Terms of Service

01

Who this agreement is between

These Terms of Service are the agreement between TheHiveMinds, a product engineering studio based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India (“we”, “us”), and the school, trust, society or institution that subscribes to HiveCampus (“the School”, “you”). HiveCampus is our product; this agreement governs the School's use of it.

They take effect when the School first accepts a proposal or order confirmation from us, or first accesses HiveCampus, whichever happens first. Where we and the School have signed a separate written agreement, purchase order or scope document, that document prevails over these terms to the extent of any conflict, and these terms fill the gaps.

Teachers, administrators, cashiers, parents and students who use HiveCampus do so under the School's subscription. They are bound by the use rules in §06 and, if they are not comfortable with them, should not use the service — but the commercial obligations in this agreement are the School's alone.

02

Words used throughout

• The Service — the HiveCampus school admin portal, teacher portal and parent/student mobile app, together with the modules enabled for the School and any support we provide with them.
• Authorised User — any person the School permits to use the Service: staff, teachers, administrators, cashiers, and the parents and students of the School.
• School Data — everything the School and its Authorised Users put into the Service, or that the Service records about them: student records, attendance, homework, fee records, marks, announcements and account details.
• Subscription Term — the period the School has paid for, ordinarily twelve months from the start date on its order confirmation.
• Module — a distinct area of functionality (attendance, homework, fees, timetable, exams, report cards, leave, announcements, events, AI Analyser) that can be switched on or off for the School.

03

What the subscription gives you

Subject to payment and to these terms, we grant the School a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service for its own school operations for the Subscription Term, for its Authorised Users.

The subscription covers the Modules listed on the School's order confirmation, hosting and infrastructure, updates and fixes we release during the term, and support as described in §10. It is a right to use hosted software, not a sale of software or of any copy of it, and it does not include the source code.

Modules not built yet

The Service does not currently include bus or vehicle tracking, biometric attendance hardware, online classes, in-app chat, or a payment gateway. Anything absent can be scoped and built as a custom module — that is part of what we do — but it is a separate written scope and price, and nothing in this agreement obliges us to build it. What the School is entitled to today is what appears on its order confirmation.

Changes to the Service

We improve the Service continuously and may change how a feature works. We will not remove a Module the School is paying for, or materially degrade it, during a Subscription Term without at least 30 days' notice by email. If we do materially degrade a Module the School relies on, the School may terminate under §14 and receive a pro-rated refund of the unused part of its term.

04

Accounts and access

We create the School's administrator account during onboarding. From there the School creates and manages accounts for its own staff, teachers and parents, and decides what role each one holds. Roles determine what a person can see and do, and that limit is applied where the records are kept, not only by what a screen shows.

• The School is responsible for who it gives an account to, and for removing access promptly when someone leaves or changes role. We cannot know that a teacher has resigned.
• Accounts are personal. Credentials must not be shared between people, and a single login must not be passed around a staff room.
• The School must tell us at once, at the address in §20, if it believes an account has been compromised.
• We may access the School's account when the School asks us to for support, or where it is necessary to investigate a security incident or to comply with a legal obligation. We do not browse a School's data otherwise.

05

What the School is responsible for

Most of the Service's content is about children, and the School — not us — holds the relationship with those families. That places some obligations on the School that it cannot pass to us.

• Lawful basis and consent. The School is the Data Fiduciary for School Data under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. It is responsible for having a lawful basis to process it, and for obtaining verifiable parental or guardian consent where the Act requires it for a child's data. We process School Data as the School's Data Processor, on its instructions, as set out in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of this agreement.
• Verifying who a parent or guardian is. When the School links a person to a student, it is asserting that this person is lawfully entitled to that student's information. We take that assertion at face value; we have no independent way to check it, and a wrong link exposes a child's record to the wrong adult.
• Accuracy. The School is responsible for the accuracy of what it enters and for correcting it when told it is wrong.
• Telling people. The School should tell its staff and its families that it uses HiveCampus, what it holds there, and how to raise a correction or a concern. We will provide whatever wording helps.
• Handling requests from individuals. A parent, student or member of staff exercising a right over their data goes to the School first, because the School controls the record. We will help the School respond, including with exports and deletions, at no charge.
• Its own devices and network. The School is responsible for the internet access, devices and browsers its users rely on.

06

Acceptable use

The School and its Authorised Users must not:

• Use the Service for anything unlawful, or to harass, defame, threaten or discriminate against anyone — including through announcements, homework text, notes on a fee record, or any other free-text field.
• Attempt to access another school's data, another user's account, or any part of the system they have not been granted access to.
• Probe, scan or test the security of the Service without our prior written consent, or interfere with its normal operation. Reporting a vulnerability you come across in good faith is welcome and is not a breach — see our Privacy Policy.
• Reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to derive the source code of the Service, except to the extent Indian law expressly permits despite this restriction.
• Resell, sublicense, rent or otherwise make the Service available to any institution other than the School, or use it to run a school not covered by the subscription.
• Upload malware, or content that infringes someone else's intellectual property or privacy.
• Use automated means to extract data from the Service at a scale that degrades it for others. The School's own data is always available to it by export under §11.

