use the service lawfully and only for academic guidance.
• Do not upload other people's confidential or personal data, or material you have no right to share.
• Do not harass, threaten, discriminate against or impersonate anyone, and do not post spam or unlawful content.
• Do not attempt to break, scrape, overload or reverse-engineer the service, or to access other users' accounts or data.
• Do not use the community to share assignment answers, exam material, or copyrighted content you cannot lawfully share.

5. Student communities are independent

Community groups exist so students can support each other. They are independent student communities: they are not run, sponsored, endorsed or monitored by any university, and a group's presence does not imply any affiliation.

Community content comes from members. We review reports and remove content that breaks these terms, but we do not verify every statement, and nothing posted there is official university advice.

6. Your content and the licence you give us

You keep ownership of the posts, comments, messages and files you create.

To run the service, you grant ACADEMIC SUPPORT LIMITED a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, copy, display, format and transmit that content, and to review and moderate it, solely for operating, securing and improving Academic Ally. We do not sell your content or use it for advertising.

The licence ends when the content is deleted, except for copies kept in backups, moderation records, or where the law requires retention.

You confirm that you have the rights to what you upload and that it does not infringe anyone else's rights.

7. Private messages and safe conduct

Private messages are for respectful academic and community contact. Do not use them to harass or pressure anyone, to send unsolicited commercial content, or to request or share another person's personal data.

Messages are visible to the recipient and can be accessed by platform administrators for safety, abuse handling or legal reasons. They are not end-to-end encrypted, so do not send anything you would not want the operator to be able to read.

You can block a member and report a post, comment or message. Blocking hides content between you and that member; reports go to moderators.

8. Moderation, reports and blocking

We may review content, hide or restrict a post or comment, remove content, or warn, suspend or terminate an account where these terms are broken or where it is needed for safety or legal reasons.

Moderation actions are recorded internally so decisions can be reviewed. If you believe a decision was wrong, email us and we will look at it again.

We are not obliged to host any particular content, and removing content does not necessarily mean that moderation records are deleted.

9. Guidance requests and uploaded files

Guidance requests are reviewed by our team and answered with a plan, scope or response. We may decline a request that would breach academic integrity, or that we cannot handle.

Upload only what is needed to discuss your work, and avoid unnecessary sensitive data. Responsibility for your final submission stays with you.

Response times depend on the request and are confirmed when we reply, not by anything displayed in the app.

10. Fees

The app itself does not process payments, and no subscription is required to use it.

If a particular guidance service is offered for a fee, the price and scope are communicated to you and agreed before you commit to anything. Nothing is charged to you through the app.

11. Our intellectual property

The Academic Ally name and branding, the app, its design, text and software belong to ACADEMIC SUPPORT LIMITED or its licensors. You may use the app as intended, but you may not copy, resell, redistribute or create derivative works from it without permission.

If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.

12. Availability and changes

We aim to keep the service available but do not promise uninterrupted or error-free operation. Maintenance, provider outages or security work may interrupt access.

Features may be added, changed or withdrawn. When we change these terms we publish the new version with a new date on this page.

13. Suspension, termination and deletion

You can stop using the service at any time and request deletion from the Account Deletion page or by email.

We may suspend or terminate access if you breach these terms, if required by law, or to protect users or the service.

When an account ends, access stops and content may be removed, subject to the retention described in the Privacy Policy. Provisions that by their nature should survive — such as the licence covering retained records, liability and governing law — continue to apply.

14. Consumer rights and liability

Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under mandatory UK or EU consumer law, and nothing excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded.

We provide guidance with reasonable care and skill, but the service supports your own study: we do not promise a grade, admission or other academic result, and we are not responsible for decisions made by your university.

We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for losses resulting from content posted by other users, beyond what the law requires.

15. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction.

If you are a consumer living elsewhere in the UK or in the EU, this does not remove the protection of mandatory rules in your country of residence, and you may also bring proceedings there.

16. Contact and changes

Questions about these terms can be sent to the contact address shown above.

These terms describe the service as it currently operates. They are not legal advice, are not a certification of compliance, and do not claim approval by any regulator.