Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using LYFTOFF, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, do not use the platform.

2. Description of Service

LYFTOFF is a career guidance platform providing structured reflection tools, personalised career roadmaps, skill gap analysis, scholarship matching, community features, and AI-powered recommendations. The platform is designed to support decision-making, not replace professional career counselling.

3. AI-Generated Content Disclaimer

LYFTOFF uses artificial intelligence to generate career guidance, roadmaps, skill analyses, and recommendations. By using these features, you acknowledge that:

• AI-generated content is informational only and does not constitute professional career, legal, financial, or immigration advice
• Recommendations are based on the information you provide and may not account for all relevant factors in your situation
• You should always verify important decisions (scholarship eligibility, visa requirements, credential recognition) with qualified professionals or official sources
• LYFTOFF is not liable for decisions made based on AI-generated recommendations

4. Account Responsibilities

• You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. We ask for your date of birth at registration to apply this
• If you are under 18, a parent or guardian must approve your account before you can use it — see section 5
• You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account
• You must provide accurate information during registration
• You may not create multiple accounts or impersonate others

5. Users Under 18 and Parental Consent

If you are under 18, you may register but your account stays limited until a parent or guardian approves it. We ask for their email address, contact them, and record their decision.

We apply this to everyone under 18, wherever they are. The applicable ages differ by country — 16 under Art. 8 GDPR in Germany, 18 under South Africa's POPIA, and a minor's ability to enter a contract is limited until 18 under German law — so rather than apply a weaker rule to some users we apply the strictest to all.

A parent or guardian may withdraw approval at any time, which closes the account. Approving an account is not the same as the visibility described in section 9: approval is permission to have the account at all, whereas visibility is a separate arrangement the student controls and can revoke.

If we learn an account was created by someone under 16, or by someone under 18 without a guardian's approval, we will suspend it and, where required, delete it.

6. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Use the platform for any unlawful purpose
• Harass, abuse, or harm other users in the community
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to other accounts or systems
• Scrape, crawl, or extract data from the platform without permission
• Upload malicious content or spam

7. Intellectual Property

The LYFTOFF platform, including its design, code, content, and brand assets, is owned by LYFTOFF. Your reflection data, community posts, and other user-generated content remain yours. By posting content to the community, you grant LYFTOFF a non-exclusive licence to display it on the platform.

8. Subscription and Payment

The free tier provides genuine value and is not a trial. Premium features require a paid subscription. Subscription fees are billed annually. You may cancel at any time; access continues until the end of the billing period.

If you are a consumer in the EU, you have a statutory right to withdraw from a purchase within 14 days. Where you ask us to begin providing a paid feature immediately within that period, you may be charged for what you have used up to the point you withdraw.

9. Parent and Guardian Access

Parents or guardians may be granted read-only access to a student's aggregated progress data (LyftOff Score, progress rings) through an invite code system. Parents cannot access reflection data, modify roadmaps, or override student decisions. Students can revoke parent access at any time.

10. Data and Privacy

Your data is protected under our Privacy Policy and in accordance with the GDPR. You can export or delete your data at any time from your account settings.

11. Limitation of Liability

LYFTOFF is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the platform. Our total liability is limited to the amount you paid for the service in the 12 months preceding the claim.

12. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your account for violation of these terms. You may delete your account at any time. Upon termination your personal data is deleted within 72 hours, except for records we are legally required to keep — principally invoices and accounting records (retained for up to 10 years under tax and commercial law) and access audit logs (up to 2 years). We strip personal detail from those records where we can. See the privacy policy for the full position.

13. Changes to Terms

We may update these terms from time to time. Material changes will be communicated via email or in-app notification at least 30 days before taking effect. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.

14. Recruitment Agencies, Employers and Institutions

These terms govern individual use of LYFTOFF. They are not the terms on which an organisation uses the platform.

A recruitment agency, employer or institution uses LYFTOFF under a separate written agreement covering its licence, fees, permitted use of candidate and student data, and a data processing agreement. Where such an organisation holds records about you, it is generally the controller of those records and LYFTOFF acts as its processor— the privacy policy explains what that means for exercising your rights.

Agency workspaces are not self-serve: an agency applies, and we provision a workspace only after reviewing and approving that application and agreeing terms.

An organisation given access to another person's data through LYFTOFF must use it only for the purpose it was shared for, must not pass it on without a lawful basis, and must respect any withdrawal of consent. We may suspend an organisation's access for breach.

15. Governing Law and Disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding its conflict-of-law rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

If you are a consumer, this choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of your own country. Nothing here limits a consumer's statutory rights.

For business users, the courts of Freiburg, Germany have exclusive jurisdiction.

Please contact us first — most issues are resolved that way. Consumers in the EU may also use the European Commission's online dispute resolution platform. We are not obliged, and do not undertake, to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

16. Contact

Questions about these terms? Contact us at hello@lyftoff.tech