Terms of Service

Effective date: TO BE FILLED IN ON LAUNCH · Last updated: 2026-05-04

1. Agreement to terms

By creating an account or using the Borough mobile application ("Borough" or "the app"), you agree to these Terms of Service ("Terms"). Borough is operated by Borough ("we," "us," or "Borough"). Our contact is borough@borough-app.com.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to use Borough. By creating an account, you confirm that you are 18 or older. We verify age via the date of birth you provide at signup. Misrepresenting your age is a violation of these Terms and may result in immediate account termination and reporting to the appropriate authorities if you are a minor.

You must also:

• Have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract in your jurisdiction
• Not be barred from using the service under applicable laws
• Not have been previously banned from Borough

3. Your account

You are responsible for:

• Keeping your password and biometric authentication secure
• All activity on your account
• Notifying us if you believe your account has been compromised

You may have only one account at a time. Creating multiple accounts to evade bans, harass other users, or manipulate features is prohibited.

You can delete your account at any time via Profile → Delete Account. This permanently removes your data per our Privacy Policy.

4. Verification

Borough is a verified-identity service. You agree to upload at least one photo of your real face for verification, and to undergo our verification process before your profile becomes visible to other users. Verification includes:

• Automated face detection on uploaded photos
• Manual review by Borough's admin team
• Automated scanning against child sexual abuse material (CSAM) databases

You may not upload:

• Photos that are not of you (catfishing, including AI-generated faces, photos of someone else, or photos of public figures)
• Photos that contain other people without their consent
• Photos of minors
• Photos containing nudity or sexually explicit content
• Photos containing illegal content of any kind

We may reject any photo at our discretion. Repeated submissions of policy-violating photos may result in account termination.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to use Borough to:

Harm other users

• Harass, threaten, intimidate, or impersonate any other user
• Post or send hate speech, slurs, or content targeting people based on protected characteristics
• Stalk, dox, or share another user's personal information without consent
• Coordinate harassment or "raid" campaigns against users
• Send unsolicited sexual content or images
• Engage in any form of sexual interaction with someone you know or suspect is under 18

Engage in illegal activity

• Buy, sell, or solicit illegal goods or services
• Engage in commercial sex work or solicitation
• Distribute drugs, weapons, or other regulated items
• Engage in fraud, identity theft, or financial scams
• Violate any applicable local, state, federal, or international law

Misuse the platform

• Create fake or duplicate accounts
• Spam other users with unwanted commercial messages
• Scrape, copy, or harvest data from the app
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to access source code
• Use automated tools (bots, scripts) to interact with the service
• Attempt to bypass safety features (blocks, reports, screenshot detection)
• Upload viruses, malware, or any code designed to harm the service or other users

Violate user safety

• Out anyone (including yourself, if you're under 18) without their consent
• Encourage self-harm, suicide, or eating disorders
• Share instructions for or content depicting violence, weapons making, or harm

6. Content you post

You retain ownership of the content you post on Borough (photos, bio text, messages, posts in circles, etc.).

You grant Borough a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, display, transmit, and (where applicable) decrypt your content solely as necessary to operate the service. We do not claim any rights in your content beyond what is required to deliver Borough's features to you and the users you've shared it with.

You represent and warrant that:

• You own or have permission to share all content you upload
• Your content does not violate the rights (privacy, intellectual property, publicity) of others
• Your content complies with these Terms

We reserve the right to remove any content that violates these Terms or that we believe poses a risk to other users.

7. End-to-end encrypted messages

Direct messages between users are end-to-end encrypted. We cannot read message content on our servers and we cannot help you recover messages if you lose your device.

This means:

• Message content is your responsibility — we have no way to retrieve it for you
• We cannot directly moderate message content
• We rely on your reporting if another user sends abusive content
• If you delete your account, your sent messages remain on recipients' devices but become undecipherable on our servers

You agree that you will not abuse the privacy of E2EE messaging to engage in any of the prohibited activities in Acceptable use above. Even if we cannot read your messages, recipients can report violations.

8. Reporting and enforcement

You can report any user, message, post, or photo that violates these Terms. Use the report button in the relevant interface. Reports are reviewed by Borough's admin team.

Consequences for Terms violations may include:

• A warning
• Hiding your profile from other users (shadowban)
• Temporary or permanent suspension of your account
• Permanent ban with device-level blocking to prevent re-registration
• Reporting to law enforcement, including NCMEC for CSAM violations

We reserve the right to take enforcement action at our discretion, with or without notice. Decisions are final.

9. Intellectual property

The Borough app, branding, logo, design, and software are owned by Borough and its licensors. These Terms do not grant you any rights to Borough's intellectual property other than the limited right to use the app as intended.

You may not:

• Copy or modify the Borough app
• Use Borough's trademarks or branding without written permission
• Build a competing service using Borough's design or features

10. Disclaimers

Borough is provided "as is" and "as available." We make no warranties, express or implied, regarding:

• The reliability, availability, or accuracy of the service
• The behavior of other users
• The truthfulness or accuracy of any user-generated content
• The compatibility of any user with another user

You use Borough at your own risk. We are not your matchmaker, your mental health professional, your lawyer, or your safety advocate. Any decisions you make based on interactions on Borough — including meeting another user in person — are entirely your responsibility.

Borough does not background-check users. While we verify that profile photos contain real faces and manually review every account, we do not run criminal record checks, sex offender registry checks, or any other vetting beyond what's described in our verification process.

11. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Borough's total liability to you for any claim arising from your use of the service shall not exceed $100 USD or the amount you've paid Borough in the 12 months prior to the claim, whichever is greater.

We are not liable for:

• Indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages
• Loss of profits, data, or goodwill
• Harm caused by other users' actions
• Service outages, downtime, or data loss
• Decisions made or actions taken based on information from the service

Some jurisdictions don't allow limitations of liability — in those places, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted.

12. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Borough, its operators, employees, and contractors from any claim arising from:

• Your violation of these Terms
• Your violation of any law or third-party right
• Your content or interactions on Borough

13. Termination

We may terminate or suspend your account at any time, with or without notice, for any violation of these Terms. You may terminate your account at any time via Profile → Delete Account.

Upon termination:

• Your profile is removed from public view
• Your data is deleted per our Privacy Policy
• Your sent messages remain on recipients' devices but become undecipherable on our servers
• These Terms remain in effect for any provisions that by nature should survive termination

14. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina, United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. You and Borough agree that any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of the service will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in North Carolina.

15. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms over time. Material changes will be announced via in-app notification at least 30 days before they take effect. Continued use of Borough after the effective date constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms. If you don't agree to the updated Terms, you must delete your account before they take effect.

16. Contact

For questions about these Terms: borough@borough-app.com. For privacy questions, see our Privacy Policy.