Terms & conditions

This online engagement platform aims to give as many people as possible the opportunity to think about the future of Stirling. These contributions are subject to a number of rules to keep the debate open and constructive. Below you can find the general conditions of our platform.

Who can register on the online engagement platform?

Anyone who wants to, can follow and contribute to the debate online. You do not need to create an account to be able to view the content. Anyone can read the submitted ideas and reactions. If you want to participate in the debate yourself (sharing your own ideas, responding to other ideas or supporting existing contributions), you have to create an account. Only once you create an account and become registered participant (user), can you make an active contribution to the online ideas platform. This service is available only to individuals who are at least 13 years old.

You can register and create an account via your e-mail address or create an account by simply linking it to your Facebook or Google profile.

The creation of an account does not give you ownership over the account. Stirling Council and CitizenLab reserves the right to refuse, suspend or delete accounts, for example if you do not comply with the following rules or have previously been denied or removed from your account.

E-Petitions

Before submitting a petition, you should have:

Raised the issue with the Council, in the first instance, i.e. as a comment/complaint/email to the relevant services.
Raised the issue with the relevant Local Elected Members. You may have also contacted a Member of Parliament, Member of the Scottish Parliament, Community Council and Area Partnership.
Checked whether the Council is running a current related consultation exercise or engagement process and, if it is, raise your issues directly through that process first.
Please attach any relating correspondence to the petition application.

Your petition should refer to services provided by Stirling Council or issues that affect your community that the council is involved in. It is important that both the purpose of your petition and what you are looking to achieve is clear and concise.

Your title should aim to grab people’s attention and indicate clearly the area/issue your petition covers. The title will probably be what you will use to promote your petition on social media so it should make sense on its own.

Your petition statement should be well structured and tell a story. It should:

describe the situation/problem/issue
indicate why it is important to you and others; and,
suggest what is needed and why

Although we will accept petitions about most issues, unfortunately there are some which we will be unable to consider. Before you submit your petition please check that it; does not refer to any current court, legislative or regulatory proceedings, for example planning or licensing applications; is not the same or very similar to petitions the council has already considered within the previous twelve months. If this is not clear on the platform, a member of the Council will advise you following submission.

If your petition is a comment or a complaint or is related to individual or personal issues you should send it to us through the Council’s Comments, Compliments and Complaints process.

The petition application on the platform has mandatory fields. You must complete this mandatory information to enable the Council to consider your petitions. All principle petitioners must live in the Stirling area and be on the voter’s role. Signatures are checked against the Stirling Council voter’s role before being validated.

The Council asks that petitions have at least 40 valid signatures.

A valid petition will remain open to signatures for 60 days.

In order to add your signature to a petition, you will be required to log in or create an account.

The Council has set a cap of 500 signatures in Engage Stirling. When the petition hits this threshold, the platform will automatically move the petition into the next status, ON HOLD. The petition will remain open to new signatures. This cap will be monitored closely and can be amended as appropriate.

When an assessment has been carried out to validate signatures, the petition will then be set to ARCHIVED. This will close the petition to signatures. An official update will be provided to update users. The Principle Petitioner will be updated via email. At the moment, the site will tell users that they can continue to 'vote'. This is not the case and future development will seek to hide this text to avoid confusion.

For full information, please see our Petitions guidance.

Every account is strictly personal

Please ensure each account complies with the following rules:

Each account must be unique and linked to a natural person. Every person who is eligible to create an account has the right to create one account. If it is determined that one person has multiple accounts, Stirling Council and CitizenLab reserves the right to delete all these accounts. Every account holder must have reached at least the age of 13 years.

An account cannot be transferred to another person

Since each account is strictly linked to one specific person, this account cannot be transferred to another person without the permission of Stirling Council and CitizenLab. This transfer ban must be considered in the broadest sense. Stirling Council and CitizenLab reserves the right to refuse or delete the account in case of these infringements.

An account cannot be used for commercial purposes. This platform is intended to increase participation. An account can therefore only be used in that sense. Any use of an account for the purpose of enjoying a commercial advantage is prohibited.

