Terms of Use

Draft: under legal review. The commitments here are the ones we keep today; the wording may change.

UnityHelp is free for humanitarian organisations, and the records you enter stay yours. Last updated 30 October 2026.

1. Who we are and who can use UnityHelp

UnityHelp is software run by UnityHelp, Inc., a technology company. It is not an NGO or a UN agency, and it does not deliver aid. It is for humanitarian organisations responding in the countries where it operates, and the staff they authorise: national NGOs, community emergency response rooms, national societies, international NGOs and UN agencies. You must be 18 or older, and by accepting these terms for an organisation you confirm you may bind it.

To open an account, write to info@unityhelp.org from your organisation's address with its name, the state it works in and the person who will administer the account. We may ask for a reference from an organisation we already work with or from the coordinating cluster. We do not require government registration or approval. These terms work with the Privacy Policy and the Data and the Authorities page; if they differ on personal data, the Privacy Policy applies.

2. Accounts and administrators

Your administrator decides who in the organisation uses UnityHelp and with what access, keeps the list of users current, and removes people who leave promptly. Keep passwords and codes private, never share an account, and tell us at once if you suspect misuse. Sign-ins expire. Your organisation is responsible for what is done under its accounts.

3. Your data

The organisation that records data owns it and decides what is shared. For those records your organisation is the controller and UnityHelp its processor; for your own account details, UnityHelp is the controller. Record only what your work needs, have a lawful basis for it, and get the person's informed consent where a referral requires it.

A referral case, once sealed, can be read only by the receiving organisation, not by UnityHelp's staff even with full access to the server. Choose a strong passphrase: a weak one is the only way round this. Everything else on the platform is stored so the service can run, and UnityHelp's technical staff can technically reach it; they open an organisation's records only to keep the service running, fix a fault you report, or deal with a security incident.

We do not sell data, use it for advertising or use it to train any model. We improve UnityHelp using measurements of how the service runs, such as errors, speed and which features are used, and what users choose to tell us. We do not use the content of your records, conversations, photos or voice notes to train a model or improve the service. Others see your records only if you share them, and then counts and places, never names.

UnityHelp, Inc. is a US company, so a court with jurisdiction over it can order it to hand over data, wherever the data is held. If that happens we check the order is valid, hand over only what it names, keep a record, and tell your organisation unless the order forbids it. We cannot hand over a sealed case, and we will not build a way to read one.

Your organisation can ask for a copy of all its records at any time by writing to info@unityhelp.org, and we send it within 14 days in common formats.

4. Humanitarian use

Use UnityHelp only for humanitarian coordination and response. You must not use it to:

• find, track, identify or locate a person in order to harm, detain, pressure or discriminate against them;
• support surveillance, intelligence gathering, or military or security operations;
• join one organisation's household register with another's, or try to identify a person from a count or other aggregate;
• open a sealed case meant for another organisation, or get around any access control;
• record or share a person's information without a lawful basis or, where required, their consent;
• submit false or fabricated reports, or pretend to be another organisation or person;
• exploit, abuse or retaliate against anyone, including a person who made a referral or a complaint;
• upload malicious code, overload or scrape the service, or interfere with its security;
• break any law that applies to you.

Tell us about misuse at info@unityhelp.org. We will not penalise a report made in good faith.

5. Not operational advice, and the AI assistant

What UnityHelp shows is a coordination aid, not operational, protection, medical, legal or security advice. Records can be wrong or old. "Nothing recorded" does not mean "no need", and a referral sent does not mean the person was helped. You remain responsible for your risk assessments, programme decisions and duty of care.

The assistant is an AI. It can be wrong, it cannot send help or contact anyone, and it must not be used in an emergency. If someone is in immediate danger, contact local emergency services or the nearest protection actor. To answer, it sends your question and the records it reads to an AI model provider, never a sealed case. Do not type ID numbers, names of people at risk or exact locations unless a feature asks for them.

6. Plans and fees

Humanitarian organisations pay nothing for humanitarian work. Other users need a paid plan, shown before they subscribe or agreed in writing, with 30 days' written notice of a price change. If it is unclear whether an organisation is humanitarian, UnityHelp decides, tells you why, and lets you explain first.

7. Suspension and ending

You can leave at any time with a copy of your records. We may suspend an account immediately if it threatens a person's safety or the platform's security, or breaks section 4; we tell you why as soon as it is safe to. For any other reason we give at least 30 days' written notice. After an account closes, your administrator can ask for its records for 60 days; then we delete them from the platform. Database backups are kept for up to 120 days, and a deleted photo or voice note can remain in our backups. If something must be removed sooner, write to info@unityhelp.org and we will remove it from the backups too. Records of who opened a gender-based violence incident are kept permanently and hold no case content. If UnityHelp closes, we give as much notice as we can and send every organisation a copy of its records.

8. Liability, sanctions and disputes

We work to keep UnityHelp running, but cannot promise it is always available or free of errors. To the extent the law allows, UnityHelp is not liable for indirect or consequential loss; for free use, it is not liable beyond what the law does not allow it to exclude; for a paid plan, its total liability is limited to the fees paid in the 12 months before the claim. We are not responsible for failure caused by conflict, power or network failure, shutdowns, disasters or similar events. Each party follows the sanctions and export laws that apply to it. Nothing here waives any privilege or immunity of the United Nations or its agencies. We first try to settle a dispute by discussion, then by mediation.

9. Changes and contact

For a material change we email your administrator at least 30 days before it takes effect; if you do not accept it, you can take your records and close the account before then. Contact: info@unityhelp.org.