Welcome to the Trusted Voices community

By using the Trusted Voices community, which is being managed by Explain Research on behalf of the Ministry of Defence, you are agreeing to comply with the terms and conditions of use set out below, which together with our privacy notice, form the Ministry of Defence’s relationship with you in relation to this community.

If you are not happy with any part of these terms and conditions, please do not use the Trusted Voices community. You can unsubscribe from the Trusted Voices community or delete your user account at any time by clicking here and selecting ‘leave the community’.

The Ministry of Defence has commissioned Explain Research to host and manage the Trusted Voices community on their behalf.

Definitions

“We”, “us” and “our” refers to Explain Research.

“Content” means everything contained in, or accessible from, the online community which has been produced by or on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. “Content” does not include Postings made by members.

 “Postings” means all information, data, artwork, text, photographs, videos, messages and any other material which you or any other any member posts on or uploads to the Trusted Voices community.

“Ministry of Defence Sub-contractors” means any sub-contractor or agency that has been formally tendered to the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Defence’s partnership company.

“Website” means the website which hosts the Community. These terms and conditions only apply to the website which hosts the Community.

 “You”, “your” and “yours” refers to you, the person using the Trusted Voices community.

“Warrant” or “warranty” refers to an official agreement or guarantee.

Indemnify” refers to a promise by a Trusted Voices Member to compensate Explain for any loss suffered because of something that the Trusted Voices Member in question has intentionally done, for example covering damages or losses .“Infringement” refers to the action of breaking the terms of a law or agreement, for example if someone intentionally shared a link with a virus or malicious or illegal content.

Changes to Terms

From time to time we may make changes to these terms; this will be done without any specific notice.

If the terms and conditions do change, the next time you login you will be presented with the revision and asked to agree to the revised terms before proceeding to use the Trusted Voices community.

Explain may suspend or withdraw Explain’s site

Our site is made available free of charge.

We do not guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all of any part of our site for business and operational reasons.

Terms of use

Content

This community contains material which is owned by or licensed to us. This material includes, but is not limited to, the design, layout, look, appearance and graphics.

Reproduction of the content is prohibited other than in accordance with the copyright notice, which forms part of these terms and conditions.

All trademarks reproduced in this community, which are not the property of, or licensed to us, are acknowledged on the website.

If you would like to share a link to the Trusted Voices community from your own account, you do not need any permission for this. However, we reserve the right to require you to remove any such link if we do not feel that it is appropriate.

Neither we nor any third parties provide any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of the Content, nor its suitability for any particular purpose.

The experiences, ideas and opinions posted on the Trusted Voices Community are those of individual members. Explain or Defence cannot guarantee the accuracy of information posted. People who work at Defence will participate in conversations and provide accurate information and answers to questions as needed. Whilst we try to ensure that all of our Content is accurate, we advise that you check further before you rely upon it. Any advice given by Defence on the Trusted Voices Community will be of a general nature. Specific enquiries made by Trusted Voices Community members will be removed from the Trusted Voices Community and, with the member’s permission, passed onto the Internal Comms Team who will respond as they are able.

Personal information

We treat your personal information with great care and have an extensive data protection compliance programme throughout our business. Our Privacy Notice explains in more detail how we handle your personal information.

In order to keep your personal information safe, please do not include any personal information, whether about yourself or someone else, in your Postings. You need to be aware that, if you include any personal information in your Postings, it may not be secure. If you include personal information about other people you may be liable yourself and may also do something which makes us liable.

You agree to indemnify the Ministry of Defence and any relevant third party against any claim or proceeding which is related to any personal information in your Postings. When selecting your member username and profile picture, be mindful that these can be seen by all other members in the Trusted Voices community. Please try to avoid using a username or picture that is personally identifiable. You are responsible for any third party personal information, and/or intellectual property, in your Posting and may be liable if any third party complains about such content, particularly if you have not obtained their permission before posting.

