Terms of Service

1. Who these terms are between

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern access to and use of the Tutela school bus management platform ("Platform"). The Platform is operated by Zeus ICT Services Pty Ltd t/a Tutela AU (ABN 47 654 725 434) ("we", "us", "our").

The other party to these Terms is the transport operator — the business that holds the Tutela account ("you", "your", "the Operator"). Your administrator accepts these Terms on the Operator's behalf, and in doing so warrants that they are authorised to bind it.

Your drivers, office staff, parents and guardians, and school contacts are not parties to these Terms. They are not asked to accept them and are never held out of the Platform for failing to. Their use of the Platform is governed by your arrangements with them.

School contacts you give portal access to do accept a separate, much shorter School Portal Terms before the portal will show them a student — a personal confidentiality undertaking about the children's information they are shown. It imposes nothing on you, costs them nothing, and does not alter this agreement or make them party to it.

2. Definitions

• Operator Data — everything you or your people put into the Platform, or that the Platform records on your behalf: students, guardians, staff, vehicles, stops, routes, runs, boarding records, compliance records and their attachments.
• Child Data — the subset of Operator Data that identifies or relates to a child: names, dates of birth, photographs, home addresses, medical notes, and the record of where and when a child boarded or alighted.
• Run — a single scheduled journey operated on a route on a given day.
• Reconciliation — the Platform's check that the number of children recorded as boarding a run equals the number recorded as alighting from it.

3. What the Platform is, and what it is not

The Platform is a record-keeping and operational tool. It helps you plan routes, roster drivers and vehicles, record who boarded which bus, and keep track of the qualifications and vehicle compliance records your accreditation depends on.

We do not provide legal, safety, engineering or compliance advice, and nothing generated by the Platform is such advice. Where a requirement matters legally, confirm it with your regulator or a qualified professional.

4. Accounts and access

Tutela accounts are provisioned by us on request; there is no self-service sign-up. This is deliberate — the Platform holds children's records, and we want to know who we are giving them to.

• You are responsible for who you invite into your account and what you allow them to see. The Platform gives you granular roles precisely so that a person only sees what their job needs.
• Credentials are personal and must not be shared. A shared login destroys the audit trail that records who looked at a child's record.
• You must remove access promptly when someone leaves your business or changes role. We provide the controls; the timeliness is yours.
• You must tell us without undue delay if you believe an account has been compromised.

5. Your obligations regarding children's information

You are the entity that collects children's information and decides how it is used. In doing so you must:

• have a lawful basis for holding it and for giving it to us to process on your behalf;
• give parents and guardians the notice your privacy obligations require, including that a third-party platform processes the information;
• record only what you need. Medical notes in particular should say what a driver must do in an emergency, not recite a child's medical history;
• grant access to addresses, medical notes and photographs only to the people whose role genuinely requires them; and
• ensure your drivers and staff hold the child-protection clearances the law and your accreditation require. The Platform can track and enforce those clearances, but it does not verify them with the issuing authority and does not replace your obligation to check.

6. Our handling of your data

Operator Data is yours. We claim no ownership of it and do not sell it, rent it, or use it to build advertising or third-party data products.

We process it to provide the Platform to you and for no unrelated purpose. Where we produce aggregate statistics about how the Platform is used, they contain no personal information and cannot be traced to an individual, a child or a school.

Our Privacy Policy forms part of these Terms and describes what we hold, where it is stored, who can reach it, and how long it is kept.

7. Data separation and access by us

Each operator's data is isolated from every other operator's. Our staff do not browse Operator Data. Access by us occurs only where it is necessary to provide support you have asked for, investigate a fault, or meet a legal obligation — and access to student records is logged.

8. Retention and deletion

Records relating to child safety — boarding and alighting events, pre-start checks, defect reports and their corrections — are kept as an append-only history. Corrections are recorded as new entries that supersede earlier ones; they do not erase them. This is what makes the record trustworthy after an incident, and it means a mistake cannot be quietly rewritten.