If an Authorised User breaches these rules, we will normally raise it with the School and give it a chance to deal with it. We reserve the right under §14 to suspend an individual account, or the School's access, where a breach is serious or ongoing.

07

The fees module is a ledger — it never touches money

This section exists because it is the single easiest thing to misunderstand about the product, and the misunderstanding would be expensive.

The fees module records what a school charges, what has been paid, when, by what method, and against what receipt number. It produces due lists, reminders and a payment history. It does not collect, hold, transmit or settle any money. There is no payment gateway in the Service. We are not a payment aggregator, we hold no escrow or nodal account, and no card, UPI or bank credential ever passes through the Service.

Money continues to move exactly as it did before: at the school counter, by bank transfer, by cheque, or through whatever channel the School already uses. Someone at the School then records that payment in HiveCampus.

08

The AI Analyser is informational

The AI Analyser presents monthly attendance and engagement figures, together with a short written summary generated once a month from those aggregate figures. The figures themselves are calculated from the school's own records; the wording is produced by a language model. Our Privacy Policy §05 sets out exactly what the model is and is not given.

Language models can be wrong, and a monthly summary is a compression of a month. The Analyser is offered as a conversation starter between a teacher and a parent, and as a way of noticing a pattern early. It is not an assessment of a child, a diagnosis, a prediction, or advice. No decision affecting a student — academic, disciplinary or otherwise — should be taken on the basis of an Analyser summary alone, and we accept no liability for a decision taken that way.

The School can have the Analyser switched off entirely for its tenant, at any time, by asking us.

09

Fees, billing and renewal

HiveCampus is charged as a flat annual fee per school, set by the School's student-count tier — never per student per month. The current published pricing is on our pricing section, and the figure that binds is the one on the School's own order confirmation.

• Fees are payable annually in advance unless the order confirmation says otherwise, and are exclusive of GST and any other applicable taxes, which are charged additionally at the prevailing rate.
• The subscription renews for successive twelve-month terms unless either side gives written notice of non-renewal at least 30 days before the current term ends.
• We will not increase the fee during a Subscription Term. Any increase at renewal will be notified at least 60 days before the renewal date, and the School is free to decline it and not renew.
• If the School's student count moves it into a higher tier mid-term, the change applies from the next renewal, not immediately. We do not issue mid-year top-up invoices for growth.
• Invoices are payable within 30 days. If an invoice is genuinely disputed, tell us within those 30 days and we will not treat it as overdue while we sort it out.
• Fees paid are non-refundable except where these terms expressly provide for a refund (§03 and §14).
• Custom modules, data migration beyond the standard onboarding import, on-site training and integrations are quoted and invoiced separately.

10

Availability, support and maintenance

We aim to keep the Service available at all times and we operate it on managed cloud infrastructure with automated backups. We do not commit to a contractual uptime percentage in these standard terms, and we would rather say so plainly than publish a number we have not built the monitoring to stand behind. A School that needs a formal service level can ask for one and we will discuss it as a separate written commitment.

• Planned maintenance that requires downtime is scheduled outside Indian school hours wherever possible, and we give advance notice for anything expected to be noticeable.
• Support is by email at the address in §20, in English and Tamil, from a founder rather than a ticket queue. We aim to acknowledge within one working day, and to treat anything preventing a school from marking attendance as urgent.
• Occasional interruptions caused by a third-party infrastructure provider, a network failure, or an event outside our reasonable control are not a breach of this agreement.

11

The School owns its data

School Data belongs to the School. We claim no ownership of it and acquire no right to use it beyond what is necessary to provide the Service, to keep it secure, and to meet a legal obligation. We do not sell it, we do not use it for advertising, and we do not train AI models on it.

Export

The School can ask us for a complete export of its data at any time, in a standard machine-readable format, at no charge. There is no exit fee and no hostage-taking: a school that decides to leave gets its records.

After the subscription ends

The School's data is retained for 60 days after the end of the Subscription Term so that it can be exported or the School can change its mind, and is then deleted from live systems, with backups rolling off within a further 30 days. A School that wants deletion sooner can ask for it in writing. Retention periods and the full detail are in our Privacy Policy §08.

Aggregate statistics

We may compile anonymous, aggregated statistics about how the Service is used across all schools — feature usage, performance, load — to operate and improve it. These never identify a school, a student or any individual, and are never derived in a way that could be traced back to one.

12

Intellectual property

The Service, its software, design, documentation and the HiveCampus and TheHiveMinds names and logos are and remain ours. Nothing in this agreement transfers any of it to the School beyond the right to use the Service described in §03.

The School's own name, logo and branding remain the School's. The School grants us permission to use them inside the Service (on its own portal, report cards and notifications) for the purpose of providing the Service.

We will not use the School's name or logo as a public reference, in a case study, on our website, or in a sales conversation without the School's prior written consent.

If the School suggests an improvement and we build it, the resulting software is ours — but the suggestion costs the School nothing and it gets the feature.

