ELECTORAL COMMISSION’S APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE (API’s) TERMS OF USE

Thank you for using the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s APIs. These API’s are provided by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (referred to hereunder as “IEC”, “we”, “our”, or “us”), located at 1303 Heuwel Avenue, Riverside Office Park, Centurion, Gauteng Province, South Africa. These terms outline your rights and responsibilities when using the IEC’s APIs, so read them carefully. Additional terms may apply to the use of an API, including additional terms of service, terms within the accompanying API documentation, and any applicable policies or guidelines. If you use the APIs as an interface to, or in conjunction with other IEC products and services, then the terms for such products and services also apply.

ACCOUNT AND REGISTRATION

You may not use the APIs and you may not accept the Terms if: - you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with IEC; you are a person barred from using or receiving the APIs under the applicable laws of the Republic of South Africa or other countries including the country in which you are resident or from which you use the APIs.

You are required to create an IEC account in order to use an API or, an IEC account may be assigned to you by an administrator ([email protected]). If you are using an IEC account assigned to you by an administrator, your legal relationship with your administrator may affect that account. It is thus your responsibility to keep your password, account credentials and your accounts secure. If it comes to your knowledge or to your attention that there is unauthorized use of your account, you are required to immediately notify [email protected].

In order to access certain APIs, you may be required to provide certain information such as identification and/or contact details as part of the registration process for the APIs, or as part of your continued use of the APIs. You agree that any registration information you give to IEC will, at all times, be accurate and up to date.

USING IEC’s API’s

You are required to ensure that your end users comply with any and all applicable law and these terms and, you undertake not to knowingly enable your end users to violate applicable law or these terms. You undertake to use our APIs only as permitted by law (including without limitation laws regarding the import or export of data or software, privacy, or local laws). You will not use our APIs to encourage or promote illegal activity. You will only access (or attempt to access) an API by the means described in the documentation of that API. If the IEC assigns you developer credentials or Client IDs, you must use them with the applicable APIs. You will not misrepresent or mask either your identity or your API Client's identity when using the APIs or developer accounts.

IEC reserves the right at its sole discretion, to set limits on the number of API requests that you can make. You agree to such limitations and you agree not to attempt to circumvent such limitations. The limitation at present is 10,000 requests per hour. The IEC may monitor the use of the APIs to ensure quality, improve IEC products and services, and verify your compliance with these terms. You undertake not to interfere with such monitoring. In the event of your interference, the IEC will use any technical means to overcome such interference. From time to time the IEC may send you communication relating to your use of the APIs. You are required to review the applicable API documentation for information about opting out of certain types of communication. In the event that you provide any feedback or suggestions about our APIs, then we may use such information without any obligation to you.

YOUR API CLIENTS

The APIs are designed to help you enhance your websites and applications (“API Client(s)). The IEC reserves the right to investigate any API Client for compliance with these terms. Such investigations may include IEC accessing and using your API Client, for example to identify security issues that could affect IEC or its users. You consent to any such investigation and the IEC may suspend your access to its APIs or access by your API Client without any notice if we reasonably believe that you are in violation of these terms. You undertake to use commercially reasonable efforts to protect user information collected by your API Client, including personally identifiable information (“PII”), from unauthorized access or use and you will promptly report to your users any unauthorized access or use of such information. The IEC does not acquire ownership in your API Clients, and by using our APIs, you do not acquire ownership of any rights in our APIs or the content that is accessed through our APIs.

You will comply with all privacy laws and regulations including those applying to PII. You will provide and adhere to a privacy policy for your API Client that clearly and accurately describes to users of your API Client what user information you collect (such as PII, login information and IEC account data) and how you use and share such information (including for advertising) with IEC and third parties. 

PROHIBITIONS

When using the APIs, the following prohibitions apply:-You will not sublicense an API for use by a third party. Consequently, you will not create an API Client that functions substantially the same as the APIs and offer it for use by third parties. You will not perform an action with the intent of introducing to the IEC any products and services, any viruses, worms, defects, Trojan horses, malware or any items of a destructive nature. You will not defame, abuse, harass, stalk or threaten others. You will not interfere with or disrupt the APIs or the servers or networks providing the APIs. You will not promote or facilitate unlawful online gambling or disruptive commercial messages or advertisements. You will not reverse engineer or attempt to extract the source code from any API or any related software, except to the extent that this restriction is expressly prohibited by applicable law. Certain developer credentials are, by their nature, considered confidential. You will not disclose such confidential credentials to any third party except your agent(s) using such information solely on your behalf in accordance with these terms and under a written duty of confidentiality. Our communications to you may contain IEC confidential information. If you receive any materials or communications that are clearly confidential or marked confidential, then you will not disclose the IEC confidential information to any third party without IEC's prior written consent.

