These Terms of Use apply to any contribution made to the TfL Tech Forum (the “Forum”).

Acceptance of the Terms of Use by you

By signing up for an account and by your continued use of the Forum you are deemed to have accepted and agree to abide by these Terms of Use set out below in conjunction with our privacy policy . If you do not agree with these Terms of Use then you should not sign up for an account or use the Forum.

The Forum is a site operated by Transport for London (“TfL”) and hosted by DisourseHosting.com.

The TfL Tech Forum Team and contact information is available on our About page.

Moderation of the Forum

Every contribution submitted to the Forum (“Contribution”) must comply with the Forum house rules (“House Rules”) set out below.

We are under no obligation to you or any other person to oversee, monitor or moderate the Forum or any other service we provide on our site. We reserve the right to remove, or to disable access to, any Contribution which we deem unlawful or in violation of the House Rules. We expressly exclude our liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of the Forum by any person in contravention of the House Rules.

Use of the Forum by minors

The use of the Forum by a minor (a child or young person under the age of 18) is subject to the consent of his or her parent or guardian. We advise parents who permit their children to use the Forum that it is important that they communicate with their children about their safety online. Minors who are using the Forum should be made aware of the potential risks to them and of their obligation to comply with these Terms of Use when using the Forum. By using the Forum, you warrant that you have parental or guardian consent to upload and publish images of minors to your profile or otherwise, and in accordance with the House Rules.

We will do our best to assess any possible risks to minors from third parties when they use the Forum, and we will decide in each case whether it is appropriate to use moderation in light of those risks.

Submission of Contributions

For guidance on using the discussion forum, please refer to the Welcome to the Tech Forum! message sent to all new members.

As part of our commitment to creating a transparent, friendly and safe environment for all you are not permitted to submit Contributions anonymously.

Before making a Contribution you must register to use the forum. Your username and profile information will appear as part of your Contribution when published. It is your responsibility to control the information that you wish to make visible through your profile, for example a full name or avatar image.

House Rules

The Forum is a civilised place for public discussion and we are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation. Therefore, we have prepared the following House Rules, which apply to each part of your Contribution as well as to its whole; and they must be complied with in spirit as well as to the letter.

TfL will determine, in its absolute discretion, whether a Contribution breaches the House Rules.

A Contribution must:

  • be accurate (where it states facts);

  • be genuinely held (where it states opinions);

  • comply with the law applicable in England and Wales (“Applicable Law”) and in any country from which it is posted, provided this does not breach Applicable Law; and

  • be relevant.

A Contribution must not:

  • be defamatory of any person;
  • be obscene, offensive, hateful, inflammatory or demonstrate any other undesirable user behaviour such as grooming;
  • promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;
  • disclose the name, address, telephone, mobile or fax number, e-mail address or any other personal data in respect of any individual;
  • infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person;
  • breach any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence;
  • be in contempt of court;
  • be likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person;
  • impersonate any person, or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person;
  • give the impression that the Contribution emanates from TfL or any other organisation, if this is not the case;
  • advocate, promote, incite any third party to commit, or assist any unlawful or criminal act;
  • contain a statement which you know or believe, or have reasonable grounds for believing, that members of the public to whom the statement is, or is to be, published are likely to understand as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism;
  • contain any advertising or promote any services or web links to other sites.

If you are not sure your Contribution complies with the House Rules, give your ideas more thought and consider posting it later. The topics discussed matter to us, and we would like you to act as though they matter to you too!

We find that a good way to enhance conversation is by exploring existing topics; so browse through the topics board before responding to, or creating a new topic; that way, you are more likely to find an existing topic of interest where you may meet likeminded users.

Also, please keep discussions tidy!

Don’t:

  • start a topic in the wrong category.
  • cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
  • post no-content replies.
  • divert a topic by changing it midstream.
  • sign your posts — every post has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Breach of the Terms of Use

When we consider that a breach of the House Rules has occurred, we may at our absolute discretion take such action as we deem appropriate. Failure to comply with the House Rules constitutes a material breach of these Terms of Use on which you are permitted to use the Forum, and may result in our taking all or any of the following actions:

  • Immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use the Forum;
  • Immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any Contribution already posted on the Forum;
  • Issue of a warning to you;
  • Legal proceedings against you for reimbursement of all costs on an indemnity basis (including, but not limited to, reasonable administrative and legal costs) resulting from the breach;
  • Further legal action against you;
  • Disclosure of such information to law enforcement authorities that we reasonably believe is necessary or as required by law.

