Terms of use

Introduction

These Terms of Use constitute a legally binding agreement between you and the operator of pastpapers.com (“we”, “us”, or “our”).

By accessing or using pastpapers.com, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Use. If you do not agree to these Terms of Use, please do not access or use our services.

If you are an individual who is acting for purposes that are wholly or mainly outside your trade, business, craft or profession, you are acting as a “Consumer”. If you are acting for purposes relating to your trade, business, craft or profession, then you are acting in the course of a business (a “Business User”). If you are a Business User when you access and use the Site, you represent and warrant that: (1) you have full legal authority to bind the business you represent; and (2) you agree to these Terms of Use on behalf of the business that you represent.

1. Definitions

1.1“Intellectual Property Rights” or “IPR” means patents, rights to inventions, copyright and related rights, moral rights, trademarks, trade names and domain names, rights in get-up, goodwill and the right to sue for passing off, rights in designs, rights in computer software, database rights, rights to use and protect confidential information (including know-how and trade secrets), and all other intellectual property rights, whether registered or unregistered, including all applications and rights to apply for and be granted, renewals or extensions of, and rights to claim priority from, such rights and all similar or equivalent rights or forms of protection which subsist or will subsist now or in the future in any part of the world.

1.2“Privacy Notice” means the notice available at pastpapers.com/privacy detailing how we collect, use, and store your personal data.

1.3“Site” means pastpapers.com, including all of its content, features and functionality, and any other domain through which we operate the service.

1.4“User”, “you”, “your”, and “yours” refer to any individual who accesses or uses the Site, including anyone who opens an account with us. If you are a Business User, “you” refers to the business on whose behalf you are acting.

1.5“User Content” means any content you upload, submit, save, or otherwise share with the Site, including annotations, notes and saved workspaces.

2. Licence to use the Site

2.1Users are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Site for personal, non-commercial educational purposes or, if you are a Business User (such as a teacher, tutor or school), for your internal educational purposes only. The Site may not be resold or otherwise commercially exploited.

2.2Browsing past papers and mark schemes does not require an account. If you create an account (for example, to save annotations and workspaces), you must provide accurate information and keep your credentials secure. Credentials must not be shared with any third party.

2.3Users are prohibited from sharing account details with others or allowing anyone else to use their account. We reserve the right to terminate accounts where credential sharing is detected.

2.4You acknowledge that the Site is designed as a supplementary study resource and is not a replacement for qualified human instruction or formal educational coursework.

3. Our Intellectual Property Rights

3.1All Intellectual Property Rights in the Site, including its content, materials, software, interfaces, design, and organisation, are owned by or licensed to us. Past papers, mark schemes and examiner reports made available through the Site remain the copyright of their respective examination boards. Nothing in these Terms of Use transfers any ownership rights to you or any User.

3.2You are not permitted to:

• Copy, reproduce, distribute, modify, create derivative works, publicly display, or transmit any materials from the Site, except as expressly permitted;
• Download, store, or archive any substantial portion of content from the Site;
• Use data mining, robots, or similar data gathering methods on the Site for any purpose, including for the purpose of training or otherwise developing or deploying AI-based systems;
• Develop, support or use software, devices, automated scripts or programs, robots or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plugins and add-ons or any other technology) to scrape data, records, information or other material on the Site;
• Override any security feature or bypass or circumvent any access controls or use limits of the Site (such as caps on searches, views or downloads);
• Remove any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary notices;
• Access or use our materials for any commercial purpose other than internal educational use permitted under clause 2.1; or
• Permit any third party to engage in any of the above activities.

3.3You agree not to attempt to reverse engineer, decompile, or otherwise discover the underlying source code, structure, or methods of the Site, except to the extent that such restriction is prohibited by applicable law.

4. Conditions of use

4.1Access to the Site is granted on condition that you shall not:

• License, sell, rent, lease, transfer, assign, distribute, host, or commercially exploit the Site;
• Modify, make derivative works of, disassemble, decrypt, or reverse compile the Site or any part thereof;
• Use the Site for any illegal, unethical, or unauthorised purpose, including anything which violates these Terms of Use;
• Upload, submit or otherwise share any User Content that: (a) you do not own or do not have the necessary rights or permissions to use; and/or (b) infringes someone else's rights, including their Intellectual Property Rights (such as by infringing a third party's copyright or trade mark), unless you have obtained the necessary permission from that third party;
• Frame or embed the Site as an "iframe" or otherwise within another application;
• Use any automated system, including but not limited to robots, spiders, or offline readers, to access the Site;
• Submit or transmit harmful code, viruses, or other disruptive computer programming routines;
• Interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the Site;
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Site or its related systems or networks;
• Harass, abuse, harm, stalk, threaten, or impersonate any other User;
• Collect or harvest any personally identifiable information from the Site;
• Use the Site in a manner that places excessive load on our infrastructure; or
• Bypass the measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to the Site.

