Terms and Conditions

These Terms and Conditions (the Terms) form a binding agreement between Social Scanner Ltd and the school, academy trust, education provider or other organisation accepting them (the Customer). They govern access to our website, customer portal and online background-screening services (together, the Services).

Social Scanner Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales under company number 14621108. Our registered office is 17 Burrows Road, Kingswinford, West Midlands, United Kingdom, DY6 8LS. You can contact us at info@socialscanner.co.uk.

The Services are supplied for business and professional use only. They are not offered to consumers acting wholly or mainly outside their trade, business, craft or profession.

A contract begins when we accept an order, create an organisation account, issue an invitation or otherwise confirm access to the Services. These Terms, any order form or proposal, our Acceptable Use Policy, and any written data-processing or service schedule we agree make up the contract. If they conflict, a signed order form takes priority, followed by a signed schedule, these Terms and the Acceptable Use Policy.

The person accepting the contract or placing an order confirms that they are authorised to bind the Customer. Each Customer must ensure that its authorised users comply with the contract and remains responsible for their activity.

We provide structured online background screening designed to support safer recruitment. A screening may review publicly accessible online material, including search-engine results, news sources and public social-media profiles, against the agreed scope. We provide an evidence-based report for trained human consideration.

Online information can be incomplete, outdated, duplicated, taken out of context or incorrectly attributed. We do not promise that every relevant item will be found, that every result concerns the candidate, or that a report establishes fact, suitability or risk. The Services are not a DBS check, reference, identity-verification service, legal opinion or substitute for the Customer's statutory recruitment processes.

We may improve, maintain or update the Services where this does not materially reduce their core function. We may carry out planned or urgent maintenance and will use reasonable efforts to minimise disruption. Unless a separate service level is agreed in writing, access is provided on a reasonable endeavours basis.

The Customer is the recruitment decision-maker. It must:

• have a lawful, necessary and proportionate reason for each screening and comply with employment, equality, data-protection, safeguarding and rehabilitation-of-offenders law;
• tell candidates in advance that an online search may be carried out and provide appropriate privacy information;
• submit accurate information, limit requests to the agreed purpose and avoid excessive or irrelevant searches;
• ensure a suitably trained person reviews the complete report, checks identity and context, gives the candidate a fair opportunity to respond where appropriate, and does not make a decision solely from a score, flag or report;
• protect reports as confidential recruitment records and limit access to staff who need them;
• operate its own fair recruitment, retention, complaints and data-subject-rights processes; and
• follow our Acceptable Use Policy.

Keeping Children Safe in Education recommends that schools consider online searches as part of due diligence on shortlisted candidates. It does not require social-media screening in every case. The Customer remains responsible for interpreting and applying current guidance.

Account details must be accurate and kept current. Credentials are personal to the authorised user and must not be shared. The Customer must use appropriate access controls, remove access promptly when a user leaves or changes role, and tell us without undue delay if credentials, candidate data or reports may have been compromised.

We may rely on instructions from an authenticated account. The Customer is responsible for activity under its accounts unless caused by our breach of contract or failure to use reasonable security measures.

One credit ordinarily permits one screening submission. The price per credit is the tier shown at checkout or in an agreed order. Unless stated otherwise, prices exclude VAT, which is added at the prevailing rate.

When an authorised user confirms an order, credits are added immediately and we issue an invoice to the Customer. Invoices are payable within 30 days of the invoice date. A purchase-order number is for the Customer's administration and does not make payment conditional on a purchase order being issued or accepted. The Customer must tell us promptly about a genuine invoice dispute and pay any undisputed amount on time.

Credits are deducted when a screening is submitted. Credits are non-refundable once used and expire 24 months after purchase unless an order form says otherwise. Unused credits have no cash value, may not be resold or transferred to another organisation without our written agreement, and are not refundable merely because the Customer stops using the Services. This does not affect a remedy that the Customer is legally entitled to receive for our material breach.

We may charge statutory interest and reasonable recovery costs on overdue commercial debts under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, suspend further orders or access after reasonable notice, and require payment before restoring service.

Each party must comply with applicable data-protection law, including the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018. The Customer generally determines why a candidate is screened and how the report is used. Where we process candidate personal data solely on the Customer's documented instructions, the Customer is controller and we are processor. We act as controller for our own account administration, security, billing, legal-compliance and service-management purposes. Any different allocation must be recorded in writing after considering the actual processing.

