myRICS community Terms and Conditions

Welcome to myRICS community (the ‘Community’). The purpose of this Community is to provide a place to convene and engage with both RICS members and other surveying professionals globally, support RICS professionals in their work, improve overall awareness and knowledge of the industry and profession, connect non-members with RICS professionals and provide a platform for them to learn more about RICS.

We hope the Community becomes a useful tool in facilitating debate and discussion within the industry, not only between RICS and its members but all who work in or study in the field of the built environment. Please use the Community responsibly and constructively and be respectful to other users. All users are responsible for the quality of the conversations in which they participate and for making this Community a place for intelligent discussion. Please direct any queries to the Community Manager or a Community Executive (the Community Team) at  myricscommunity@rics.org

About these Terms and Conditions (the “Terms”)

These Terms (together with the myRICS community guidelines) govern how you may access and use the Community and all associated web pages.

By accessing or using the Community or otherwise indicating your consent, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree with or accept any part of these Terms, you should stop using the Community immediately.

Use of the Community carries legal responsibilities. Posts that include offensive, untrue or illegal content, or even expressions of opinion about others, can lead to claims against you and possible criminal offences.  Content you post can be read by other users of the Community (and potentially others) so you should only post content that you would be comfortable including in a written letter to every member of this Community and every other person who may see a copy.

In these Terms:

• ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ or ‘RICS’ means the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors incorporated by Royal Charter registration number RC000487 whose registered office is at 12 Great George Street, Parliament Square, London SW1P 3AD, and
  
  
• ‘you’ or ‘your’ means the person accessing or using the Community or its content.

The Terms:

1. You may use the Community only in accordance with the purpose set out above and in accordance with these Terms. The Terms may be amended at any time without notice, for example to reflect changes in the use of the Community.
   
   
2. You may print a copy of the content posted on the Community provided it is for your own legal personal use and for non-commercial purposes or otherwise in accordance with these Terms. By posting content on the Community, you are deemed to have agreed to your post being copied by other users in accordance with this provision.
   
   
3. As a condition of your use of and participation in the Community, you agree not to: 

1. 1. enter the Community under another user’s registration details or otherwise misrepresent your identity or status or post on an anonymous basis
      
      
   2. allow anyone else to enter the Community using your registration details. Anyone using your password will be deemed to be doing so with your full authority and you will be liable for their use of the Community as if they were you
      
      
   3. use the Community other than for lawful purposes or in breach of any applicable laws, statutes, or regulations
      
      
   4. post any content that is untrue, defamatory (or likely to give rise to an allegation of defamation), pornographic, obscene, threatening, menacing, harassing, racist, offensive or otherwise unlawful, nor post any links to any web sites or other materials which include any such content
      
      
   5. post or include content (in these Terms, references to ‘content’ includes all text and all attachments and other files posted including graphics, photographs, videos, programs or audio) which was created by anyone other than you unless you have that other person’s/organisation’s authority to post
      
      
   6. post or otherwise display any content that infringes anyone’s intellectual property rights or is in breach of confidence or privacy
      
      
   7. post anything fraudulent
      
      
   8. knowingly or with reasonable belief or negligently post a message containing a virus or other code that has a similar effect
      
      
   9. post any content that could be interpreted as spam. This includes, but is not limited to: repeated duplicate posts, either in single or multiple threads, repeated comments that are not relevant to or do not further discussions, unsolicited private messages, repeated unsolicited links to external sites that are not relevant to discussions
      
      
   10. post any content on the Community that suggests it is the advice of or otherwise authorised or endorsed or posted by RICS or any other organisation or employer that you are employed by or may otherwise be associated with (an ‘Associated Organisation’) or purports to bind any Associated Organisation. It is not intended that this Community should be used for posts that are or purport to: (a) be the official views or advice of any Associated Organisation; or (b) have any ability to bind any Associated Organisation
       
       
   11. download any information posted by another user that you know, or reasonably should know, cannot lawfully be copied or otherwise used
       
       
   12. post advertisements or offers to sell goods or services unless previously authorised to do so by the Community Team
       
       
   13. use our trade marks, logos or trade names except in accordance with these Terms and post content that brings or could be deemed to bring into disrepute RICS, this Community or the profession as a whole or causes offence, embarrassment or annoyance to others
       
       

4. If you are a member of RICS, you should also comply at all times with our professional and ethical standards set out in our Rules of Conduct, when accessing, using or posting any content in the Community. Failure to do so may result in disciplinary proceedings being brought against you and/or may lead to a termination of your RICS membership.
   
   
5. Any content you post will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary. By posting content, you retain all of your ownership rights in your content but you grant us a royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable licence to use, reproduce, modify, publish, edit, translate, distribute, perform and display the content (in whole or in part) on the Community,  on any other websites operated by us, and in any other medium we choose, indefinitely.
   
