Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using We Are Candor (“the Platform”), located at wearecandor.org, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use the Platform.

We may update these terms from time to time. Material changes will be posted on this page with an updated effective date. Your continued use of the Platform after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

2. Our Mission

We Are Candor is a nonpartisan civic transparency platform. Our mission is to make government accountability accessible to every citizen by surfacing what legislators do in plain English, with verified, human-reviewed analysis recorded on an immutable public ledger. We are not affiliated with any political party, PAC, SuperPAC, campaign, or partisan organization.

3. Use of the Platform

The Platform is free to use. You may browse all published bill analyses, representative data, and verification records without creating an account. An account is required only for personalized features such as email alerts and saved preferences.

You agree to use the Platform only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these terms. You agree not to:

• Use the Platform in any way that violates applicable federal, state, or local law
• Attempt to interfere with, compromise, or disrupt the Platform or its infrastructure
• Use automated systems (bots, scrapers, crawlers) to access the Platform in a manner that exceeds reasonable use or places undue burden on our infrastructure
• Impersonate any person or entity, or falsely represent your affiliation with any person or entity
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any portion of the Platform, other user accounts, or systems connected to the Platform

4. User Accounts

When you create an account, you are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials. You agree to notify us immediately of any unauthorized use of your account. We are not liable for any loss arising from unauthorized use of your account.

You may delete your account at any time by contacting us at support@wearecandor.org. Upon deletion, your personal data will be removed within 30 days in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

5. Open Data and Licensing

We believe transparency data should be open. Our original analysis content — including plain English bill summaries, anomaly explanations, and representative scorecards — is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). You are free to share and adapt this content for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you provide appropriate attribution to We Are Candor.

Attribution should include a link to wearecandor.org and a statement that the content originated from We Are Candor. Journalists, researchers, and other civic tech projects are encouraged to use and build upon our work.

6. Government Source Data

Bill text, voting records, and other legislative data sourced from Congress.gov, GovInfo, and the Federal Election Commission are works of the United States Government and are in the public domain. We Are Candor does not claim copyright over government source data. Our analysis and commentary on that data is our original work, licensed under CC BY 4.0 as described above.

7. Blockchain Verification

Approved bill analyses are recorded on the Ethereum blockchain as cryptographic hashes. These records are permanent and publicly verifiable. Once recorded, they cannot be altered, deleted, or removed by anyone — including us. This is by design: it is the mechanism that ensures our analyses cannot be altered after publication.

Blockchain records contain only a bill identifier and a SHA-256 hash of the analysis content. No personal user information is recorded on the blockchain.

8. Donations

We Are Candor accepts voluntary donations to support our civic transparency mission. Donations are not tax-deductible unless and until we obtain 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, at which point we will update this section accordingly.

We will never accept donations from PACs, SuperPACs, political parties, or any entity whose contribution would compromise our nonpartisan mission. All donations are processed securely by our payment processor. Refund requests may be submitted within 30 days of the donation date by contacting support@wearecandor.org.

9. Accuracy and Editorial Standards

We strive for accuracy in all published analyses. Every analysis is generated using mathematical NLP techniques, explained by AI in plain English, and reviewed by a human editor before publication. However, we do not guarantee that our analyses are free from error.

Our anomaly detection identifies provisions that are statistically dissimilar to the rest of a bill. This is an objective mathematical measurement, not a judgment about policy quality. A flagged provision is not necessarily “bad” — it is thematically inconsistent with the rest of the legislation in which it appears.

If you believe an analysis contains an error, please contact us at support@wearecandor.org. We take correction requests seriously and will review them promptly.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Platform is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the Platform will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, or that any defects will be corrected. We do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information on the Platform. We are not a law firm and nothing on the Platform constitutes legal advice.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, We Are Candor and its founders, contributors, volunteers, and partners shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, data, or goodwill, arising out of or in connection with your use of or inability to use the Platform.

Our total liability to you for any claims arising from your use of the Platform shall not exceed the amount you have paid to us, if any, in the twelve months preceding the claim.

12. Intellectual Property

The We Are Candor name, logo, visual identity, and the “#WeAreCandor” mark are our intellectual property. You may use the #WeAreCandor hashtag freely for discussion and advocacy purposes. You may not use the We Are Candor name or logo in a way that implies endorsement of a political candidate, party, PAC, or commercial product without our written permission.

Our platform source code is available on GitHub under open-source terms. Analysis content is licensed under CC BY 4.0 as described in Section 5.

13. Governing Law

These terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Arizona, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Any disputes arising under these terms shall be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Maricopa County, Arizona.

14. Severability

If any provision of these terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect. The invalid or unenforceable provision shall be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it valid and enforceable.

15. Contact Us

If you have questions about these terms, contact us at: