Terms of service

The Terrafab API (“Terrafab”, the “Service”) is operated by SIGSEN Systems, a company registered in the United States (“we” or “us”). We provide geospatial and boundary lookup services to customers in Kenya and internationally.

By using Terrafab or signing up for an account, you agree to these Terms, which form a legally binding agreement. Please read them carefully — they define the conditions under which you are allowed to use Terrafab.

In order to use Terrafab, you must be at least 18 years old and legally able to enter into contracts. If you use Terrafab on behalf of a company or organisation you warrant that you have the authority to accept these Terms on behalf of that company or organisation.

We reserve the right to update and change these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be posted on this page; continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

We reserve the right to block, without warning, usage which violates any of the following restrictions.

The “rate limit” is the speed at which you make calls on the API.

Anonymous usage of Terrafab may be permitted for evaluation, but is rate limited (for example, to 50 calls per day). We recommend that you create an account and use an API key for production use.

With an account, rate limits depend on your subscription plan and are described on our pricing page. Typical paid plans allow an average of one call per second in a rolling three-minute period. If you need more than this, we can set up a dedicated service, which may have additional terms or restrictions; please contact us to discuss.

The “call limit” is the number of calls which can be made on the API in any one billing period (typically one month).

Call limits are described on our pricing page. When creating an account you can pick the most appropriate plan for your needs. In any one billing period, if you reach the call limit associated with your current plan, you will have to cease your usage until the next period, or upgrade to a higher pricing level.

Low-volume charitable use of Terrafab may be free or discounted. This means direct use by registered charities (not paid contractors working on behalf of a charity) or by individuals pursuing a non-profit project on an unpaid basis, subject to volume limits described on the pricing page (for example, up to 10,000 calls per month on eligible plans). Higher-volume charitable users may receive a discount off standard pricing.

You can request charitable status as part of the account creation process, and also at a later stage by updating your subscription (but we do not provide the discount retroactively).

You will be asked to provide charity registration details (if you represent a charity in Kenya or elsewhere), or (if you are an individual) enough about you and your project to show us you meet the conditions above: you agree to provide true and complete information, and inform us if your circumstances change.

You must provide a valid email address in order to complete the signup process. This email address will be used if we need to contact you about anything relating to your Terrafab account or usage — please ensure you keep your contact information up to date.

You are responsible for all activity that takes place under your account, so you must keep your password secure. We cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage from your failure to maintain the security of your account and password. You should immediately notify us at hello@sigsen.ai if you become aware of any unauthorised use of your account.

You can terminate this agreement at any time and for any reason by ceasing use of Terrafab and cancelling any subscription you have. You may also choose to ask us to close your account, if you have one.

We may suspend your access to Terrafab if:

• You have failed to make any payment due;
• We reasonably believe you to be in material breach of any term of this agreement;
• We reasonably believe that it is necessary to do so in order to comply with any applicable law or the order of a court or other competent authority in the United States, Kenya, or elsewhere.

We also reserve the right to modify or terminate Terrafab for any reason, with notice where reasonably practicable.

Our pricing is posted at terrafab.sigsen.ai/pricing and is subject to change upon 30 days’ notice from us.

Your plan is billed in advance on a monthly basis and is non-refundable unless required by applicable law. Payments are processed by Stripe. You must at all times ensure we are provided with valid payment information and authorise us to deduct the monthly charges against your chosen payment method.

If we are unable to process your payment we will try to contact you by email. We reserve the right to limit or suspend your account until we can take payment.

Nothing in these Terms is intended to transfer the ownership of any intellectual property from one party to the other.

Terrafab boundary and geospatial data may incorporate material from OpenStreetMap contributors, national and regional statistical agencies, electoral boundary authorities, and other third-party sources across East Africa and beyond. Copyright and database rights in underlying source data remain with their respective owners.

The data is generated from other sources and so we cannot, and do not, warrant that it is accurate. We accept no liability for any errors. For the same reason, while we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that data made available will continue to be available in the future, we cannot, and do not, agree to keep the data up to date. We may, in our absolute discretion, add new data sources, data fields or other forms of information from time to time but we are under no obligation to do so.

We believe that much of the data may be used in accordance with licences given by third parties, which may include:

• OpenStreetMap data under the Open Database Licence (ODbL) and related attribution requirements;
• Open government or open-data licences published by national or regional authorities in Kenya and neighbouring countries, where applicable;
• Other vendor or dataset-specific terms where data is supplied under a separate licence.

We cannot know in every case whether those licences were validly given, and in consequence, give no warranty as to the ownership of the data or the use to which it may be put.

You must comply with the licence or licences relevant to the data you use, and you are responsible for satisfying yourself that any use for which you employ the data is lawful and does not infringe anyone’s intellectual property rights.

Please attribute us with the text “Powered by Terrafab” and a link back to terrafab.sigsen.ai. You must also give any appropriate attribution(s) required by the data licences, including OpenStreetMap where applicable.

We offer no guarantee as to the availability of Terrafab, and will not be liable if Terrafab is unavailable for any reason.

If you need to contact us you can do so at hello@sigsen.ai.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the United States, without regard to conflict of law principles. For users in Kenya, mandatory provisions of Kenyan law may also apply where they cannot be waived by contract. These Terms constitute all the terms and conditions agreed upon between you and us and supersede any prior agreements, whether written or oral.

You expressly understand and agree that to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law we exclude all liability and responsibility to you for any loss or damage resulting, directly or indirectly, from your use of or inability to use Terrafab. In any event, our total liability for all claims made about Terrafab in any month will be no more than what you paid us for the Service the month before.

We shall not be deemed to have waived our right to enforce any of our rights under this agreement merely because we have previously failed to enforce our rights under this agreement, or permitted you to breach any term of this agreement on one or more occasions.

If a court, or other competent authority, finds that any term of this agreement is illegal or otherwise unenforceable, that term is to be treated as if it had been severed from this agreement. Its severance will be treated (as far as possible) as having no effect on the remainder of this agreement.

You can find our Privacy Policy here.