Terms of Service

Please read these Terms carefully. By creating an account or using Tirnel you agree to them. If you use Tirnel on behalf of a school, agency or other organisation, you confirm that you are authorised to accept these Terms for it. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

About these Terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and Volkomtech Ltd, a company registered in the Republic of Cyprus under number HE 456457, with its registered office at Astypalaias 9, 3047 Limassol, Cyprus (“Volkomtech”, “we”, “us”, “our”).

They govern your access to and use of Tirnel: the website at tirnel.com, the web application at app.tirnel.com and any related features, updates and support we provide (together, the “Service”).

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data and forms part of these Terms.

Key terms

Tutor means a user who signs up with the tutor role to create boards, invite students and teach on Tirnel. This includes independent tutors, teachers and organisations that provide lessons.
Student means a user who joins Tirnel with the student role, usually through a Tutor’s invite link.
Board means a whiteboard in the Service, including its contents, saved versions and uploaded images.
Content means anything you or others put into the Service: drawings, text, sticky notes, formulas, diagrams, tables, images, board titles, student notes and similar material.
Student Data means personal data about Students that a Tutor handles through the Service, such as a Student’s name and email address, the boards they share with their Tutor, the work they do on those boards and the Tutor’s notes about them.

Accounts and eligibility

Who can use Tirnel

To open a Tutor account you must be at least 18 years old and able to enter into a binding contract.

Students may be younger. A Student who is under 18, or under the age of majority where they live, may use Tirnel only with the permission of a parent or legal guardian. A Student who is under the age at which they can consent to online services on their own (14 in Cyprus, and between 13 and 16 in other EU countries) may use Tirnel only if a parent or legal guardian has given consent. Section 5 explains the Tutor’s responsibilities for this.

Your account

When you sign up you choose a role, Tutor or Student, and give us your name, email address and a password. You agree to:

give accurate information and keep it up to date;
keep your password confidential and not share your account with anyone else;
create no more than one account for yourself, and not create accounts for other people unless you are a parent or guardian setting one up for your own child;
tell us promptly at hello@tirnel.com if you think someone has accessed your account without permission.

You are responsible for activity under your account unless it results from our failure to take reasonable security measures. The role you choose at sign-up cannot be changed later. If you need a different role, create a separate account with a different email address.

Email verification and service messages

We may ask you to verify your email address. We send emails that are needed to run your account, such as verification links and password resets. These are not marketing messages, and you cannot opt out of them while you have an account.

How Tirnel works

Tutors create Boards and invite Students to them using invite links. Anyone who opens a Board at the same time sees changes, cursors and names live. A Tutor can lock a Board, remove a Student from a Board, revoke an invite, keep private notes about each Student, restore earlier versions of a Board and move Boards to the trash.

Board invite links expire after a limited period, currently seven days, and Tutors can revoke them sooner. Anyone who has a valid invite link can use it to join, so share links only with the people you intend to teach.

Tirnel is a tool. We are not a party to any arrangement between a Tutor and a Student or their family. Lessons, fees, schedules, cancellations and teaching quality are a matter between them. We do not check Tutors’ qualifications or background and do not supervise lessons.

Tutor responsibilities

If you use Tirnel as a Tutor, you also agree that:

you have a lawful basis under applicable data protection law to add Students to Tirnel and to handle their Student Data through the Service;
for Students under 18, you have the permission of a parent or legal guardian, and where the law requires parental consent for a child to use online services, you have obtained that consent before inviting the Student and can show it if asked;
you will tell Students, and the parents or guardians of minor Students, that you use Tirnel for lessons and point them to our Privacy Policy;
you will follow the safeguarding and child-protection rules that apply to your teaching, behave appropriately towards Students and use the Service only for legitimate educational purposes;
you will keep notes about Students factual and proportionate, and you will not record special categories of personal data (for example health information) unless you have a lawful basis to do so and it is genuinely necessary;
you are responsible for the Students you invite and for removing their access when your lessons end.

