About these terms
The Visual Thinking Company Inc. ("VTCo", "we", "us", or "our") builds civic intelligence infrastructure that integrates, organizes, and presents information drawn from public, institutional, and other authoritative sources.
These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern access to and use of VTCo's websites, public applications, professional and institutional products, data products, and related services (collectively, the "Services"). Please read them before using the Services.
1. Acceptance of terms
By accessing or using the Services, including our websites, School Guide, Territory Intelligence, Pattern Recognition Workshop engagements, and data products, you agree to be bound by these Terms.
If you use the Services on behalf of an organization, you confirm that you have authority to bind that organization, and "you" includes that organization.
Some Services are also governed by a separate written agreement between you and VTCo, such as an order form, subscription agreement, licence, master services agreement, or research agreement. Where such an agreement conflicts with these Terms, that agreement governs to the extent of the conflict.
Nothing in these Terms limits a right or remedy that cannot lawfully be limited or waived.
2. Definition of user tiers
These Terms apply to all users, who are classified as follows.
- Public users: individuals who access our free, publicly available Services, such as School Guide.
- Institutional and commercial users: organizations, including municipalities, school districts, health authorities, realtors, and sponsors, that access paid Services through a subscription, licence, or other commercial agreement.
- Academic partners: approved researchers and institutions participating in our Academic Partnership Program, whose use is governed by these Terms and by Schedule A.
Product names change over time. A reference in these Terms to a category of Service includes any successor product performing substantially the same function.
3. Use of the Services
Licence. VTCo grants you a limited, non-exclusive, revocable, and non-transferable right to access and use the Services for their intended purpose.
What public users may do. Public users may view and interact with public Services, link to public pages, share screenshots or short excerpts for personal, editorial, educational, or non-commercial purposes, quote or cite VTCo material with reasonable attribution, and use any sharing or export function VTCo makes available.
These permissions do not extend to reproducing a Service or dataset in substantial part, building a competing database or product from VTCo material, removing attribution or rights notices, or commercially exploiting protected VTCo material without permission. Institutional and commercial users receive the additional rights set out in their agreement with VTCo.
Acceptable use. You agree not to use the Services for any unlawful purpose, attempt unauthorized access to an account, system, or dataset, interfere with the security, integrity, or availability of the Services, introduce malicious code, circumvent access controls or usage limits, or place unreasonable load on VTCo infrastructure.
Automated access through an authorized API, an export function, or a written agreement is permitted on its own terms. Ordinary indexing by search engines and access by accessibility tools are permitted. VTCo may set reasonable technical limits on automated access.
4. Intellectual property
VTCo and its licensors retain the rights they respectively own or licence in the Services. Depending on the Service, VTCo rights may subsist in software and source code, user interfaces, original writing, graphics, maps, and visualizations, original research and analysis, database architecture and organization, the original selection and arrangement of information to the extent protectable, datasets derived and transformed by VTCo, documentation, trademarks and product names, and confidential methods and know-how.
The Services integrate information from government, institutional, and other third-party sources. Underlying source material remains subject to the ownership, copyright, licence, attribution, and use conditions imposed by the relevant rights holder. Where required, VTCo identifies or links to source information and attribution notices through the relevant Service or through our methodology documentation.
Nothing in these Terms gives VTCo ownership of facts, public information, or third-party material merely because that material appears in, or is processed by, a Service. A VTCo visualization, integration, calculation, or derived product does not transfer ownership of the underlying source material to VTCo or to you. Where you independently obtain, reproduce, or redistribute source material, you are responsible for complying with the conditions the source imposes.
5. Data limitations and professional judgment
Civic data has inherent limits. Information available through the Services may originate from third-party sources, carry forward errors or omissions present in those sources, reflect a particular collection date or reporting period, be revised after publication, involve statistical estimation or suppression, depend on specific geographic or methodological definitions, or become outdated as conditions change.
Where practicable, VTCo provides source references, methodology information, dates, and known limitations so that users can assess the evidence themselves. Where VTCo classifies evidence using its L1 to L5 evidence hierarchy, the applicable classification is indicated in the material itself. Not every Service or dataset carries a classification.