13

Confidentiality

Each side may learn things about the other that are not public: School Data and the School's internal operations on our side, and our pricing, architecture and non-public product plans on the School's. Each side agrees to use the other's confidential information only to perform this agreement, to protect it with at least the care it applies to its own, and not to disclose it to anyone else except to those of its own people who need it and are bound to keep it confidential.

This does not apply to information that is already public through no fault of the receiving side, was already lawfully known to it, or is independently developed without reference to the other's information. Where disclosure is legally compelled, the side compelled will tell the other first unless it is forbidden from doing so.

These obligations continue for three years after this agreement ends.

14

Suspension and termination

Suspension

We may suspend access, in whole or for a specific account, where it is necessary to stop an ongoing security incident, where use is causing material harm to the Service or to another user, where the law requires it, or where an undisputed invoice remains unpaid more than 30 days after we have written about it. Except where an immediate stop is necessary for security, we will give notice first and a reasonable chance to fix the problem. Suspension is a last resort and is not a way to force a commercial negotiation.

Termination

• Either side may end this agreement at the end of a Subscription Term by giving at least 30 days' written notice of non-renewal.
• Either side may end it immediately if the other commits a material breach and does not remedy it within 30 days of being told about it in writing, or becomes insolvent or enters winding-up.
• The School may end it during a term if we materially degrade or withdraw a Module it is paying for (§03), and will receive a pro-rated refund of the unused portion of its fee.
• If we discontinue the Service entirely, we will give at least 90 days' notice, refund the unused portion of the term, and provide a full data export before shutting anything down.

On termination, the School's right to use the Service ends, and the export and deletion arrangements in §11 apply. Sections on data, intellectual property, confidentiality, liability and governing law survive termination.

15

What we promise, and what we do not

We warrant that we will provide the Service with reasonable skill and care, in a manner consistent with the security practices described in our Privacy Policy, and that we have the right to grant the rights we grant here.

Beyond that, and to the extent the law allows, the Service is provided as it is. We do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted or error-free, that it will meet every requirement a School has in mind but has not told us about, or that any figure, summary or reminder it produces is fit for a purpose the School has not discussed with us. In particular, and as set out in §07 and §08, we make no warranty about the accuracy of a fee ledger that depends on what the School enters, or about an AI-generated summary.

Nothing in this agreement excludes or limits either side's liability for fraud, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for anything else that Indian law does not permit to be excluded.

16

Limitation of liability

Neither side is liable to the other for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of anticipated savings, loss of business or reputational damage, however it arises.

Subject to §15 and to the carve-outs below, each side's total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with this agreement, in any twelve-month period, is limited to the fees paid or payable by the School to us for the Service in the twelve months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

That cap does not apply to:

• The School's obligation to pay fees properly due.
• Either side's breach of the confidentiality section.
• Either side's infringement of the other's intellectual property.
• Liability that cannot be limited under Indian law, including under §15.

This allocation of risk is part of what makes a flat annual fee possible, and both sides enter into it with that in mind.

17

Indemnity

The School will indemnify us against claims brought by a third party arising from School Data that the School was not entitled to process, from the School's failure to obtain a consent it was required to obtain, from linking a person to a student who was not entitled to that student's information, or from use of the Service in breach of §06 — except to the extent the claim arises from our own breach of this agreement.

We will indemnify the School against a third-party claim that the Service, used as permitted here, infringes that third party's intellectual property rights in India.

In either case the indemnified side must notify the other promptly, not admit liability, and give the indemnifying side reasonable control of the defence and settlement.

18

General

Governing law and disputes

This agreement is governed by the laws of India. Both sides agree to try in good faith to resolve any dispute by discussion first — a phone call between the people who actually know the facts resolves most things. Failing that, the dispute is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts at Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.

Force majeure

Neither side is liable for a failure to perform caused by something outside its reasonable control, including natural disaster, war, civil unrest, epidemic, government action, or a failure of internet or power infrastructure — for as long as that event lasts.

Assignment

Neither side may assign this agreement without the other's written consent, except that either may assign it to a successor of substantially all of its business, on written notice.

Independent parties

We are independent contractors to each other. Nothing here creates a partnership, joint venture, agency or employment relationship.

Severability and waiver

If a clause is held unenforceable, it is limited to the minimum extent necessary and the rest of the agreement stands. A failure to enforce a right is not a waiver of it.

Entire agreement

These terms, together with our Privacy Policy and the School's order confirmation, are the entire agreement between us on this subject and replace any earlier discussion or proposal. Neither side has relied on any statement not set out in them.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. For a change that materially affects the School's rights or obligations, we will give at least 30 days' notice by email before it takes effect; if the School does not accept it, it may terminate before the change applies and receive a pro-rated refund of the unused part of its term. Non-material changes — clarifications, corrections, a new contact address — take effect when published, with the date at the top of this page updated.

19

Notices and contact

Formal notices under this agreement — non-renewal, breach, termination — must be in writing and sent by email to info@thehiveminds.in, and are treated as given on the next working day after they are sent. Notices to the School go to the email address on its order confirmation, or to its registered administrator account.

For anything less formal — a question, a problem, a request for an export, a feature you need — the same address reaches a founder directly, which is the point of a three-person studio.

In force from 9 September 2026.