Terms of Service

Version 1.3 – 19 October 2026

By using Biography Library, you agree to these Terms of Service. Please read them carefully.

1. Who Can Use Biography Library

You must be at least 18 years old to use Biography Library.

By creating an account, you confirm that all information you provide is accurate and truthful, that you will comply with these Terms and all applicable laws, and that you will respect the rights of all other persons.

Signing up places your account on a waiting list: access to write your biography is granted by the Association.

2. What You Can Publish

Biography Library allows two types of biographies only.

Your Own Autobiography

You can write and publish the story of your own life with full freedom, within legal limits. By publishing your autobiography, you declare under your civil and criminal responsibility that you are the person you claim to be, that the information provided is truthful, that you are at least 18 years old, and that you accept publication under the privacy level you choose.

Biographies of Deceased Persons

You can write and publish the biography of a deceased direct family member. This right is reserved exclusively for direct family members.

By publishing a biography of a deceased person, you declare under your civil and criminal responsibility that you are a direct family member of the person, that the person is genuinely deceased, that the information is truthful or clearly indicated as your personal interpretation, that you respect the rights of living persons mentioned, and that you understand proof of death may be requested.

Multiple perspectives: more than one family member may write separate biographies of the same deceased person, each with their own authorship, all linked on the deceased person’s personal page.

What Is Prohibited

❌ Biographies of living persons other than yourself
❌ Biographies of minors under 18 (even if deceased)
❌ Biographies of deceased persons without a direct family connection
❌ Biographies of persons whose death you cannot prove if requested

Violations result in immediate account termination and may lead to legal action.

3. Your Responsibilities as an Author

You are solely responsible for the accuracy of all published information, respect for the privacy of living third parties, compliance with Swiss law and the laws of your country of residence, and any damages caused by unlawful or defamatory content.

Biography Library is a technical service provider. Before publication every biography goes through an automatic check. That check does not replace your responsibility: you remain responsible for what you publish.

Protection of Living Third Parties

You may NOT include without explicit written consent:

Health or medical data of others
Sexual orientation of others
Political or religious opinions of others
Legal or criminal proceedings involving others
Economic or financial information of others
Identifiable photographs of living persons
False or defamatory statements about living or deceased persons

Permitted without consent: general mentions (name and relationship), well-known public events, information for which you have obtained explicit written consent.

Living persons mentioned have the right to request removal of sensitive information concerning them.

4. Content and Service Limits

Text

No character limit. Your story has no limits.

Images

Each biography may include up to 15 gallery photos, plus a cover. Each upload is at most 20 megabytes before processing. Video is not accepted. There is no paid plan: the archive stays free.

AI Usage

Fair-use limits for optional AI writing tools are 40 requests per UTC day and 200 per UTC week (Monday–Sunday), unless staff settings say otherwise. There is no separate monthly cap in the product.

5. The single sheet and the chapters

You write on one sheet. Chapters are not fixed sections: they are the titles you mark in the text.

How It Works

After the first publication, a new chapter may be added after at least 365 days. You are not required to do this every year. The only rule is that at least 365 days have passed since the last published chapter.

Immutability

A published chapter is not rewritten. The only exception is a change requested by a reviewer, to protect a person who is named. In that case the platform asks you to correct the passage.

After the Author’s Death

The autobiography is frozen at the last published chapter. No one may add anything to the author’s original voice. Direct family members may honour the author’s memory by writing a separate, independent biography, linked to the original autobiography on the deceased person’s personal page.

6. Biographies of Deceased Persons — Special Rules

The 30-Day Temporary Period

When a family member publishes a biography of a deceased person, it stays public in the catalogue, marked “In the first 30 days”. That mark is not a separate status. Anyone mentioned — or their direct family members — may file a report. The author may notify cited persons but is not required to do so. The “Report” button stays available after the 30 days as well.

When the 30 days end, the mark disappears and the biography stays published. A report remains possible afterwards. If the biography is published again after a requested revision, the 30 days start again.

Legal Declarations and Proof of Death

False declarations regarding a person’s death are prosecutable under Swiss Criminal Code Art. 179decies. If a biography is reported, we may request a death certificate. Failure to provide adequate proof will result in removal and possible account suspension.

7. Reporting System

Every biography includes a “Report” button. Grounds: person is still alive, right to be forgotten, biography contains my sensitive data without consent, false or defamatory content, copyright violation, illegal content, other.

Handling Process

Report received: the author is notified.
Immediate lane — person still alive or illegal content: the entry comes off the public catalogue right away; the author has 14 days to submit a death certificate or an equivalent document.
Ordinary lane — right to be forgotten, sensitive data, defamation, copyright, or other grounds: the entry stays public until the reviewer decides.
The reviewer receives reminders at 7, 21 and 28 days and decides within 30 days of the report.
Final decision: biography confirmed, a change requested from the author, biography removed, or account suspended. If a change is requested, the author has 30 days to correct it; after that the report is overdue.
The author has the right to appeal within 14 days of the decision, once only.

For Level 1 content (Section 11), removal is immediate and automatic.

8. Privacy and Data Protection

The site is hosted in Switzerland, on Infomaniak. During the beta, the database, sign-in and photos are on Supabase, email goes through Resend, and if you use the voice the spoken reply is generated in the European Union (France). The assistant’s writing stays in Switzerland. These steps outside Switzerland are temporary. They end when version 1 is published to the public, when everything will be in Switzerland. We never sell your data to third parties.

For full details, see the Privacy Policy in this app.