Postings

You are welcome to upload your Postings as you wish, subject to these terms and conditions, and to the guidance in the Trusted Voices guidelines, which includes a request that you do not use the Community for advertising or any commercial purposes. You warrant that any such Posting complies with those guidelines, and you will be liable to Explain and indemnify Explain for any breach of that warrant. This means you may be responsible for any loss or damage suffered as a result of your breach.

You are responsible for all your Postings. If you did not create your Postings yourself, you are responsible for obtaining the owner’s consent to use it on the Website [or in connection with the Trusted Voices community].

Your Postings will be visible by all members of the Trusted Voices Community. In order to share in full and make the Trusted Voices Community a success, Explain need your permission to make your Postings available to all users.

If you would like to share a text link to the Trusted Voices Community from your own, you do not need any permission for this. However, Explain reserves the right to require you to remove any such link if Explain does not feel that it is appropriate.

 We cannot, in any circumstances, accept responsibility for errors or omissions in any of the member’s Postings on the website, or for any action or decisions based on the member’s Posting. Neither can we be responsible for the consequences of reliance on any member’s Postings no matter how it is presented.

If anything in your Postings is found to have infringed another party’s intellectual property rights, and we suffer any losses or damages as a result, you agree to indemnify Explain against all claims and proceedings arising from such infringement.

While Explain host the Trusted Voices Community Explain are not responsible for the content of the Postings, which are provided by site users. You may be liable for any losses or damage which are in any way related to the content of your Postings.

If anyone notifies Explain that a Posting does not meet the Trusted Voices Community guidelines or has infringed intellectual property rights, Explain may withdraw any, or all, of your Postings immediately, in order to investigate such claims.

How we may use your Postings

We have the right to download and copy Postings for:

• content analysis and research purposes; and
• documenting the findings from the discussions, surveys and polls that take place on the Trusted Voices community

Moderation and member conduct

You are responsible for how you behave towards other users of the Website. Explain will act as site moderator, and will monitor any disputes between individual users, and we cannot be responsible for resolving them.

Unauthorised use of this Website may give rise to a claim for damages and/or be a criminal offence.

Further considerations

Your use of this community and any dispute arising out of such use of the website is subject to the laws of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Explain reserve the right to suspend or withdraw the Website and/or the Trusted Voices Community at any time without notice. Equally Explain reserve the right to suspend or terminate your individual registration at any time. While Explain would try to explain reasons for doing so, it may not always be possible to provide such an explanation at the same time as the suspension or termination.

In addition to these terms and conditions there are also Trusted Voices Community guidelines  we ask all members of the Trusted Voices Community to adhere to.

Viruses

Explain maintains the security and performance of the Explain website, however Explain does not guarantee that Explain’s site will be secure from bugs or viruses.

You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access Explain’s site. You should use your own virus protection software.

You must not misuse Explain’s site by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to Explain’s site, the server on which Explain’s site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to Explain’s site. You must not attack Explain’s site 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. Explain will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and Explain will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use Explain’s site will cease immediately.

Communications and email alerts

By creating an account on the Trusted Voices community, you are giving consent to receiving communication emails from the Community. The receipt of these emails is important to help you keep up to date on the Community and its content, these emails will contain information relevant to the Trusted Voices community, such as updates and reminders on new Community Postings and member interactions and prize draw announcements.

Community moderators may also email you in relation to any user account queries or issues, such as infringements on the Trusted Voices community guidelines.

If you do not wish to receive emails alerts from the community, please do not use the Trusted Voices community.

Third party links

On occasion we include links to third parties on this Website. Where we provide a link it does not mean that we endorse or approve that site’s policy towards visitor privacy. You should review their privacy notice before sending them any personal data.

Where the Ministry of Defence wish you to take part in any research which is not moderated by Explain, and a link to such research appears in the Trusted Voices community, this will be made clear.

Contact

If you are unclear about anything in these terms, or have any queries about anything relating to the Trusted Voices community, please contact Explain Market Research by emailing trustedvoices@explainonline.co.uk