Student data and data processing

When a Tutor uses Tirnel to teach, the Tutor decides which Students to add and what to record about them. For that Student Data, the Tutor acts as the controller and Volkomtech acts as the processor, processing it on the Tutor’s behalf. We act as an independent controller for the account, security and service data we need to run Tirnel, as described in the Privacy Policy.

Where we process Student Data as a processor, we will:

process it only to provide the Service and on the Tutor’s documented instructions, which are these Terms and the Tutor’s use of the Service’s features, unless the law requires otherwise;
make sure that the people authorised to process it are bound by confidentiality;
protect it with appropriate technical and organisational security measures;
use sub-processors only under written terms that give comparable protection, keep a list of our current sub-processors in the Privacy Policy and update it before adding a new one. A Tutor may object to a new sub-processor on reasonable grounds. If we cannot resolve the objection, the Tutor may close their account;
help the Tutor, taking into account the nature of the processing, to respond to requests from Students exercising their data protection rights, and to meet the Tutor’s obligations on security, breach notification and data protection impact assessments;
notify the Tutor without undue delay after we become aware of a personal data breach affecting their Student Data;
delete Student Data when the Tutor’s account is closed, as set out in Section 13 and the Privacy Policy, unless the law requires us to keep it;
make available the information needed to show that we meet these obligations, and allow and contribute to reasonable audits, with reasonable notice and at most once a year unless a regulator requires more.

A Tutor who needs a separately signed data processing agreement can request one at hello@tirnel.com.

Your content

You keep ownership

You keep all rights you have in your Content. We do not claim ownership of your Boards or of anything you put on them.

The permission you give us

You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, process, display and transmit your Content only as needed to provide, secure and improve the Service for you and the people you share it with. The licence ends when your Content is deleted from the Service, except for copies in backups that we keep for a limited time, as described in the Privacy Policy.

Shared boards

Content on a Board is visible to everyone who has access to it. A Board belongs to the Tutor who created it. When a Student adds Content to a Tutor’s Board, the Student allows the Tutor to keep, use and share that Content for the purposes of their lessons. If the Tutor deletes the Board or removes the Student, the Student may lose access to that Content.

Your responsibility for content

You are responsible for your Content and confirm that you have the rights needed to upload and share it, including any images, worksheets and exam materials. Do not upload material that you are not allowed to share with your Students.

Feedback

If you send us ideas or suggestions, we may use them without any obligation to you.

Acceptable use

You must not use the Service to:

break any law, or infringe anyone’s intellectual property, privacy or other rights;
harass, bully, threaten, groom or exploit anyone, or share sexual, violent, hateful or otherwise harmful content, especially with or about minors;
upload malware or files designed to harm devices, or embed active code in images or other uploads;
access accounts, Boards or data that you have not been invited to, or try to get around invite, lock or permission controls;
probe, scan or test the Service’s vulnerabilities, or overload, disrupt or reverse engineer it, except as the law expressly allows. Please report security issues to us instead;
use bots, scrapers or automated sign-ups, or resell or sublicense the Service without our written permission;
send spam, or collect other users’ contact details for unsolicited messages.

We may remove Content or restrict access where we reasonably believe it breaks these Terms or the law, and we may report illegal content, in particular content that endangers children, to the competent authorities.

Plans, fees and billing

Students can use Tirnel free of charge. Tutors may be offered a free plan or trial and one or more paid plans. Each plan’s features, limits and price are shown in the Service, or communicated to you, before you buy.

If you buy a paid plan:

you authorise us, or our payment provider, to charge the price shown at checkout plus any applicable taxes;
subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period until you cancel. You can cancel at any time, and the cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period;
we will give you reasonable advance notice, at least 30 days, before a price increase takes effect for an existing subscription, so that you can cancel before it applies;
payments are processed by a third-party payment provider. We do not receive or store your full card details;
except as required by law or stated at checkout, fees already paid are non-refundable. If you are a consumer in the EU, you may have a statutory right to withdraw within 14 days. By asking us to start the Service immediately, you agree that you may lose that right, or owe a proportionate amount, once the Service has been fully or partly provided;
if a payment fails, we may move your account to a free plan or suspend paid features until the payment succeeds.