CONTENT

Our APIs contain some third party content (such as text, images, videos, audio, or software). This content is the sole responsibility of the person that makes it available. We may sometimes review content to determine whether it is illegal or violates our policies, and we may remove or refuse to display any content at our sole discretion. Further, content accessible through our APIs may be subject to intellectual property rights, and, if so, you may not use it unless you are licensed to do so by the owner of that content or are otherwise permitted by law. Your access to the content provided by the API may be restricted, limited, or filtered in accordance with local laws, regulations, and policies. The IEC reserves the right to include advertising in the content returned through the APIs. If any advertisements are returned, you may not modify such advertisements and you must show them in accordance with the relevant API documentation. Some of our APIs allow the submission of content, and except as expressly provided in these terms, IEC does not acquire any ownership of any intellectual property rights that you or your end users hold in the content that you submit to our APIs through your API Client. By submitting, posting or displaying content to or from the APIs through your API Client, you give the IEC a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. However, the IEC will only use such content for the purpose of enabling the IEC to provide the APIs and only in accordance with the applicable IEC privacy policies. You agree that this license includes a right for IEC to make such content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom the IEC has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such content in connection with the provision of those services. Before you submit content to our APIs through your API Client, ensure that you have the necessary rights (including the necessary rights from your end users) to grant us the license. When a user's non-public content is obtained through the APIs, you may not expose that content to other users or to third parties without explicit opt-in consent from that user.

The IEC supports data portability. By accessing users' data through the APIs for use in any of your services or applications, you agree to enable your users of any such service or application to export their equivalent data to other services or applications of their choice in a way that is substantially as fast and easy as exporting such data from the IEC products and services, subject to applicable laws. Unless expressly permitted by the content owner or by applicable law, you agree that you will not, and will not permit your end users to, do the following with content returned from the APIs:- Scrape, build databases or otherwise create permanent copies of such content, or keep cached copies longer than permitted by the cache header; Copy, translate, modify, create a derivative work of, sell, lease, lend, convey, distribute, publicly display or sublicense to any third party; Misrepresent the source or ownership; or Remove, obscure, or alter any copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights notices, falsify or delete any author attributions, legal notices or other labels of the origin or source of material.

BRAND FEATURES; ATRIBUTION

"Brand Features" is defined as the trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, domain names, and other distinctive brand features of each party. Except where expressly stated, these terms do not grant either party any right, title, or interest in or to the other party's Brand Features. All use by you of the IEC's Brand Features (including any goodwill associated therewith) will inure to the benefit of the IEC. You undertake to display any attribution(s) required by the IEC as described in the documentation for the API. The IEC hereby grants to you a nontransferable, non-sublicenseable, nonexclusive license during the term to display the IEC's Brand Features for the purpose of promoting or advertising that you use the APIs. You must only use the IEC Brand Features in accordance with these terms and for the purpose of fulfilling your obligations under this Section. In using IEC's Brand Features, you must follow the IEC Brand Features . You understand and agree that the IEC has the sole discretion to determine whether your attribution(s) and use of IEC's Brand Features are in accordance with the above requirements and guidelines.

 Publicity, Promotional and Marketing Use.

You will not make any statement regarding your use of an API which suggests partnership with, sponsorship by or endorsement by the IEC without the IEC's prior written approval. In the course of promoting, marketing, or demonstrating the APIs you are using and the associated IEC products, the IEC may produce and distribute incidental depictions, including screenshots, video, or other content from your API Client, and may use your company or product name. You grant us all necessary rights for the above purposes.

PRIVACY AND COPYRIGHT PROTECTION

By using our APIs, you agree that IEC can use submitted information in accordance with our privacy policies.

TERMINATION.

You may stop using our APIs at any time. IEC reserves the right to terminate these terms or discontinue the APIs or any portion or feature thereof for any reason and at any time without liability or other obligation to you.

LIABILITY

Neither the IEC nor its suppliers or distributors make any specific promises about the APIs. In particular, we do not make any commitments about the quality of the APIs or the content accessed through the APIs, their reliability, availability or ability to meet your needs. The APIs and content accessed through the APIs are provided "as is". Some jurisdictions provide for certain warranties, like the implied warranty of the merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We exclude all implied warranties. The IEC, and IEC's suppliers and distributors, will not be responsible for lost profits, revenues, or data, financial losses or indirect, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages. The total liability of IEC, and its suppliers and distributors, for any claim under these terms, including for any warranties is nil. Nothing in these terms limits your responsibility for infringement of intellectual property rights. In all cases, the IEC, and its suppliers and distributors, will not be liable for any loss or damage that is not reasonably foreseeable. You agree to hold harmless and indemnify the IEC, and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents, and employees, or partners, from and against any third party claim arising from or in any way related to:- your misuse or your end user's misuse of the APIs; or your violation or your end user's violation of these terms, including any liability or expense arising from all claims, losses, damages (actual and consequential), suits, judgments, litigation costs and attorneys' fees, of every kind and nature. In such a case, the IEC will provide you with written notice of such claim, suit or action.

GENERAL PROVISIONS

We may modify these terms or any additional terms that apply to an API occasionally, to cater for such things as changes to the law or changes to our APIs. In that eventuality, we will post notice of modifications to these terms or the additional terms within the documentation of each applicable API. Changes are effective seven (7) days after they are posted. However, changes specific to new functionality for an API or changes made for legal reasons will be effective immediately. You agree that your continued use of the API constitutes an acceptance of the modified terms. These terms control the relationship between the IEC and you. They do not create any third party beneficiary rights. If you do not comply with these terms, and the IEC does not take action right away, this does not mean that the IEC is giving up any rights that it may have (such as taking action in the future). If it turns out that a particular term is not enforceable, this will not affect any other terms. The laws of the Republic of South Africa will apply to any disputes arising out of or related to these terms or the services. All claims arising out of or relating to these terms or the services will be litigated exclusively in the South African Courts, and consent to the jurisdiction of those courts.