WWGI Platform Terms of Use

1. Acceptance

By downloading, accessing, creating an account, or using WWGI Platform, you agree to these Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the app.

2. Purpose of the service

WWGI Platform is a recovery-focused community, support, and awareness tool for gambling harm. It has separate app experiences for Support and Recovery members and for people affected by another person's gambling, such as family members, partners, friends, colleagues, and others. It is not a gambling product, betting service, betting-tip service, financial service, medical device, therapy service, emergency service, legal service, or debt counselling service.

3. Eligibility and account approval

You must be legally able to use the app in your location and must provide accurate account, profile, and organization-record information. Full community access may require approval by a moderator or administrator. WWGI may approve, reject, delay, suspend, or remove access if needed for safety, legal, operational, or moderation reasons. Administrators may suspend affected-side access where a user abuses or endangers that community. Members may be required to provide a recovery baseline, such as the last date they gambled or confirmation that they have never gambled, so the app can show progress and encouragement. Affected-person users may be asked to choose a unique display name for public story attribution. That display name must not be a real name, phone number, email address, workplace, school, home address, or other identifying detail.

4. Account responsibilities

You are responsible for your account, device, sign-in provider, recovery handle, and activity under your account. Your recovery handle may be fixed after creation so moderation history and community identity stay consistent. Do not impersonate another person, create accounts to evade moderation, or share account access with someone who should not use it. Email/password, Google, Facebook, Twitter/X, and any other enabled sign-in methods are also subject to those providers' own terms, privacy policies, security controls, and account restrictions. Account linking and unlinking tools are provided for convenience, but you are responsible for keeping every linked sign-in method secure.

5. Community rules

You must not use the app to:

• Promote gambling, betting tips, odds, referral links, casinos, bookmakers, or gambling-related products.
• Encourage relapse, glorify gambling, or target vulnerable users.
• Harass, threaten, abuse, shame, exploit, or discriminate against others.
• Post another person's private information, identification details, payment details, or confidential story without permission.
• Solicit money, run scams, sell products, advertise, or recruit users outside approved WWGI processes.
• Upload illegal, harmful, sexually exploitative, hateful, violent, or malware-related content.
• Use an affected display name or affected-person story to identify, shame, threaten, harass, or expose another person.
• Interfere with the app, backend, moderation tools, security rules, or another user's access.

6. User content

You keep ownership of content you create, but you grant WWGI a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, display, reproduce, adapt for formatting, moderate, remove, preserve, and distribute that content as needed to run the app and related WWGI services. This includes recovery-member stories, comments, reactions, affected-person awareness stories, affected-story reactions, images, voice notes, display names, and related media. You confirm that you have the right to post content you submit.

Affected-person stories are stored and reviewed separately from recovery-member stories. WWGI may approve, reject, request changes to, remove, restrict, delete, or preserve affected-person stories and related media where needed for safety, privacy, moderation, legal compliance, evidence preservation, or platform integrity. Submitting a story does not guarantee that it will be published. Affected users may react to approved affected stories where enabled. Affected-side comments are not currently part of that feature.

WWGI content and data are protected. This includes the WWGI website, Platform and Shield app data, app screens and wording, documentation, designs, names, logos, community recovery stories, affected-person stories, comments, media, support material, blocklists, moderation records, recovery program records, Shield data, and content published through WWGI official online presence accounts. Except where expressly allowed by law or by WWGI's prior written consent, you must not copy, scrape, harvest, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit, distribute, mirror, archive, sell, license, adapt, translate, create derivative works from, train model systems on, or otherwise exploit WWGI content or member stories outside the intended WWGI services. Member recovery stories, affected-person stories, and related personal content must not be copied, screenshotted for redistribution, shared externally, quoted publicly, or reproduced without prior written consent from WWGI and, where required, the member or rights holder.

WWGI may hide, remove, restrict, report, review, request changes to, delete already public affected stories, or preserve content where needed for safety, moderation, legal compliance, evidence preservation, or platform integrity. Moderation is not guaranteed to catch every unsafe post or comment.

8. WWGI Shield integration

The Platform app may communicate with the separate WWGI Shield app. Shield status, strict-mode status, deactivation reasons, unlock-code activity, and related events may be synced and shown to moderators or administrators where needed for recovery support and safety. If a moderator or administrator issues a Shield unlock code, it may be short-lived, one-time use, audited, and treated as a recovery event. Shield users may submit unlock requests from Shield with a reason and contact details. Moderators and administrators may review those requests, approve or reject them, provide a rejection reason, and send an unlock code to the user's Shield screen where appropriate. Minimal Platform and Shield install, uninstall, activation, and deactivation ledger entries may also be recorded so moderators and administrators can follow up when a recovery barrier changes.

9. Voluntary support purchases

WWGI Platform may offer voluntary monthly supporter memberships and repeatable once-off support boosts through Google Play Billing. These purchases help fund hosting, moderation tools, Shield upkeep, maintenance, and support work. Core recovery access and safety tools are not intended to depend on becoming a paid supporter.

Prices, billing periods, renewals, cancellations, taxes, and refunds are handled by Google Play according to Google Play terms and applicable law. Support boosts are optional in-app purchases, not tax-deductible donations, not subscriptions, and not payments for clinical care or emergency services.

10. Recovery Program tools where enabled

The WWGI Recovery Program is inactive unless WWGI enables it. Where enabled, WWGI Platform may include Recovery Program features such as staff-reviewed request forms, assistant assignment, Shield status follow-up, payday reminders for assigned staff, collaborative monthly budgets, budget approval controls, step progress, step skips by authorized staff, and mediation preparation. These tools are support and administration features. They do not guarantee debt relief, repayment acceptance, legal results, counselling results, medical outcomes, or any specific financial outcome.

11. Third-party services

The app depends on third-party services such as Google Firebase, Google Play Billing, Google sign-in, Facebook Login, Twitter/X sign-in, Android system services, and external support resources. Their own terms and privacy policies may apply. WWGI is not responsible for third-party outages, policy changes, billing account restrictions, identity provider account restrictions, or external websites.

12. Account deletion and termination

You may request account deletion using the instructions at account-deletion.html. WWGI may suspend, restrict, or terminate access if you breach these terms, create risk to the community, misuse the app, evade moderation, or create legal or operational concerns. Certain moderation, billing, security, legal, and audit records may be retained as explained in the Privacy Policy.

13. Availability and changes

The app is provided as available. We may change, suspend, discontinue, or limit features for maintenance, safety, legal compliance, cost, policy, or operational reasons. We do not guarantee uninterrupted access, perfect moderation, perfect data availability, or that every relapse risk will be prevented.

14. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent allowed by law, WWGI and its team are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profits, goodwill, opportunities, or recovery outcomes arising from use of the app. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

15. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, unless mandatory consumer law in your location says otherwise.

16. Contact

Contact WWGI at developer@wwgi.org.za or visit https://www.wwgi.org.za.