The account information must always remain confidential

It is not allowed for another person other than the actual person who created the account, to use the account. The person who creates the account must ensure that they keep the password and login details secure and confidential. We advise you to use a "strong" password (a password with a combination of lowercase, uppercase letters and numbers). Stirling Council and CitizenLab can under no circumstances be held responsible for any loss or damage incurred to the account if the above conditions are not met by the account holder. Stirling Council and CitizenLab cannot be held responsible for theft of your account, for example by 'phishing', either. Stirling Council and CitizenLab will never ask account holders for personal data such as a login or password via e-mail. If personal data is requested, the account holder will always be redirected to the platform.

Limitations to content and use of the platform

To ensure that the platform is working properly and that you can communicate and connect with others, there are some restrictions on the type of content that can be published via the platform:

Offensive behaviour:

We firmly believe in freedom of speech. However, in order to ensure that the platform can be used in a constructive way by the users, with respect for different opinions and without people having to be afraid to express their opinions or convictions, we do not allow offensive behaviour that harasses, intimidates or uses fear to silence another user. Accounts and related accounts which perform any of the actions below can be temporarily blocked and / or permanently deleted.

Violent threats (direct or indirect): You cannot threaten or promote violence, including the promotion of terrorism.
Harassment: You cannot incite to or be involved in deliberately insulting or harassing others. Here are some factors that we can take into account when assessing abusive behaviour (please note this list is not exhaustive): whether the main purpose of the reported account is harassing or sending offensive messages to others; whether the reported behaviour is unidirectional or contains threats; whether the reported account encourages others to intimidate another account; and whether the reported account sends intimidating messages to an account from multiple accounts.
Hatred: You cannot promote violence against other people or directly attack or threaten them on the basis of race, ethnic background, nationality, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religion, philosophical affiliation, marriage or civil partnership, age, disability or illness. We also do not allow accounts whose main purpose is to incite others to do harm on the basis of these categories.
Misuse of multiple accounts: Creating multiple accounts for overlapping use to avoid temporary or permanent suspension of an individual account is not allowed.
Personal data: you cannot publish or post confidential or private data and personal information in regards to others. We would encourage you not to provide any additional personal data about yourself as this will be publicly available on the site and will not be monitored by the Council. To do so may put your personal data at risk. This data could include, for example, credit card numbers, address details, telephone numbers or data that constitutes the personal privacy of a person.
Impersonation: you will not be allowed to enter via the platform if someone else deceives, confuses or threatens in a manner that actually threatens others. By someone else, we mean another account holder.

Spam

We strive at all times to protect users from technical abuse and spam. Where the actions below are performed by an account holder, the account can be temporarily blocked or permanently deleted.

Malware / phishing / viruses / worms / Trojans: You cannot post malicious content or links to such content for the purpose of damaging or disrupting someone else's browsers or computers, or of violating someone's privacy.
Spam: You cannot use the platform to spam people.

Infringement of applicable laws

As we ask others to respect our intellectual property rights, we respect the intellectual property rights of others. If you believe that material located on or linked to the platform violates your or a third party's copyright, you are encouraged to notify us. We will respond to all such notices, and may also remove the infringing material or disable all links to the infringing material if required or appropriate. In the case of a user who infringes or repeatedly infringes the copyright or other intellectual property rights of ours or others, we may terminate or deny access to and use of the platform.

Intellectual Property.

These Terms of Use do not transfer to any user any intellectual property rights in the platform, and all right, title and interest in and to such property will remain solely with the Council or CitizenLab. The Council’s trademarks/logos, CitizenLab trademarks/logos, service marks, graphics and logos used in connection with the platform, are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Council and/or CitizenLab. Your use of the platform grants you no right or license to reproduce or otherwise use any Council, CitizenLab or third-party trademarks.

The account may not be used in any way to promote illegal activities.

In case of breaches of the aforementioned rules

The Council and CitizenLab reserves the right, if it detects any infringements on the aforementioned rules, to delete the relevant messages and even suspend or permanently delete user profiles.