9. Privacy Settings

Level

Who Can Access

Private

You only

Family Only

You + family members you explicitly invite

Semi-private

Anyone with the direct link (not indexed)

Public

Everyone (indexed; licence chosen by the author: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 or BY-SA 4.0)

10. Intellectual Property

You retain full ownership of all biographies you publish. By publishing, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide and revocable licence to host, store and make content accessible according to your settings. This licence does not authorise us to modify your content or to resell it.

Public biographies are licensed at the author's choice: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 (attribution required, non-commercial, share-alike) — the default licence — or Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 (attribution required, share-alike, commercial use allowed). Switching from BY-NC-SA to BY-SA is possible at any time; the reverse switch is not. The entry's metadata, not the text, is released separately under Creative Commons CC0, under the archive's export policy.

Software is released under AGPL v3.0: github.com/BiographyLibrary/Biography-Library

Each biography receives one permanent UM identifier issued by Biography Library. See the UM Identifier Specification. The identifier contains no information about the person, is never reassigned to another entry, and keeps responding even when the content is no longer publicly viewable.

11. Prohibited Content and Moderation System

Before publication, every biography’s public text is examined by an automated check that processes the whole public text in segments. This is not a human line-by-line review of every biography.

Level 1 — Immediate Automatic Removal + Permanent Ban

Instant removal, permanent account closure, and permanent ban on the name associated with the account, with no right of appeal:

Apology, glorification or promotion of genocide or crimes against humanity
Any sexual material involving minors (CSAM)
Non-consensual sexual content, including pornographic deepfakes of real persons
Recruitment, planning, financing or glorification of terrorist acts
Direct incitement to imminent physical violence against identifiable persons or groups
Human trafficking: instructions, promotion or facilitation
Instructions for the creation of weapons of mass destruction
Content promoting or glorifying suicide or self-harm toward vulnerable persons

Level 2 — Removal + Right of Appeal

Content removal and possible account suspension. Right of appeal within 14 days:

Hate speech based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or disability
Targeted harassment: doxxing, stalking, personal threats
Graphic violence without justifiable narrative or historical context
Copyright infringement
Biographies of living persons or of deceased persons without family connection
False or seriously defamatory content

Level 3 — Contextual Notice (No Removal)

Content remains published with a visible notice to readers:

Controversial opinions
Contested historical narratives (with the option to add alternative context)

Biography Library protects your right to tell your truth. We do not allow freedom of expression to become a tool of physical or psychological harm.

12. Advertising and Sponsors

Biography Library may display advertising and sponsor logos on the institutional pages of the website and app.

Individual biographies are and will always remain completely free of any advertising or sponsor logos. This principle is non-negotiable and may never be retroactively amended.

Sponsors never have access to user data and cannot influence content moderation.

13. Account and Biography — Permanent Distinction

The Account is the personal operational tool. It remains dormant for as long as it is not used — with no consequences and no automatic deletion or archiving mechanism. The account remains available to the author indefinitely.

The Biography is the permanent archival content. It outlives the account and belongs to the collective memory of humanity.

After the Author’s Death

The autobiography is frozen at the last published chapter. Direct family members may request account management by providing appropriate documentation. Biography Library will assess the request as soon as possible.

Biography Library will never unilaterally delete a biography. Deletion can only occur upon explicit request by the author, entitled family members, or in the event of a confirmed moderation violation.

14. Limitation of Liability

Biography Library is provided “as is”. Maximum liability: CHF 50 per user.

We are not liable for content published by users, indirect or consequential damages, or data loss beyond our reasonable control.

If Biography Library must close: at least 6 months’ notice, data export in the most common available formats, public source code (AGPL v3) available to the community.

15. Artificial Intelligence

Optional AI features. Writing stays in Switzerland via Infomaniak, on open source models. If you use the voice, the spoken reply is generated in the European Union (France). You can leave the voice off. This step is temporary and ends when version 1 is published to the public.

Your biographies are never used to train AI models. Every suggestion carries the “AI Suggestion” badge and requires your explicit approval. You may disable AI at any time.

Before you approve the final PDF, you can run an optional final check that reviews the print-ready text. It does not replace the automated screening at publication and does not by itself publish the biography.

AI systems under an OSI open source licence may access the public archive as a verified reference source, with mandatory attribution. Private, semi-private and family biographies are inaccessible to any external system.

16. Changes to These Terms

Email notification at least 30 days before the new version takes effect. Explicit acceptance required for material changes.

Non-retroactivity: we will never amend these Terms to reduce protections already granted to users.

Version history: v1.2 — 29 September 2026 — Photos, automatic check, UM identifier, licences, report lanes, providers and cookies aligned with the product. v1.1 — 28 September 2026 — During the beta some parts are still outside Switzerland, temporarily, and move to Switzerland when version 1 is published to the public. v1.0 — 25 September 2026 — platform online, first 30 days, app cookies

17. Open Source and Permanent Identifier

Fully open source under AGPL v3.0: github.com/BiographyLibrary/Biography-Library

The permanent UM identifier is issued exclusively by the Biography Library Association, under the public specification described in Section 10; no other party is authorised to issue it.

18. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

Swiss law applies: Civil Code (CC), Code of Obligations (CO), nFADP, Criminal Code (SCC). Jurisdiction: Courts of Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland. EU users retain the right to bring proceedings before the courts of their country of residence.

Before initiating any legal proceedings, please contact us at support@biographylibrary.org.

19. Contact

Biography Library Association — Lugano, Ticino, Switzerland

Email: support@biographylibrary.org
Response time: as soon as possible and in any case within 30 days
Website: biographylibrary.org

Version: 1.2 | 29 September 2026 | The Italian version is the legally binding version.

Biography Library is a non-profit, open-source archive of human memory.

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