Terms of Service

1. What River Truth is

River Truth is a public-interest accountability platform that collects, cross-references, and publishes water-quality data for England and Wales. Source data comes from official open-data feeds (Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales, Canal & River Trust and others) plus citizen sightings submitted through this site.

River Truth is not:

• a substitute for the Environment Agency Incident Hotline (0800 80 70 60): call them for active pollution
• medical, safety, or legal advice: do not make personal-safety decisions (swim/no-swim, drink/no-drink) on River Truth alone
• the official record. The official record is held by the relevant regulator. We cite their data; we don't replace it.

2. Your account

We don't make you create an account to read the site. You only give us an email address when you:

• submit a citizen report
• subscribe to alerts
• buy a paid tier (handled by Stripe; we never see your card)

Confirmation is by magic link, so there is no password to lose. The email address is the only credential.

3. Citizen reports

When you submit a report you confirm that:

• Photos are yours. You took them, or have the legal right to upload them.
• No identifiable third parties without consent. If a person's face, vehicle, or other identifying detail is visible, you have their permission.
• No minors. Children under 18 must not be identifiable in photos you upload. If a child appears incidentally, blur or crop before submitting.
• No private-property close-ups that aren't reasonably visible from public access.
• No medical, sexual, or otherwise sensitive content.
• Notes are factual. Don't accuse named individuals or companies of illegality. State what you observed: “I saw foam on the surface”, not “Company X is dumping sewage.”
• Location is accurate to the best of your knowledge.

By submitting a report, you grant Nexfort Data Limited a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to publish, archive, attribute, and cross-reference your contribution as part of the River Truth platform and its derivatives (CSV/PDF exports, data partnerships with academic/journalism projects), under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.

You retain copyright. You can withdraw via the privacy notice: choose either full delete or anonymise but retain approved reports depending on whether you want your contribution to remain part of the public record.

4. Moderation

Every report goes through a moderation queue before publication. We may reject any submission for any reason consistent with our moderation policy. Rejection deletes the uploaded photos.

We may also remove a previously-published report if a verified fact changes, a defamation concern is raised, or a takedown request is upheld.

5. Acceptable use

Don't:

• submit deliberately false or misleading reports
• attempt to identify other users
• scrape or bulk-download the site outside our published API or CSV exports
• use River Truth content to harass, defame, or threaten any individual
• circumvent rate limits or moderation
• interfere with the site's operation

We may suspend or terminate access for any of the above.

6. Open data and licensing

• Source data (Environment Agency, NRW, CRT, postcodes.io, Parliament Members API) is published by its respective authorities under the Open Government Licence v3.0, Open Parliament Licence v3.0, or equivalents. We attribute on /credits.
• River Truth's analysis and Truth Engine output is published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Citizen contributions are licensed under CC BY 4.0 with attribution to the contributor (as detached/anonymised once an erasure request is made).

7. No warranty / accuracy disclaimer

We work hard to surface accurate, sourced, and timely information. But:

• Source feeds can lag, fail, or contain errors. We refresh on schedules documented at /credits.
• The Truth Engine is an automated cross-reference, not a court of law. Flags are signals, not findings.
• Some EA datasets (notably the Small Streams Network and River Surveillance Network analysis-ready releases) are explicitly scoped to national-aggregate inference. We respect that scope.

The service is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by law, our aggregate liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to £100.

Nothing in these terms excludes liability for fraud, death, or personal injury caused by negligence, or any other liability that cannot be excluded under English law.

8. Right of reply

If you represent an organisation referenced on River Truth (a water company, MP's office, regulator, or other public body) and believe a fact is wrong, email [email protected] with the page URL, the disputed fact, and any supporting evidence. We aim to acknowledge within 5 working days and either correct, annotate, or explain our sourcing.

9. Privacy

Our Privacy notice describes what personal data we collect and why. Our Cookie statement confirms we don't set cookies. Your rights under UK GDPR are described in both.

10. Termination

You may stop using the service at any time. To remove your account see Privacy → Your rights.

We may suspend or terminate access for breach of these terms or where we reasonably believe you are using the service unlawfully. Where practical we'll give you notice.

11. Changes

We'll update these terms from time to time. Material changes affecting existing alert subscribers will be emailed. Otherwise the new version takes effect as soon as it's published, with the “Effective date” updated above.

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

13. Content standards, reporting and complaints

What you must not submit. Do not submit anything illegal, including child sexual abuse material, intimate images shared without consent, terrorist content, threats, harassment or hateful abuse. Do not submit photos or notes that identify a person, and do not submit images of anyone under 18. This service is not aimed at children; if you are under 18, involve a parent or guardian before submitting a report.

Review before publication. Every report is reviewed by a moderator before it appears on the site. Nothing you submit is published automatically.

Reporting content. Each published report carries a “Report this content” link, or you can email [email protected] with the page address. We will review it promptly and remove anything illegal or in breach of these terms.

Complaints. If we reject your report or remove your content and you disagree, email [email protected] with the reason. A different reviewer will look again where possible. We aim to reply within 15 working days, with our decision and reasons.

Repeated abuse. If you repeatedly submit content that breaches these terms, we may block your email address from submitting reports.

14. Contact

Nexfort Data Limited: [email protected]