The Council and CitizenLab cannot be held liable in any way for messages posted by users or third parties, which violate the above rules. The web administrator will strictly supervise the platform to detect that these rules are not violated. If a user detects an infringement, they can report this to the following e-mail address: support@govocal.com.

It is possible for users to download harmful files via the platform, or place harmful hyperlinks onto the platform. Every download made by a user or click on a hyperlink by a user, is done so at their own risk and any damage incurred is completely and solely the responsibility of this user.

Intellectual Property rights CitizenLab

Go Vocal's platform is protected by intellectual property rights that relate to content, source code, database, etc. The use of this platform does not mean a transfer of these intellectual rights to the users of the platform. Every user must be aware of these rights and must act accordingly.

It is forbidden to reproduce, distribute, modify or transmit the platform and its contents without permission from CitizenLab or the Council.

Changes

The Council and CitizenLab reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify or replace any part of these Terms of Use. It is your responsibility to check them periodically for changes. Your continued use of and access to the platform following the posting of any changes to these Terms of Use constitutes acceptance of those changes. The Council and CitizenLab may also, in the future, offer new services and/or features through the platform (including, the release of new tools and resources). Such new features and/or services shall also be subject to these Terms of Use.

Disclaimer of Warranties.

This platform is provided "as is". The Council, CitizenLab and its suppliers and licensors and parent or associated companies hereby disclaim all warranties of any kind, express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability, satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Neither the Council or CitizenLab nor its suppliers and licensors, makes any warranty that the platform will be error free or that access thereto will be continuous or uninterrupted. You understand that you download from, or otherwise obtain content or services through, the platform at your own discretion and risk.

Limitation of Liability.

In no event will the Council, CitizenLab, or its suppliers or licensors, be liable with respect to any subject matter of these Terms of Use under any contract, negligence, statutory or other legal or equitable theory for:

1.any special, incidental or consequential damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, loss of revenue, loss of business, howsoever caused and whether direct or indirect;

2.the cost of procurement or substitute products or services;

3.for interruption of use or loss or corruption of data; or

4.for any amounts that exceeds £250 sterling.

Neither the Council nor CitizenLab shall have liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond their reasonable control. The foregoing shall not apply to the extent prohibited by applicable law.

General Representation and Warranty.

You represent and warrant that (i) your use of the platform will be in strict accordance with the Privacy Policy, these Terms of Use and with all applicable laws and regulations (including without limitation any local laws or regulations in your country, state, city, or other local authority area, regarding online conduct and acceptable content, and including all applicable laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported to and from the United Kingdom or the country in which you reside) and (ii) your use of the platform will not infringe or misappropriate the intellectual property rights of any third party.

Indemnification.

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Council, CitizenLab, their contractors, and licensors, and their respective directors, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all liabilities, losses, damages, costs, claims and expenses, including lawyers' fees, arising out of your use of the platform, including but not limited to your violation of these Terms of Use.

Miscellaneous

These Terms of Use constitute the entire agreement between the Council and you concerning the subject matter hereof, and they may only be modified by a written amendment signed by an authorised executive of the Council, or by the Council posting on the relevant platform a revised version. Except to the extent any applicable law provides otherwise, these Terms of Use, and access to or use of the platform will be governed by the laws of the Scotland excluding its conflict of law provisions, and the proper venue for any disputes arising out of or relating to any of the same will be Scottish courts, except for claims for injunctive or equitable relief or claims regarding intellectual property rights (which may be brought in any competent court).

If any part of these Terms of Use is held invalid or unenforceable, that part will be construed to reflect the parties' original intent, and the remaining portions will remain in full force and effect. A waiver by either party of any term or condition of these Terms of Use or any breach thereof, in any one instance, will not waive such term or condition or any subsequent breach thereof.

Stirling Council may contact you via email if there is a change to our process that requires us to gather additional information. We will only contact you via email when it is relevant to do so and we will direct you back to this platform if action is required.

You may assign your rights under these Terms of Use to any party that consents to, and agrees to be bound by, its terms and conditions; the Council may assign its rights under these Terms of Use without condition.

This Agreement will be binding upon and will inure to the benefit of the parties, their successors and permitted assigns.