The Services support analysis and decision-making. They do not constitute legal, financial, planning, engineering, medical, real estate, or other regulated professional advice. Users remain responsible for deciding whether information is appropriate to their circumstances, and for exercising judgment where a decision has material consequences. The role of the Services is to support human discretion, not to replace it.
6. Disclaimers and limitation of liability
The Services are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, VTCo makes no warranties regarding the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the data, and does not warrant that the Services will operate without interruption, that every defect will be corrected, or that every third-party data source will remain available.
VTCo is not responsible for decisions made by users on the basis of the Services.
Nothing in this section excludes or limits liability that applicable law does not permit VTCo to exclude or limit.
7. Changes to these terms
VTCo may update these Terms to reflect changes in law, in the Services, or in our business practices. The effective date at the top of this page identifies the current version. Where a change materially affects an existing paid user's rights, VTCo will give reasonable notice. Changes do not retroactively alter rights or obligations already accrued.
8. Privacy
VTCo handles personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable privacy law. Institutional engagements may also be subject to a separate data processing agreement or privacy schedule.
9. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of British Columbia and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein.
10. Contact
Questions about these Terms can be sent through our contact page.
Schedule A: Academic Partnership Program addendum
These terms apply in addition to the general terms for approved academic partners, and to the extent a written research agreement applies to a particular engagement, that agreement governs.
A.1. Purpose and scope
The Academic Partnership Program supports independent examination of VTCo methods, data practices, and analytical systems by qualified researchers and institutions. An engagement may examine matters such as source provenance, data integration, transformations and calculations, analytical methods, reproducibility, evidence classification, system legibility, or limitations.
Participation in the program does not constitute endorsement of VTCo, its products, or its methods by the academic partner or by that partner's institution.
A.2. Scope of an engagement
Each engagement is governed by a written research scope identifying the question or system under examination, the materials and level of access to be provided, confidentiality and security requirements, expected outputs, and any publication procedure.
No academic partner is required to reach a predetermined conclusion.
A.3. Research access
VTCo provides access appropriate to the agreed research question. Depending on the engagement, that may include methodology and provenance documentation, relevant code, derived or aggregate data, synthetic test data, controlled samples, or other material reasonably necessary for the agreed review. Access to confidential, restricted, or sensitive information occurs only where lawful and expressly authorized by the applicable research agreement.
Where appropriate to the sensitivity of the material, access may take place in a controlled research environment maintained by VTCo or by an approved third party, with controls that may include authentication and access restriction, activity logging, restrictions on export, review of outputs for disclosure risk, and deletion or return of material at the end of the engagement. VTCo does not describe a research environment as certified or accredited unless that designation has been obtained.
A.4. Independence
Academic partners are responsible for their own findings and conclusions. VTCo may explain its systems, answer factual questions, identify factual inaccuracies in a draft, provide additional documentation, and respond to findings.
VTCo does not require an academic partner to characterize VTCo methods as sound, validated, or verified as a condition of participation. Where VTCo reviews a draft before publication, that review is limited to the matters agreed in the research agreement, being factual accuracy, confidentiality, security, and third-party rights. The academic partner retains control of its substantive conclusions.
A.5. Outputs
The form of output is established in the applicable research agreement, and may include an independent assessment, a methodology review, a reproducibility report, a technical memorandum, an academic paper, or a public statement describing the scope and findings of the review.
A report may conclude that a method is sound, reproducible, or appropriately designed where the evidence supports that conclusion. It may equally identify limitations, uncertainties, or defects.
Any public description of an engagement must accurately state who performed the work, the scope of the review, the degree of independence, material limitations, and the conclusions actually reached.
A.6. Confidentiality
Academic partners protect confidential VTCo information disclosed for the engagement. Confidentiality restrictions are not used to require a partner to conceal findings, or to state a conclusion it does not hold.
The research agreement identifies what information is confidential, and what methodological detail may be published so that readers can understand the basis of the partner's conclusions. Information that is already lawfully public, independently developed, or lawfully obtained from another source is not confidential merely because it also appears in VTCo material.
A.7. Intellectual property
Each party retains its pre-existing intellectual property. Research access does not transfer ownership of VTCo methods, software, or materials to the academic partner, and participation does not transfer ownership of a partner's independent research to VTCo unless the parties expressly agree otherwise in writing. Authorship and credit reflect actual contributions and applicable academic standards.