Legal
Terms of service
The rules for using Branchout, written to be read. Please read them before you create an account.
The agreement
These terms are an agreement between you and Branchout, a sole proprietorship based in British Columbia, Canada, which operates thebranchout.app (“Branchout”, “we”, “us”). By creating an account or using the platform, you agree to them. Our privacy policy explains how we handle personal data.
Who can use Branchout
Anyone who wants to learn can use Branchout. If you use it for an organisation — for example as a recruiter — you confirm you are allowed to act for it.
Education, not employment
Branchout is a free, self-paced educational program. Taking part does not make you an employee, worker or contractor of Branchout or of anyone else, and you will not be paid for it. The program does not promise a job, income, interviews or academic credit. Project briefs are simulations for learning, not work performed for a company. You can pause or leave at any time. Our compliance page explains how the program is structured.
Your account
- Give accurate information, and keep your sign-in details secure.
- Your account is for you alone; don’t share it or let others use it.
- Tell us promptly if you think someone else has accessed it.
Your work
You keep ownership of the code, write-ups and other work you create on Branchout. You give us permission to store, display and share it within the platform as needed to run the program — for example, so your pod and mentors can see it, and recruiters can see what you include in an application. You can publish your work anywhere else you like.
In a pod, work is often shared. Agree with your pod how shared work may be used, and credit other people’s contributions honestly in your portfolio.
Acceptable use
Don’t use Branchout to:
- harass, threaten or discriminate against anyone;
- post content that is unlawful, or that infringes someone else’s rights;
- submit work that isn’t yours as your own;
- ask students to do unpaid work for a business, or post misleading roles;
- try to break, overload or get around the security of the platform; or
- collect other people’s personal data without their permission.
We may remove content or restrict accounts that break these rules.
Recruiters
Recruiter access is granted at our discretion and can be withdrawn. Recruiters must describe roles accurately, use applicants’ data only to consider them for the role they applied to, and follow the laws on hiring and data protection that apply to them. Students are never obliged to apply to anything.
Mentors
Mentors volunteer their time and give educational guidance. Mentoring is not supervision of employment, and mentors must not promise students jobs or outcomes.
Certificates and verification
When a mentor passes your pod’s project, you get a certificate: a code that lets an employer see your name, the project you finished, its dates, the mentor’s scores and summary, and your pod’s repository link if you chose to share it. It shows that a mentor passed a project. It isn’t a degree or a licence, and it doesn’t promise a job. Share your code only with people you want to see it; you can switch your public page off from your dashboard. Don’t guess codes or use automated tools on the verify page: lookups are limited and recorded.
Paid services
Branchout is free, and nothing on it costs money at the moment. If we add paid services, we’ll update these terms first, and you’ll see what you get and the total price before you pay.
AI features
Branchout doesn’t use AI features at the moment. Filling in your profile from a resume happens in your browser, by fixed rules rather than AI, so check the fields before you save them. If we add AI features, we’ll update these terms and the privacy policy first.
Other services
Branchout links to, and relies on, services run by other companies — for example Google or GitHub for sign-in. Their own terms apply when you use them.
Ending the agreement
You can stop using Branchout at any time and ask us to close your account. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms or puts others at risk, and we will tell you why unless the law or safety prevents us.
Disclaimers
We work hard to keep Branchout useful and available, but we provide it “as is”. To the extent the law allows, we don’t guarantee that it will always be available or error-free, or that it will lead to any particular result. Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under consumer law that can’t be excluded.
Liability
To the extent the law allows:
- we aren’t liable for indirect or consequential losses, such as lost opportunities, lost income or lost data; and
- our total liability to you for any claim about Branchout is limited to what you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose, or CA$100 if you haven’t paid us anything.
These limits don’t apply where the law doesn’t allow them, including to your rights as a consumer under the law of British Columbia or of the place you live.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of British Columbia and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. If you live elsewhere, you keep the protection of any mandatory laws of the place you live.
Changes
We may update these terms as the program changes. We will change the effective date at the top, and tell account holders about significant changes before they take effect.
Contact
Branchout, British Columbia, Canada. Use the contact form.