Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using PicFetch AI ("PicFetch", "we", "us", operated by Ayush Shailesh Ghodke, Sole Proprietor, 1260 Tekdi, Above Ghodke Clinic, Saliwada road, Paithan, Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), Maharashtra - 431107, India), creating a studio account, uploading photos, or scanning an event QR code to find photos with a selfie, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to these terms, do not access or use the platform.

These Terms apply to two categories of users:

• Studios / Photographers: Individuals or business entities holding an account who upload, manage, and distribute event galleries.
• Guests / Attendees: Individuals accessing public event links to search and view photographs using face-matching without creating an account.

2. Service Description & AI Operation

PicFetch AI is a specialized software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that assists professional photographers in delivering event photos. The platform automatically detects and indexes faces in event photos uploaded by studios and allows guests to locate photos in which they appear by submitting a live front-facing selfie.

Matching is performed by calculating 512-dimensional numerical embeddings. Guest selfies are processed temporarily in volatile server memory (RAM) and are immediately discarded. Selfies are never written to disk, databases, or cloud storage buckets.

3. Studio Responsibilities, Consent Warranties & Indemnity

Under applicable privacy legislation, including the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act):

• The Studio acts as the Data Fiduciary (or Data Controller) for event photos and subjects. PicFetch acts strictly as a Data Processor executing automated processing upon the Studio's instruction.
• The Studio warrants that it possesses all necessary rights, licenses, legal bases, notices, and verifiable parental/guardian consents (under DPDP Section 9 for minors) required to photograph attendees and to employ AI-assisted facial recognition to distribute those photographs.
• The Studio agrees to provide appropriate venue signage and notice (such as PicFetch event QR posters) notifying guests of AI photo-matching and opt-out procedures.
• The Studio retains all intellectual property and copyright ownership in its original uploaded photographs. The Studio grants PicFetch a limited, non-exclusive license to process, store, generate derivative previews, and deliver photos solely to operate the service.
• Studio Indemnification: The Studio agrees to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless PicFetch AI, its proprietor, and its infrastructure providers against any third-party claims, legal notices, damages, regulatory fines, or legal expenses (including reasonable attorney fees) brought by event attendees, guests, or clients arising from: (a) lack of attendee consent for photography or AI face search; (b) the Studio's distribution of public or unmoderated gallery links; or (c) copyright or privacy infringement claims relating to media uploaded by the Studio.

4. Acceptable Use & User Security Obligations

You agree not to use PicFetch AI to:

• Upload unlawful, harassing, defamatory, obscene, or infringing content.
• Use the face-matching feature for mass surveillance, unauthorized profiling, stalking, biometric identification across multiple distinct events, or identity verification.
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, decompile, scrape, or extract face embeddings from the platform.
• Bypass rate limits, security measures, or attempt denial-of-service attacks against the infrastructure.

User Security & Contributory Negligence: Users are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their account credentials, multi-factor tokens, and private event management links. PicFetch AI assumes zero liability for unauthorized data access resulting from: (a) the User publicly posting event URLs on open social media; (b) sharing second-shooter collaborator codes with untrusted third parties; or (c) password compromise, phishing, or malware on the User's own devices.

5. Delivery Scope, Data Retention & Backup Disclaimer

Delivery Gateway vs. Archival Storage: PicFetch AI is an instant event photo delivery and facial recognition distribution gateway, not a permanent archival cold-storage backup service. Studios are solely and strictly responsible for maintaining primary local backups of all client photos (e.g. on dual SD cards, local hard drives, or NAS). PicFetch AI bears zero liability for data loss resulting from an unrenewed account, scheduled retention purging, user deletion, or technical failures.

• 60-Day Delivery Window: Event media remains accessible and active as long as the studio maintains an active paid subscription, subject to the event's configured retention window (default 60 days).
• 7-Day Post-Expiry Grace Period: If a subscription expires, the studio enters a seven (7) calendar day grace period during which galleries may be downloaded, but guest AI facial search is paused.
• Permanent Purge: If an account is not renewed before the grace period expires, all associated media files, face embeddings, and gallery records are permanently and irreversibly purged from our servers.

6. Disclaimers & Third-Party Cyber-Attack Limitations

PicFetch AI is provided on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis. Face-matching technology is an automated, best-effort capability. We do not warrant that every photograph containing a guest will be identified, or that results will be 100% error-free under adverse lighting, motion blur, occlusion, or extreme camera angles.

Cyber-Attack & Hacker Disclaimer: While PicFetch AI deploys commercial, industry-standard technical and organizational security safeguards conforming to Indian law (including TLS 1.3 encryption in transit, AES-256 cloud encryption at rest, signed short-TTL URLs, Deny-All Row Level Security, and volatile RAM processing for guest selfies), the User acknowledges that no electronic transmission or digital storage method is 100% infallible. PicFetch AI shall not be liable for unauthorized access, data theft, interception, alteration, deletion, or leakage resulting from criminal cyber-attacks, zero-day vulnerabilities, denial-of-service assaults, or state-sponsored intrusions that occur despite reasonable security safeguards.

7. Absolute Limitation of Financial Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable Indian law, PicFetch AI, its proprietor (Ayush Shailesh Ghodke), and its affiliates shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive, or exemplary damages, or any loss of profits, business opportunities, data, good will, emotional distress, or reputational harm, arising out of or related to your use of or inability to use the service.

8. Pre-Dispute Grievance Conciliation (Mandatory 30-Day Period)

Before instituting any formal legal proceedings, civil suit, consumer forum filing, or regulatory complaint, the User agrees to submit a written grievance detailing the nature of the claim to our designated Grievance Officer at grievance@picfetch.in. The parties mutually agree to undertake a mandatory, good-faith conciliation period of thirty (30) business days from the date of acknowledged receipt to amicably resolve the issue prior to filing any formal legal claim.

9. Mandatory Binding Sole Arbitration

Any controversy, dispute, or claim arising out of or relating to these Terms, the platform, or any alleged data compromise that cannot be resolved through informal conciliation under Section 8 shall be referred to and finally resolved by binding sole arbitration under the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.

• The sole arbitrator shall be nominated by PicFetch AI.
• The seat and venue of arbitration shall be Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), Maharashtra, India.
• The arbitration proceedings shall be conducted exclusively in English.
• The arbitral award shall be final and binding on all parties.

10. Governing Law, Exclusive Jurisdiction & Class Action Waiver

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of India. Subject to the arbitration clause in Section 9, the competent courts located in Aurangabad (Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar), Maharashtra, India shall have exclusive territorial jurisdiction over any disputes.

Class Action Waiver: The User agrees that all claims must be asserted on an individual basis only, and explicitly waives any right to initiate, join, or participate in any collective, representative, or class action lawsuit against PicFetch AI.

11. Support, Billing & Grievance Contact

For general support, account assistance, or contract questions regarding these Terms, please contact our team at support@picfetch.in. For billing, invoicing, and payment queries, contact billing@picfetch.in. For statutory privacy grievances under the DPDP Act 2023, please refer to our Grievance Officer details in the Privacy Policy or contact grievance@picfetch.in.