4.2User Content Declaration: In using the Site, you declare at all times that you own or have obtained all necessary rights and/or permissions to use, and you are otherwise legally responsible for, any User Content that you upload, submit or otherwise share with the Site. We reserve the right to remove or block any such User Content, together with taking further action such as suspension or termination of your access to the Site (see clause 5 below).

4.3Age restriction: If you are under 13, please do not use the Site, attempt to register for an account, or send any personal information to us (including your name, address, telephone number, or email address). If we discover that we have unknowingly collected information from someone under 13, we will delete that information immediately.

4.4You are prohibited from using the Site for developing your own or a third party’s software or product. You may not copy any part of the Site’s interface, operating logic, or database structure for use in other software or products.

5. Suspension or termination of your account

5.1We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Site, without notice, if we have reasonable grounds to believe that:

• You have breached any provision of these Terms of Use;
• Your continued access would cause harm to the Site, its Users, or third parties; or
• You have engaged in fraudulent or illegal activities.

5.2If you provide any User Content that infringes third party rights (including without limitation Intellectual Property Rights) or otherwise is in breach of applicable law and/or these Terms of Use, we have a right to bring a claim for breach of contract.

5.3Upon termination:

• Your right to access and use the Site will immediately cease; and
• We may delete or archive your account information.

5.4The following provisions of these Terms of Use shall survive termination (this means that these terms remain legally enforceable even after termination of these Terms of Use): (3) Our Intellectual Property Rights; (8) Disclaimer and limitation of liability; and (12.5) Governing Law (together with any other provision which by its nature is intended to survive termination).

6. Technical support

6.1For all operational queries related to the Site, please contact us via email at contact@pastpapers.com. We aim to respond to all inquiries within 1 working day.

6.2The Site is accessible from internet-enabled desktop computers, mobile devices, and tablets. We recommend using a high-speed broadband connection for optimal performance.

6.3To ensure maximum functionality, we advise that you use the latest version of your internet browser. Older browser versions may not display content correctly or may have limited functionality.

7. Complaints procedure

7.1We take complaints seriously and aim to respond within 5 working days. Please email us at contact@pastpapers.com with any complaints you may have regarding the Site.

7.2In your complaint, please include:

• Your full name and contact details;
• Details of the issue, including dates and times;
• Any relevant documentation or screenshots; and
• How you would like us to resolve the matter.

8. Disclaimer and limitation of liability

8.1Accuracy and Errors - While we make reasonable efforts to ensure the information on the Site is correct and error-free, we do not guarantee that the Site will be entirely uninterrupted, entirely secure, or entirely error-free.

8.2We do not warrant that the Site or server is free of viruses or other harmful components.

8.3If you are a Business User, we make no warranties, express or implied, regarding fitness for purpose or accuracy of any content.

8.4Content and examination boards - The past papers, mark schemes and examiner reports made available through the Site are the copyright of their respective examination boards. pastpapers.com is a free, independent study resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with any examination board. We have no formal contract, affiliation, or endorsement with any examination board, and the examination boards do not manage or engage in any quality control of the Site or its content. Curricula and examination specifications may change, and there may occasionally be discrepancies, inaccuracies or delays in the material available through the Site. It is your responsibility to verify any information against official curriculum materials or examination board specifications.

8.5 Limitation of Liability

8.5.1Nothing in these Terms of Use excludes or limits our liability for: (a) death or personal injury caused by our negligence; (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or (c) any matter in respect of which it would be unlawful for us to exclude or restrict our liability.

8.5.2If you are a Consumer, then save as set out in clause 8.5.1:

• (a) if we fail to comply with these Terms of Use, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breach of these Terms of Use or our negligence, but we are not responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable. Loss or damage is foreseeable if it was an obvious consequence of our breach or if it was contemplated by you and us at the time you began using the Site;
• (b) nothing in these Terms of Use affects your statutory rights as a Consumer. Advice about your statutory rights is available from your local Citizens' Advice Bureau or Trading Standards Office;
• (c) we only supply the Site to you for domestic and private use. You agree not to use the Site for any commercial or business purposes and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity; and
• (d) our maximum liability to you under these Terms of Use will be limited to £100.