We exclude our liability for all action we may take in response to breaches of the House Rules. The actions we may take are not limited to those described above, and we may take any other action we reasonably deem appropriate.

Complaints Procedure

If you wish to complain about any Contribution posted to the Forum, please contact us or use the flag function to bring it to the attention of TfL staff. We will then review the Contribution and decide whether it complies with our House Rules. We will deal with any Contribution which, in our opinion, violates our House Rules (see section “Breach of the Terms of Use”). We will inform you of the outcome of our review within a reasonable time of receiving your complaint.

Changes to the Terms of Use

We may amend the Terms of Use from time to time and you are responsible for ensuring that you are aware of what terms apply at the time of your use.

TfL and / or DiscourseHosting may update and change the Forum from time to time to reflect business changes, needs or for any other reason. TfL will try to give you as much notice as possible of any major changes.

Although TfL will make reasonable efforts to update the information on the Forum, TfL makes no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether expressed or implied, that the content of the Forum is accurate, complete or up-to-date.

The content of the Forum is provided for general information only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on the Forum.

Access to the Forum

The Forum is available free of charge and TfL does not guarantee that it, or any of the content will always be available or be uninterrupted. TfL may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of the Forum for business or operational reasons.

Protecting your username and password

Once you have signed up for an account you must treat your username, password and any other log in information as confidential and not disclose it to any third party.

TfL has the right to disable any username or password whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in the reasonable opinion of TfL you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these Terms of Use.

If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your user name or password you must promptly notify us.

TfL intellectual property rights

TfL are the owners or authorised licensees of all the intellectual property rights used in the design, branding and staff content of the Forum and TfL website (the “Website”).
Unless expressly stated the copyright and other intellectual property rights (such as, design rights, trademarks, patents etc.) in any material provided on the Website remain TfL’s property (or as the case may be another rightful owner). TfL owned material on the Website including text and images, may not be printed, copied, reproduced, republished, downloaded, posted, displayed, modified, reused, broadcast or transmitted in any way, except for your own personal non-commercial use. You must gain our permission for any other type of use. Contact TfL Customer Services for details.

By submitting a Contribution to the Forum, you agree that your Contribution will be subject to the terms of a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. If you are not in a position to grant a Creative Commons license to your Contribution please do not submit the Contribution to the Forum.

In addition, you grant TfL a non-exclusive licence to use your Contribution, TfL will have the right to freely use, edit, alter, reproduce, publish and/or distribute the material contained in your Contribution. This licence will be free of charge, perpetual, irrevocable and capable of sub-licence. TfL may exercise all copyright and publicity rights in the material contained in your Contribution in all jurisdictions, to their full extent and for the full period for which any such rights exist in that material.

Also you must acknowledge and give credit to TfL for any content you share from the Forum, as required under the Creative Commons License.

Please also note that, in accordance with the House Rules, you must ensure that your Contribution does not infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person. By submitting your Contribution to the Forum, you are warranting that you have the right to grant TfL the non-exclusive copyright licence described above.

Disclaimer

The objective of the Forum is to encourage the free flow and exchange of ideas. As a result, discussion threads may include information that has been uploaded by other users, which has not been approved, or verified by TfL and any views expressed by others in the Forum do not represent the values and views of TfL.

Viruses

We do not guarantee that the Forum will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.

You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access the Forum. You should use your own virus protection software. You must not misuse the Forum by knowingly introducing viruses, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Forum, the servers on which the Forum is stored or any server or computer or database connected to the Forum.

You must not attack the Forum via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. TfL will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and TfL will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use the Forum will cease immediately.

Linking to the Website

You may link to the Website, provided that you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage TfL’s reputation or take advantage of it. You must not establish a link which suggests any form of association, approval or endorsement on TfL’s part where none exists.

We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.

Uploading content and the rights you are granting to such content

Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload content to the Forum, or to make contact with other users, you warrant that:

  • you have the necessary consent to upload the content to the Forum;
  • the content does not include any personal data (as defined under data protection legislation) that you do not have permission and / or authority to post;
  • the content uploaded to the Forum is in the public domain and you will be liable to and indemnify TfL for any breach of these warranties;
  • you agree that any content you upload to the Forum is non-confidential and non-proprietary.

TfL has the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any content posted or uploaded by you to the Forum constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights or of their right to privacy.

Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms of Use shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law and subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.

Privacy statement

Transport for London (TfL), its subsidiaries and service providers, will use your personal information for the purposes of customer services and administration connected to the Forum.
Your personal information will be properly safeguarded and processed in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998.

For further information on how TfL processes personal data, please see the TfL Privacy and Cookies webpage.