   
6. We are not responsible for the content of external internet sites. Posts that contain details of external sites or links to external sites may not have been reviewed or verified by RICS. As such we cannot be held responsible for the content of such sites, nor their policies or actions. You should contact the site owner directly if you have any questions or concerns.
   
   
7. The views and opinions of users expressed on the Community do not necessarily state or reflect those of RICS or any other Associated Organisation, and users agree that RICS (to the fullest extent permitted by law) bears no liability for the content of any post.
   
   
8. Users shall not use the Community for advertising or product endorsement purposes. References made by Community users to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or company name is for the information and convenience of the user, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favouring by RICS or any other Associated Organisation.
   
   
9. Breach of these Terms

1. 1. RICS accepts no obligation to monitor the use of the Community but reserves the right to do so.
      
      
   2. Content posted on the Community will be moderated and any content flagged as inappropriate and/or under moderation by a moderator will be removed from the Community while under moderation. All moderators will act in accordance with the moderation guidelines.
      
      
   3. In respect of any inappropriate behaviour, content or breach of these Terms, RICS may follow a three-strike rule process as follows:
      
      
      • Strike 1: An informal warning and moderation of the content for either editing or removal.
      • Strike 2: A formal warning, removal of the content, in-person discussion with the Community Team, and up to 30-day removal of posting privileges.
      • Strike 3: A written warning, removal of the post, in-person discussion with the Community Team, up to 30-day removal of posting privileges and potential removal from the Community.
        
        
   4. In respect of any inappropriate behaviour, content or breach of these Terms, RICS also reserves the right (in its absolute discretion):
      1. to remove without notice, and without reason, any content posted, including any content that we consider to be in breach of these Terms;, and/or
      2. to remove, without notice, any user from the Community.
         
         

10. RICS may disclose any information about you and any content posted by you as required by law or to prevent or investigate a possible crime, such as fraud or identity theft; to enforce these Terms or any other agreement that govern your use of the Community; or to protect the rights, property or safety of our company, our users, or others. We may remove, refuse to post or to edit any content, may block your access and may take such other action as may be reasonably necessary to prevent any breach of the Terms or any breach of applicable law or regulation. RICS will in its absolute discretion fully co-operate with law enforcement and other relevant authorities with respect to any investigation of suspected unlawful activity.
    
    
11. Data protection
    
    

1. 1. When you add your personal information into the Community, for example via your profile, content or your posts and comments, you are giving it to RICS who is the data controller for your personal information. 
      
      
   2. RICS is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. For details about how and why we use any personal information we collect about you, see our Communities Privacy Policy. General information, including how to exercise your legal rights, can be found in the RICS Privacy Policy.
      
      
   3. You must not post any personal information, particularly sensitive data or data relating to criminal convictions, about yourself or others. For these purposes sensitive data means data consisting of racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation.
      
      
   4. You must not use, collect and/or process others’ personal information for your own, or your employer’s own purposes and you must not share it with any unauthorised third party.
      
      
   5. Any misuse of personal information may lead to your removal from the Community as detailed in clause 9. RICS may also need to report you to the appropriate data protection regulator or law enforcement agency
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      We do not sell or rent your personal information to any other third party and only share your information where we have a lawful basis to do so and it is protected with appropriate legal safeguards, such as written contracts. Details of why we share personal information, and with who, can be found in our Communities Privacy Policy and RICS Privacy Policy.
      
      
   7. We will take all appropriate technical and organisational measures to secure the personal information we process about you on the Community. However, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information.
      
      
   8. Personal information will be kept on the platform until it is no longer necessary to provide our services via the Community, or until your account is deleted – whichever comes first. Where an account is deleted, all personal information will be removed, but content posted will remain. Inactive accounts will be removed after 12 months of inactivity.
      
      
   9. Posts made on the Community, which could include personal information, will remain on the Community indefinitely. You may ask us to delete or remove your personal data and we will do so wherever possible. There may be some circumstances where we can only anonymise your personal data and other circumstances where we unable to fulfil your request (for example when other interests outweigh your right to deletion or we have a legal obligation to retain the personal data) but we will always explain if this is the case).
      
      
   10. On occasions we may need to send important communications to your Community account inbox and/or to your registered email address. We send these to comply with our contractual obligations to you as a user of the Community, for example to keep you updated with any platform outages that may occur or be planned; and to enforce these Terms, for example if action is required following our moderation activities (see clause 9).  You will not be able to opt out of such service communications.
       
       
   11. You will be able to choose what other communications you wish to receive via the Community to your registered email address, and whether you wish to make your profile public for others to view, by logging into your account and updating your privacy and email settings.

Contact us

If you have any enquiries or complaints about the use of the Community or wish to report a post that you believe breaches these Terms, please contact a member of the Community Team at myricscommunity@rics.org.

If you believe that or have been notified by a third party or another user that any content infringes or allegedly infringes another user’s or a third party’s intellectual property rights, please contact the Community Team and the RICS Legal Department immediately by email at legal@rics.org.uk.

These Terms shall be governed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England & Wales, and you consent to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England & Wales.