8.5.3If you are a Business User, then save as set out in clause 8.5.1:

• (a) in no event shall we be liable to you for any loss of profits, loss of revenue, loss of contracts, failure to realise anticipated savings, loss of data, waste of management or office time or for any indirect or consequential loss, whether arising from negligence, breach of contract or otherwise;
• (b) these Terms of Use are in place of all warranties, representations, conditions, terms, undertakings and obligations implied by statute, common law, custom, trade usage, course of dealing or otherwise (including implied undertakings of satisfactory quality, conformity with description and reasonable fitness for purpose), all of which are hereby excluded by us to the maximum extent permitted by law;
• (c) our total liability to you for any loss or damage arising out of or in connection with these Terms of Use, whether in contract (including under any indemnity), tort (including negligence) or otherwise shall be limited to £100; and
• (d) you shall indemnify and hold us harmless against any losses, costs, liabilities and expenses suffered or incurred by us and/or our affiliates as a result of any breach of these Terms of Use.

8.6Transmission Errors - Except where caused by our failure to use reasonable care and skill, we do not accept liability for any transmission errors, failures, or loss of information, nor for viruses or other harmful components transmitted to you or your computer system via the Site.

8.7External Factors - We are not liable for any failure or delay in performing our obligations due to causes beyond our reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, natural disasters, pandemic, epidemic, strikes, acts of terrorism, changes in law or regulatory requirements, or actions by governmental authorities.

8.8Internet Security - We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your data, but no method of transmission over the Internet is completely secure and we cannot guarantee absolute security. Nothing in this clause excludes or limits any liability we may have to you under applicable data protection law or under clause 8.5.1.

8.9Business User claims - If you are a Business User, any cause of action arising out of or related to the Site must commence within 6 months after the cause of action arose; otherwise, such cause of action is permanently barred.

9. Data protection and privacy

9.1To provide and improve the Site, we collect and process certain personal information as described in our Privacy Notice.

10. User Content and feedback

10.1Subject to clause 4.2 above, you retain ownership of any User Content you upload, submit or otherwise share with the Site. However, by uploading, submitting or otherwise sharing User Content with the Site, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, and display such User Content for the purposes of providing and improving the Site.

10.2We welcome feedback on the Site. By providing feedback, you grant us an irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use and incorporate your feedback into the Site without any obligation to compensate you.

11. Site maintenance and alteration

11.1Whilst we will endeavour to provide you with uninterrupted access to the Site, we may need to withdraw, modify, discontinue or temporarily or permanently suspend one or more aspects of the Site, upon reasonable notice to you (unless such modifications are required for important reasons, such as for changes in law, security purposes, suspicious activities or other critical operational reasons, in which case we make such changes without notice).

12. General legal provisions

12.1Subcontracting and Assignment - We may subcontract any part of the Site’s services and may assign or novate any of our rights under these Terms of Use in the following circumstances: (a) where it is required under applicable law; (b) with your express consent; or (c) where such assignment will not materially impact your rights.

12.2Changes to Terms of Use - We may make changes to these Terms of Use from time to time (for example, changes for security reasons, changes in law or for other important operational reasons) by providing reasonable prior notice to you via the Site. Your continued use of the Site after such changes take effect will be deemed acceptance of the changes to these Terms of Use. If you do not wish to accept the changes, you should stop using the Site.

12.3Severability - If any provision of these Terms of Use is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be struck and the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.

12.4No Waiver - Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms of Use shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.

12.5 Governing Law

12.5.1These Terms of Use are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.

12.5.2If you are a Consumer resident in the UK:

• (a) you may bring any dispute which may arise under these Terms of Use to, at your discretion, either the competent court of England, or to the competent court of your country of habitual residence if this country of habitual residence is within the UK, which courts are (with the exclusion of any other court) competent to settle any such dispute;
• (b) we will bring any dispute which may arise under these Terms of Use to the competent court of your country of habitual residence if this is within the UK or otherwise the competent court of England; and
• (c) if we direct the Site to (and/or pursue our commercial or professional activities in relation to the Site in) the country in which you are resident, you will benefit from any mandatory provisions of the law of the country in which you are resident. Nothing in these Terms of Use, including clause 12.5.1, affects your rights as a Consumer to rely on such mandatory provisions of local law.

12.5.3If you are a Business User, you and we irrevocably agree that the courts of England shall have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute or claim (including non-contractual disputes or claims) arising out of or in connection with these Terms of Use or its subject matter or formation.

12.6Contact Information - Questions about these Terms of Use should be sent to us at contact@pastpapers.com.