Acceptable use policy

This policy sets out what you and your team may not do with MatruOS. It is part of the Terms of service. It protects your customers, other businesses on MatruOS, and MatruOS itself.

Section 1Obey the law

Do not use MatruOS for anything illegal, including:

• fraud, forgery, fake invoices or fake GST credit, money laundering, or evading tax;
• selling goods or services that are banned, or that need a licence you do not hold (for example drugs, arms, wildlife products, or lottery and betting the law does not allow);
• lending, deposit-taking, chit funds or investment schemes that are not registered with the regulator as the law requires;
• breaking the Consumer Protection Act 2019, including misleading advertisements, fake reviews and dark patterns;
• infringing anyone's copyright, trade mark or other rights.

Section 2Respect people's privacy and consent

• Collect, use and keep personal data only as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 allows: give a clear notice, have a lawful ground (usually consent), use the data only for the stated purpose, and erase it when it is no longer needed.
• Do not upload contact lists you have no right to use, or buy and sell personal data.
• Do not store full Aadhaar numbers unless a law allows you to. MatruOS masks them for you.
• Do not use MatruOS to track, profile or watch people without their knowledge, or to read the emotions of your staff.
• Children's data needs a parent's or guardian's verifiable consent. Do not track children or target advertising at them.
• Health, financial and other sensitive data needs extra care. Use MatruOS's permissions so that only the people who need it can see it.

Section 3Messages, calls and marketing

• Send promotional messages and calls only to people who agreed to receive them, and stop as soon as they say stop. MatruOS records consent and opt-outs for you; do not get around them.
• Follow the TRAI Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations 2018, the do-not-disturb registry, the rules on registered senders and templates (DLT), and the policies of WhatsApp, Meta, Google and every other channel you use.
• Do not send bulk or automated messages from a personal phone number or SIM. MatruOS lets you call or message one person at a time from your own phone; bulk sending goes only through registered business channels.
• Do not send spam, chain messages, phishing or messages that hide who is sending them.
• Do not use the business network to send unwanted bulk messages to other businesses.

Section 4Content you publish

Your store, website, posts, statuses, listings and messages must follow the Community rules. In particular, do not publish content that is obscene, harms children, invades someone's privacy, impersonates someone, is knowingly false or misleading, infringes rights, threatens public order, or contains malware.

Section 5AI used responsibly

The AI terms apply in full. In particular:

• Do not use MatruOS's AI to make deepfakes, fake documents, or images, audio or video that pretend to be a real person without their consent.
• Do not remove or hide the "made with AI" labels that MatruOS adds.
• Do not let AI alone make decisions that seriously affect a person, such as hiring, firing, credit or pricing based on a person's characteristics. A person must review them.
• Do not try to make the AI break these rules, or to extract its hidden instructions.

Section 6Keep MatruOS safe and fair for everyone

• Do not try to get into accounts, data or systems you have not been given access to.
• Do not test MatruOS for security weaknesses without our written permission. If you find one, tell us at consulting@codecolonies.com; we welcome reports made in good faith.
• Do not upload viruses or harmful code, or use MatruOS to attack anyone else.
• Do not overload MatruOS or get around its limits: no bots, scrapers or scripts outside our published API, no automated sign-ups, and no shared or resold accounts.
• Do not copy, extract or reverse engineer MatruOS, as section 9 of the Terms of service explains.

Section 7What happens if this policy is broken

• We may remove or hide content, pause a feature (such as messaging), suspend an account or end it, depending on how serious the breach is.
• We usually warn you first and give you a chance to fix things. We act at once when there is a risk of harm, fraud or a security threat, or when a law or a lawful order requires it.
• Action we take in good faith under this policy is not a breach of the Terms of service, gives no right to a refund or compensation, and is without prejudice to our other rights, including the indemnity in section 16 of the terms.
• When the law requires, we report illegal activity to the authorities and keep the records they ask for.
• If you think we got it wrong, write to the Grievance Officer as set out on the Grievance page.

Section 8Reporting misuse

To report misuse of MatruOS, or content on a store, site or post hosted on MatruOS, use "Report this page", or write to the Grievance Officer as set out on the Grievance page.