Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy (the “AUP”) applies to every person who accesses or uses Pathshala OS or the Pathshala marketing sites (each a “User”) — including Institute admins, tutors, students, parents, staff, and unauthenticated visitors. The AUP is incorporated by reference into the MSA and the Website Terms of Service.

You will not, and will not permit anyone else to:

• use the Service for any unlawful purpose;
• impersonate any person, institute, or organisation;
• misrepresent your role (e.g., pose as an admin when you are a student);
• circumvent technical limits, paywalls, or rate limits;
• resell or sublicense access without our written consent;
• frame, mirror, or scrape the Service (other than via documented APIs at documented rates);
• interfere with another User's use of the Service.

You will not upload, post, or transmit content that:

• is sexual content involving minors (CSAM) — we report this to NCMEC;
• incites violence or terrorism;
• contains gratuitous sexual, violent, or shock material outside of legitimate academic context;
• promotes self-harm or eating disorders;
• harasses, threatens, dox-es, or defames any person;
• discriminates against or targets a person based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or other protected characteristic;
• infringes copyright, trademark, patent, trade-secret, or publicity rights;
• violates a confidentiality obligation you owe to a third party;
• contains malware, exploits, phishing material, or cryptocurrency miners;
• is unsolicited bulk commercial communication (spam);
• discloses another person's personal data without authorisation;
• impersonates Pathshala communications (fake invoices, fake password-reset emails, etc.).

You will not, and will not attempt to:

• probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service without our written authorisation (see our Vulnerability Disclosure Policy);
• breach or circumvent authentication, authorisation, or access-control;
• access another tenant's data;
• perform load, denial-of-service, or stress tests against the Service;
• perform credential-stuffing or password-spraying;
• reverse-engineer, decompile, or extract source code from the Service except to the extent applicable law expressly permits;
• introduce time-bombs, logic-bombs, viruses, worms, or other harmful code;
• share, lend, or sell your account credentials.

You will not use Pathshala's AI features to:

• generate medical, legal, financial, or other regulated advice for end users;
• generate misleading or fraudulent material (forged identity documents, phishing emails, fake academic credentials);
• generate sexual, violent, or harmful content involving real or imagined minors;
• generate content that infringes intellectual-property rights;
• train a competing model, fine-tune a third-party model on outputs, or scrape AI outputs at scale.

Full rules are in the AI Disclosure & Use Policy.

Pathshala is an education platform. You will not:

• cheat on any assessment, quiz, or assignment;
• share, sell, or solicit assessment answers;
• complete coursework or assessments on behalf of another User;
• misrepresent another person's work as your own;
• use AI outputs in violation of your Institute's academic-integrity rules.

Each Institute may publish its own academic-integrity policy. Where it is stricter than this AUP, the Institute's policy prevails for that Institute's users.

If your role on Pathshala involves interaction with users under 18, you must:

• use the Service only for the educational purpose the Institute has authorised;
• not solicit or share contact information off-platform without parental and institutional consent;
• not engage in private 1:1 communication with a minor outside of recorded, Institute-monitored channels;
• report any safeguarding concern to your Institute admin and to abuse@pathshala.co.

See also our Children's Privacy Notice.

To report a violation of this AUP, please email:

• abuse@pathshala.co — harassment, illegal content, impersonation, spam, academic-integrity violations
• security@pathshala.co — suspected security breach, vulnerability, credential leak
• legal@pathshala.co — copyright, trademark, defamation, subpoenas; DMCA takedowns
• privacy@pathshala.co — personal-data exposure, data-subject requests

If a minor is in immediate danger, contact local law enforcement first, then notify Pathshala and the Institute.

Pathshala may, in its sole discretion and without prior notice:

• remove or quarantine content;
• warn, suspend, or terminate a User account;
• suspend an Institute tenant for repeated or severe violations;
• preserve and produce records to law enforcement when required by law;
• cooperate with a third party investigating a credible claim.

For Institute tenants, suspension or termination is also governed by §14 of the MSA.