When acting as processor, we will process personal data only on lawful documented instructions; ensure people authorised to process it are bound by confidentiality; use appropriate technical and organisational measures; impose equivalent protections on subprocessors; provide reasonable assistance with rights requests, security incidents, impact assessments and regulator consultations; and, at the end of the Services, delete or return personal data as agreed unless law requires retention.

The Customer gives general authorisation for subprocessors reasonably needed to provide hosting, authentication, communications and support. We remain responsible for their data-protection obligations and will provide information about material processing changes on request. Details of our own processing and rights are in our Privacy Policy. The parties will agree any further Article 28 particulars or international-transfer safeguards reasonably required for the Services.

Each party must keep the other's non-public business, technical and personal information confidential, use it only to perform the contract, and disclose it only to people who need it and are subject to suitable confidentiality duties. This does not cover information that is lawfully public, already known without restriction, independently developed or lawfully received from a third party.

A party may disclose confidential information where law, a court or regulator requires it, after giving advance notice where lawful and reasonably practicable. Candidate reports must always be treated as confidential.

We and our licensors own the Services, software, branding, templates, methodology and materials, excluding Customer-provided content and third-party source material. During the contract, we grant the Customer a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right for authorised users to use the Services for its internal recruitment and safeguarding work.

The Customer keeps ownership of information it submits and grants us the rights needed to host, process and reproduce it to provide, secure and support the Services. The Customer confirms it has authority to provide that information. Feedback may be used to improve our Services without identifying the Customer or candidate.

We will provide the Services with reasonable care and skill. Except as expressly stated and to the fullest extent permitted by law, all other warranties and conditions are excluded.

We do not warrant that the Services will be uninterrupted or error-free, that third-party public content will remain available, or that a report is complete or conclusive. A report is one input to a fair, contextual human recruitment process. The Customer must verify matters that may affect a decision and seek appropriate legal or safeguarding advice where needed.

Nothing in the contract excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence; fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; breach of obligations implied by section 12 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 or section 2 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982; data-protection liability that cannot lawfully be limited; or any other liability that law does not allow to be excluded.

Subject to that paragraph, neither party is liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, anticipated savings, goodwill, opportunity or data, except that properly due charges and direct data-restoration costs are not treated as excluded profit or data losses.

Subject to the first paragraph, each party's total aggregate liability arising in any 12-month period is limited to 125% of charges paid or payable by the Customer in that period. The limit for a party's breach of confidentiality, data-protection obligations or intellectual-property rights is 200% of those charges. These limits apply whether liability arises in contract, tort, negligence, breach of statutory duty or otherwise.

The Customer will be responsible for losses and third-party claims caused by its unlawful screening instructions, discriminatory or solely automated recruitment decisions, unauthorised disclosure of reports, or material breach of the Acceptable Use Policy, to the extent not caused by our breach.

We may suspend access where reasonably necessary to protect candidates, users, the Services or others; investigate suspected unlawful use or a security incident; comply with law; or address overdue undisputed invoices. Where possible, we will explain the reason and allow a reasonable opportunity to remedy it.

Either party may terminate immediately if the other commits a material breach and does not remedy it within 30 days after written notice, or enters insolvency proceedings. Any agreed subscription period and termination rights in an order form also apply.

On termination, access ends, accrued payment obligations remain due, and provisions intended to survive do so. We will handle Customer and candidate data under the agreed retention arrangements and applicable law. Published reports in the platform are ordinarily deleted 60 days after publication; Customers should download any lawful record they need before expiry.

Neither party is liable for delay caused by events beyond its reasonable control, provided it takes reasonable steps to reduce the effect. Neither party may assign the contract without the other's written consent, not to be unreasonably withheld, except that we may assign it as part of a genuine corporate reorganisation or sale of our business.

Notices about breach or termination must be in writing and sent to the registered office or account contact. Email notices to us should be sent to info@socialscanner.co.uk. If any provision is unenforceable, the remainder continues. Delay in enforcing a right is not a waiver. No person other than the parties has rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.

The contract is the entire agreement about its subject matter and replaces earlier discussions, without excluding liability for fraud. Changes must be agreed in writing, except that we may update policies for legal, security or operational reasons. We will give reasonable advance notice of a material adverse change.

The parties will first try in good faith to resolve a dispute through their nominated senior representatives. The contract and any non-contractual dispute are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction.

Questions about these Terms may be sent to info@socialscanner.co.uk.