Terms of Service
Effective 1 January 2026. These Terms of Service govern access to and use of the StepUp platform by students, counselors, schools, colleges, school boards, districts, and other educational organizations.
1. Acceptance of Terms
These Terms of Service govern your access to and use of the StepUp website, applications, and educational career-planning platform (collectively, the Services). By accessing or using StepUp, you agree to be bound by these Terms and all applicable laws and regulations. If you are using StepUp on behalf of a school, college, university, school board, district, or other educational institution, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms.
2. Institutional Licensing
StepUp is licensed to educational institutions on a subscription basis. Licenses may be issued per school, campus, district, board, or other agreed organizational unit and are limited to the number of authorized users or enrolled students specified in the applicable order form or subscription agreement. Licenses are non-transferable, and institutional administrators are responsible for provisioning and de-provisioning user accounts and maintaining accurate user records.
3. Eligibility and Accounts
Users must be legally permitted to use the Services or be authorized by a participating educational institution. Account holders are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their login credentials and for all activity that occurs under their accounts. Institutions are responsible for ensuring that counselor and administrator accounts are assigned only to authorized personnel.
4. Educational Purpose of the Platform
StepUp provides career-planning assessments, educational guidance tools, pathway recommendations, academic readiness indicators, and counselor support software. The platform is intended to support educational decision-making and career exploration. Recommendations, pathway suggestions, GPA indicators, and risk scores are informational tools only and do not constitute professional academic, legal, financial, psychological, or career counseling advice.
5. AI-Assisted Recommendations
StepUp incorporates AI-assisted features and machine-learning technologies to generate personalized career pathways, educational recommendations, summaries, and decision-support insights. These systems improve over time using aggregated and privacy-protected usage patterns and educational outcomes. AI-generated outputs should always be reviewed by the student and, where applicable, by a qualified educator or counselor before significant educational or career decisions are made.
6. Acceptable Use
You may not attempt to access records that you are not authorized to view; share account credentials; reverse engineer, decompile, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code of the Services; scrape or harvest data at scale; upload malicious software or harmful content; interfere with the security or operation of the platform; or use StepUp to make fully automated decisions that materially affect a student without meaningful human review by qualified educational staff.
7. Data Ownership and Institutional Rights
Educational institutions retain ownership of student and staff data submitted to StepUp. StepUp processes that information solely for the purpose of providing the Services, improving platform functionality, maintaining security, and delivering educational insights. StepUp does not sell personal information and does not use institutional student data to train third-party AI models without the institution's explicit written authorization.
8. Privacy and Compliance
Our collection and use of personal information is governed by the StepUp Privacy Policy and Data Protection Policy. StepUp is designed to support compliance with applicable educational and privacy laws, including PIPEDA and relevant provincial privacy legislation in Canada, FERPA in the United States, and GDPR where applicable.
9. Intellectual Property
The StepUp platform, including its software, algorithms, user interface, assessments, roadmap framework, documentation, graphics, branding, and educational content, is owned by StepUp or its licensors and is protected by applicable intellectual property laws. These Terms grant a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Services during the applicable subscription term. No ownership rights are transferred to users or institutions except as expressly stated in a written agreement.
10. Service Availability and Support
We strive to maintain high availability and reliable performance for educational institutions throughout the academic year. Planned maintenance and service updates will be communicated to institutional administrators whenever reasonably practicable. Support is provided through designated support channels during published business hours, with additional enterprise support options available under separate agreements.
11. Security
StepUp maintains administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal and educational information. These safeguards include encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access controls, audit logging, infrastructure monitoring, secure authentication practices, and periodic security reviews. If a security incident affecting institutional data occurs, we will notify affected institutions without undue delay in accordance with applicable law and contractual obligations.
12. Payment and Subscription Terms
Institutional subscriptions are billed according to the pricing and payment terms specified in the applicable order form or subscription agreement. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, subscriptions renew automatically for successive terms. Fees are non-refundable except where required by law or expressly provided in a written agreement. Institutions are responsible for all applicable taxes associated with their subscription.
13. Suspension and Termination
StepUp may suspend or restrict access to the Services for security reasons, non-payment, misuse of the platform, violation of these Terms, or legal compliance requirements. Upon termination of a subscription, institutions may export their data during a defined export period, after which data may be securely deleted or irreversibly anonymized in accordance with our retention policies and contractual obligations.
14. Warranties and Disclaimers
The Services are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the maximum extent permitted by law, StepUp disclaims all warranties, whether express, implied, statutory, or otherwise, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy of recommendations, and uninterrupted availability. We do not guarantee that educational or career outcomes will result from use of the Services.
15. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, StepUp's aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Services shall not exceed the fees paid by the institution for the subscription term during which the claim arose. In no event shall StepUp be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, including loss of educational opportunity, lost profits, lost data, or interruption of institutional operations, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.
16. Governing Law
These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, unless otherwise required by a written institutional agreement or mandatory local law.
17. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in our Services, technology, legal requirements, or business practices. Material changes will be communicated to institutional administrators before they take effect. Continued use of the Services after the effective date of updated Terms constitutes acceptance of those changes.
18. Contact Us
Questions regarding these Terms of Service or institutional licensing can be directed to StepUp through our Contact page or by emailing legal@stepup.app.
Questions about these terms? Contact us.