Availability and changes to the Service

We work to keep Tirnel available and reliable, but we do not promise that it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may need to carry out maintenance, and real-time collaboration depends on your internet connection and browser.

We may add, change or remove features. If a change significantly reduces the core functionality of a paid plan you are on, we will tell you in advance, and you may cancel and receive a pro-rata refund of fees you have prepaid for the remaining period.

Keep your own copies of important material. You can download Boards as PDF or image files.

Our intellectual property

The Service, including its software, design, logos and the Tirnel name, belongs to Volkomtech or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. These Terms give you a limited, personal, non-transferable right to use the Service under these Terms, and no other rights.

Third-party services

You may use Tirnel alongside other tools, such as video-call apps, or paste content in third-party formats such as Mermaid or Draw.io diagrams. We are not responsible for third-party services, and your use of them is governed by their own terms.

Suspension and termination

By you

You can stop using the Service at any time. To close your account and have your data deleted, email hello@tirnel.com from the address registered on the account. Tutors should download any Boards they want to keep first.

By us

We may suspend or close your account if you seriously or repeatedly break these Terms, if we have to by law, or if your use puts other users, minors or the Service at risk. Where it is reasonable and lawful, we will tell you first and give you a chance to fix the problem. We may also close accounts that have been inactive for a long time, after notifying you by email at least 30 days in advance.

What happens next

When an account is closed, access ends and we delete the associated data as described in the Privacy Policy. When a Tutor account is closed, the Tutor’s Boards, the Student Data the Tutor holds and the Students’ access to those Boards are deleted as well. Student accounts remain, and a Student can ask us to close theirs separately. Sections that by their nature should survive termination, such as Sections 7, 14, 15, 16 and 17, continue to apply.

Disclaimers

To the extent permitted by law, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available”. We make no warranties beyond those set out in these Terms, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. Tirnel does not provide educational content or guarantee any learning outcome.

Nothing in these Terms limits the rights you have as a consumer under mandatory law, including the statutory guarantee that digital services conform to the contract.

Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, for gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or any other liability that cannot be limited by law.

Subject to that:

we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profits, revenue, business or goodwill;
we are not liable for loss or damage caused by your failure to follow these Terms, by events outside our reasonable control, or by third-party services;
our total liability arising out of or in connection with these Terms in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of the fees you paid us for the Service in that period and EUR 100.

Indemnity

If you use the Service for business purposes, for example as a professional tutor or an organisation, you will compensate us for reasonable losses and costs arising from third-party claims that result from your Content, your breach of these Terms or your breach of data protection law with respect to Student Data. This section does not apply to consumers.

Governing law and disputes

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or in connection with them are governed by the laws of the Republic of Cyprus. The courts of the Republic of Cyprus have jurisdiction.

If you are a consumer living in another country, you keep the protection of the mandatory laws of your country of residence, and you may bring proceedings in the courts there. Before starting formal proceedings, please contact us at hello@tirnel.com so that we can try to resolve the issue informally.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms, for example to reflect changes to the Service or the law. For changes that materially affect you, we will notify you by email or in the Service at least 30 days before they take effect, unless the change is required sooner by law or to address a security risk. If you keep using the Service after a change takes effect, the updated Terms apply. If you do not agree, you can close your account before then.

General

Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service.
Severability. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect.
No waiver. If we do not enforce a provision immediately, we have not waived it.
Assignment. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms without our consent. We may transfer ours to a company that takes over the Service, provided your rights are not reduced.
Notices. We may send notices to the email address on your account. You can send notices to us at the address below.
Language. These Terms are written in English. If a translation conflicts with the English version, the English version prevails, to the extent permitted by law.

Contact us

Volkomtech Ltd
Astypalaias 9, 3047 Limassol, Cyprus
Company number HE 456457, Republic of Cyprus
Email: hello@tirnel.com