You may configure retention periods for other categories of Operator Data within the limits the Platform allows and the retention obligations of your accreditation. On termination, see §14.

9. Acceptable use

You must not, and must not permit anyone to:

• use the Platform to track, monitor or locate a child for any purpose other than operating the transport service that child is enrolled on;
• extract Child Data for a purpose unrelated to that service, or disclose it to anyone not entitled to receive it;
• upload real children's data to any environment we have provided for testing or demonstration;
• attempt to access another operator's data, probe or test our security controls without our prior written consent, or interfere with the Platform's operation;
• use the Platform in a way that breaches your accreditation, the law, or a court order; or
• resell, sublicense or white-label the Platform without our written agreement.

10. Availability

We aim for the Platform to be available continuously, but we do not warrant uninterrupted access. Maintenance, faults, and failures in networks and infrastructure outside our control will occasionally interrupt it.

11. Fees

Fees, the plan you are on, and the billing cycle are as agreed with you in writing. Unless that agreement says otherwise, fees are payable in advance, exclude GST, and are non-refundable for a period already begun.

We may change fees on at least 30 days' written notice, taking effect at your next renewal. If you do not accept a change you may terminate before it takes effect.

Non-payment never disables a safety control. Run operation, boarding records, pre-start checks and reconciliation continue to work regardless of your billing state. A commercial dispute with us must not become a risk to a child.

12. Intellectual property

The Platform, its software, design and documentation remain our property. We grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use it for your transport operations for as long as these Terms are in force. Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of Operator Data to us, or of the Platform to you.

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

13. Liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts or modifies any guarantee, right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law or other law that cannot lawfully be excluded. Where we may limit liability for a failure to comply with a consumer guarantee, we limit it to resupplying the service or paying the cost of resupply.

Subject to that, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:

• the Platform is provided "as is", without warranties beyond those these Terms and the law expressly give;
• we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of goodwill, or loss arising from data you or your people entered incorrectly or failed to enter; and
• our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with these Terms is limited to the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

We are not liable for loss caused by your failure to meet your obligations under §3, §4, §5, §9 or §10 — including any loss arising because a driver did not physically check a vehicle.

14. Suspension and termination

Either party may terminate on 30 days' written notice. We may suspend or terminate immediately if you materially breach these Terms — in particular §9 — or if continuing would expose children's information to unacceptable risk.

On termination you may export your Operator Data. We will retain it for 90 days after termination so that an export can still be arranged, and will then delete it, except where we are required by law to keep it for longer, or where you have asked us in writing to keep safety records available for a pending investigation.

15. Security incidents

If we become aware of an unauthorised access to or disclosure of your Operator Data, we will notify you without undue delay, tell you what we know and what we are doing, and support your own notification obligations under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). You must notify us promptly of any incident on your side that may affect data held in the Platform.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. Where a change is material we will give you reasonable notice, and your administrator will be asked to accept the new version in the console. Continuing to use the Platform after a change takes effect means the Operator accepts it. The version in force is shown at the top of this page.

17. General

• Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of Western Australia and the Commonwealth of Australia, and the parties submit to the courts of Western Australia.
• Disputes. Before starting proceedings, each party will attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute by negotiation. Nothing prevents either party seeking urgent relief.
• Severability. If a provision is invalid or unenforceable it is severed to the minimum extent necessary and the rest continues in force.
• No waiver. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment. Neither party may assign these Terms without the other's consent, except to a successor of substantially the whole of its business.
• Relationship. The parties are independent contractors. Nothing creates a partnership, agency or employment relationship.
• Survival. Sections 5, 6, 8, 12, 13, 14 and 17 survive termination.
• Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy and any written order or service agreement between us are the entire agreement, and supersede earlier discussions.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms, privacy questions and data-subject requests: info@tutela.au.