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Effective: 2026-04-11 · Last reviewed: 2026-04-11
These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) govern your access to and use of the website at notraced.com, its articles, its interactive tools, its RSS feed, and any other content or service offered under the notracedbrand (together, the “Site”). The Site is operated by Sam Shephard(“we”, “us”, “our”).
By accessing or using the Site you agree to be bound by these Terms, the Privacy Policy, and the Disclaimer. If you do not agree, do not use the Site.
These Terms form a binding agreement between you (whether an individual, a sole trader, or an entity you represent) and us. If you are accessing the Site on behalf of an organisation, you represent that you have authority to bind that organisation to these Terms, and “you” refers to both you personally and the organisation.
The Site is a free, publicly-accessible, non-commercial editorial project published by a natural person as a personal resource about AI privacy, the EU General Data Protection Regulation, the EU AI Act, and related topics. It publishes articles and operates three interactive decision-support tools (AI Data Flow Checker, AI Act Obligation Scanner, and Privacy Policy Generator). No fee is charged, no product is sold, no advertising is served, and no sponsored content is accepted.
The Site is not a law firm, a legal services provider, a business, or any form of licensed professional adviser. It does not provide legal, tax, accounting, regulatory, medical, or other professional advice. No content on the Site, and no output produced by any interactive tool, creates an attorney-client, solicitor-client, or other professional relationship between you and us. The full notice of no legal advice is in the Disclaimer, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.
Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to access and use the Site for your own lawful reading, research, and internal business purposes. This licence is free of charge and is revocable at any time.
Without a separate written agreement from us, you may not:
For quotation, educational use, review, journalism, and similar purposes within the statutory exceptions to copyright in your jurisdiction, the normal rules apply: quote briefly, attribute clearly, and link back. If you want to republish a whole article, syndicate a feed, or integrate a tool into your own product, reach out via the contact page (Legal category) first. The answer is usually yes on reasonable terms.
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, the articles, the design, the brand name, “notraced”, the wordmarks, the logos, and the underlying decision logic of the interactive tools are owned by us or our licensors and are protected by copyright, database rights, trade mark, and related intellectual property laws. The source code of this website is licensed under the MIT License as published in the public repository, but the articles and other editorial content are not released under the MIT License and remain all-rights-reserved except as these Terms allow.
Nothing in these Terms transfers any ownership interest in the Site to you.
The three interactive tools run entirely in your browser. Your wizard answers and any generated output never reach our servers; the shareable links encode state in the URL query string for your convenience only. See the Privacy Policy for the full data flow.
By using a tool you acknowledge and agree that:
The Site does not offer user accounts and does not charge fees. If this changes we will update these Terms and provide the notices that the applicable law requires (including the distance selling and digital content disclosures where EU consumer law applies).
You represent and warrant that:
The Site, the articles, the tools, and the documents generated by the tools are made available on an “as is” and “as available” basis, without any warranty of any kind, whether express, implied, statutory, or otherwise. To the maximum extent permitted by the applicable law, we disclaim all warranties, conditions, representations, and undertakings, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, title, accuracy, completeness, timeliness, quiet enjoyment, and uninterrupted availability.
We do not warrant that any content on the Site is accurate, complete, current, or applicable to your specific situation. We do not warrant that any tool output is suitable for publication, submission to a regulator, filing with a court, or reliance in any particular transaction. We do not warrant that the Site will meet your requirements or be free from errors, bugs, defects, malicious code, or interruptions.
This clause applies only to the extent permitted by the applicable law. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any warranty, right, or remedy that cannot be excluded or limited under the law that applies to you — for example, consumer protection rights under the EU Unfair Contract Terms Directive (93/13/EEC), the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015, or the consumer protection statutes of the US state where you reside.
To the maximum extent permitted by the applicable law, and subject to the mandatory carve-outs in the next paragraph:
Mandatory carve-outs. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for (a) death or personal injury caused by our negligence or that of our employees or agents, (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, (c) any liability that cannot be excluded or limited under the law applicable to you, or (d) any statutory right that you have as a consumer and that cannot be waived. Where the law that applies to you prohibits any limitation or exclusion above, that limitation or exclusion is read down to the maximum extent permitted by that law, and the rest of this clause continues to apply.
The Site is provided free of charge and the tools produce general information rather than advice. The limitation above reflects that relationship: neither party intends for the Site to carry the level of risk or the level of professional duty that a paid advisory relationship would carry.
To the maximum extent permitted by the applicable law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless notraced, its operators, authors, contributors, and licensors from and against any claim, demand, loss, damage, cost, expense, or liability (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or in connection with (a) your breach of these Terms, the Disclaimer, or the Privacy Policy, (b) your misuse of any interactive tool or generated document, including publishing a generated document without qualified review, (c) any regulatory action, fine, or third-party claim that results from your reliance on any content or tool output, and (d) your breach of any applicable law or the rights of any third party. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defence and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, at your expense, in which case you agree to cooperate with our defence.
This indemnity does not apply where prohibited by the law that applies to you, and is read down to the maximum extent permitted where any element is unenforceable. It does not apply to the extent the liability results from our own wilful misconduct or gross negligence.
We may suspend or terminate your access to the Site at any time, with or without notice, for any reason, including (but not limited to) breach of these Terms. The clauses that by their nature should survive termination (including the Disclaimer of Warranties, the Limitation of Liability, the Indemnity, Intellectual Property, and the Governing Law and Dispute Resolution sections) will survive.
These Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by, and construed in accordance with, the law of Belgium, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. This choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of any mandatory consumer protection provisions of the law of the country where you have your habitual residence.
Step one — informal resolution. If you have a dispute with us, please submit it through the contact page (Legal category) first with a description of the dispute, the remedy you are seeking, and your contact details. You will receive a reference number for the submission. We will respond within thirty days. Most disputes can be resolved at this stage.
Step two — formal resolution. If the dispute is not resolved within thirty days of your initial submission, the courts of Brussels, Belgium have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with these Terms or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims), save that nothing in these Terms prevents a consumer resident in the European Union or the United Kingdom from bringing proceedings in the courts of their country of residence where the applicable consumer protection law gives them that right, and nothing in these Terms prevents any party from seeking injunctive or equitable relief in any jurisdiction where that relief is necessary to protect its rights.
For users resident in the United States. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, you and we agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms, the Site, or the interactive tools will be resolved through individual (non-class) binding arbitration rather than in court. The arbitration will be conducted by a single arbitrator, under the then-current rules of a reputable arbitration institution, and the seat of arbitration will be Brussels, Belgium. You and we each waive any right to a jury trial and any right to participate in a class action, a class arbitration, a representative action, or a private attorney general action. You may opt out of this arbitration clause by submitting a request through the contact page(Legal category) within thirty days of first accepting these Terms, with the subject line “Arbitration opt-out”. Keep the reference number you receive on submission as proof of timely opt-out. If any part of this paragraph is held unenforceable, the remainder continues to apply, except that the class-action waiver is non-severable: if a court finds the class-action waiver unenforceable, the entire arbitration agreement in this paragraph is void as to that proceeding and the dispute will proceed in the courts named above.
Online dispute resolution (EU). The European Commission provides an online dispute resolution platform at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr. We do not commit to using any alternative dispute resolution body, but EU consumers may use the platform to find one.
We may update these Terms from time to time. The effective date at the top shows when the current version took effect. Substantive changes will be posted at the top of this page at least fourteen days before they take effect. Your continued use of the Site after the new Terms take effect means you accept the new Terms. If you do not accept them, stop using the Site.
Any notice to us under these Terms must be submitted through the contact page (Legal category). Keep the reference number you receive on submission. We may give notice to you by posting a prominent notice on the Site.
Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and the Disclaimer, constitute the entire agreement between you and us about the Site and supersede any prior agreement on the same subject.
Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid, illegal, or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, that provision will be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, and the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.
No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision of these Terms is not a waiver of that provision or of any other right.
Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms or any rights under them without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, corporate reorganisation, or sale of all or substantially all of the assets relating to the Site, provided the assignee agrees to be bound by these Terms.
No third-party beneficiaries. These Terms do not give any right to, and are not enforceable by, any person who is not a party to them, except that our affiliates, operators, authors, and contributors may enforce the Disclaimer of Warranties, the Limitation of Liability, and the Indemnity in their own name.
Force majeure. We are not liable for any delay in, or failure of, performance caused by events outside our reasonable control, including natural disasters, war, civil unrest, strikes, failures of third-party infrastructure, cyberattacks, acts of government, and widespread internet outages.
Language. These Terms are drafted in English. Where a translation is provided for convenience, the English version governs in the event of any conflict, except where mandatory consumer protection law requires otherwise.
Questions about these Terms? Use the contact page (Legal category).
Operator: Sam Shephard