LEGAL

Terms of Use

Last updated: 02/07/2026 · Effective: 02/07/2026

These Terms of Use (the "Terms") are a legal agreement between you and Naman Sharma (an individual operating as a sole trader in Australia under the name "Protocol", and referred to here as "Protocol", "we", "us" or "our") governing your use of the Protocol mobile application, the website at protocol-ai.net, and all related features and services (together, the "Service").

Please read these Terms carefully, especially the Medical Disclaimer in Section 3 and the limitations in Sections 12 and 13. By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service. By using the Service you represent that you meet this requirement and that you have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms. The Service is not directed to children.

2. The Service

Protocol is an injury-recovery accountability and coaching tool. It helps you stay consistent with your recovery between visits to your healthcare provider by:

maintaining a persistent record of your recovery (your injury, your "Day N since injury", your plan, your adherence, and your symptom trends);
providing an AI-powered coach that responds to you and prompts small, regular recovery actions;
framing its coaching around the recovery goal and coaching-style preference you choose during onboarding, and timing reminders to the routine cue you give it;
translating clinical documents you choose to upload into plan context, restrictions and red-flag awareness.

The Service provides general recovery coaching informed by general physiotherapy principles and the context you give it. It is not personalised medical treatment.

3. Medical Disclaimer — please read

This Section is fundamental to these Terms and to how you must use the Service.

Protocol is not a medical device, and it is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The Service is an accountability and translation tool. Its coaching is informed by general physiotherapy principles and by the clinical context you provide. It does not diagnose conditions, does not prescribe treatment, and does not provide a medical opinion about your specific case.

By using the Service you acknowledge and agree that:

No clinician–patient relationship is created between you and Protocol, and using the Service is not a consultation with a qualified health professional.
You should not delay, avoid or disregard professional medical advice because of anything the Service tells you. Always seek the advice of your physiotherapist, doctor or other qualified health professional with any questions about your injury, symptoms, or recovery — including before you start, stop or change any exercise or activity suggested in the app.
The Service is intended to support, not replace, the care you receive from your own healthcare providers. It is designed for use in the gaps between their visits, not instead of them.
Physical activity carries inherent risk. Following any movement, exercise or activity suggested by the Service is at your own risk. Stop and seek professional advice if anything causes pain beyond mild discomfort, or if your symptoms change.
The Service may flag potential warning signs and suggest you seek care, but this is not a clinical assessment and the absence of such a flag does not mean you are not experiencing a problem. The Service can be wrong, incomplete, or unsuitable for your situation.
In a medical emergency, do not use the Service. Call your local emergency number immediately — for example 000 (Australia), 911 (United States), 999 (United Kingdom), 112 (EU/India) — or go to your nearest emergency department.
Individual results vary. No outcome is promised or guaranteed.
Personalisation does not change any of this. The recovery goal and coaching-style preference you choose affect only the tone and framing of the coaching. They are stated preferences, not a psychological, personality or clinical assessment, and choosing them does not make the Service medical treatment or create a clinician–patient relationship. Everything in this Section applies regardless of the preferences you select.

If you do not accept this Section, you must not use the Service. You will be asked to confirm that you understand this disclaimer before you begin.

4. Your account

To use the Service you must create an account with accurate information and keep it up to date. You are responsible for safeguarding your login credentials and for all activity under your account. Notify us promptly at privacy@protocol-ai.net if you suspect unauthorised use. We are not liable for losses arising from your failure to keep your credentials secure.

5. Fees

The Service is currently provided free of charge. There is no subscription, and we do not collect payment from you through the app.

If we introduce paid features or a subscription in future, we will update these Terms to describe the pricing, billing, auto-renewal and cancellation arrangements before any charge applies, and — where the law requires — obtain your consent. Any paid subscription offered through the iOS app would be processed by Apple through your Apple Account, subject to Apple's terms and the App Store Usage Rules; we would not receive or store your payment-card details.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

use the Service for any unlawful purpose, or in breach of these Terms;
use the Service in place of emergency or professional medical care;
attempt to access, probe or disrupt the Service, its security, or other users' data; reverse-engineer, decompile, or extract source code except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by law;
use automated means to access the Service, or scrape, harvest or resell any part of it;
upload content you do not have the right to upload, or that infringes the rights of others;
upload another person's clinical or personal information without authority to do so;
misrepresent your identity or your eligibility to use the Service.

We may suspend or terminate access for breach of this Section (see Section 14).

7. Your content and data

You own your data. As between you and us, you retain all rights in the information and content you provide, including your messages, your recovery data, and the clinical documents you upload ("Your Content").

Licence to operate the Service. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, process, transmit and display Your Content solely to provide, maintain, secure and improve the Service for you, and to transmit the relevant parts of it to the service providers described in our Privacy Policy (including our AI provider) for that purpose. This licence ends when you delete the relevant content or your account, subject to the retention terms in the Privacy Policy and to routine backups.

Your responsibility for what you upload. You are responsible for Your Content and confirm you have the right to provide it to us.

Optional recovery-outcomes data. If you give the separate, optional consent described in our Privacy Policy, we may use your recovery-outcome data (a short pain/function scale and self-reported re-injury) to improve the Service and, in anonymised, aggregated form only, for potential future research into recovery outcomes. This consent is not a condition of using the Service, and you can withdraw it at any time as described in the Privacy Policy; withdrawal does not affect anonymised aggregates already produced, which cannot be traced back to you.

Feedback. If you send us suggestions or feedback, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to use it without restriction or obligation to you.

8. Intellectual property

The Service, including the application, its design, text, graphics, and all software and underlying technology (but excluding Your Content), is owned by Protocol or its licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service for your own personal, non-commercial recovery. All rights not expressly granted are reserved. "Protocol" and our logos are our trademarks; you may not use them without our prior written permission.

9. Third-party services

The Service relies on third parties — including Apple (distribution), our AI provider, and our hosting, storage and authentication providers — as described in our Privacy Policy. Your use of the Service may also be subject to those third parties' terms. We are not responsible for third-party services we do not control.

10. Availability and changes to the Service

We aim to keep the Service available but do not guarantee it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may modify, suspend or discontinue any part of the Service at any time. We may also release updates that you must install to keep using the Service.

11. Disclaimer of warranties

Except as expressly stated in these Terms, and to the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will meet your requirements, that coaching output will be accurate or appropriate for your situation, or that the Service will be secure, uninterrupted or error-free.

Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy that applies to you by law and cannot lawfully be excluded — see Section 13.

12. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

we will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, punitive or exemplary loss, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill or anticipated savings, arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms, whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such loss; and
our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the total amount you paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the liability (which, while the Service is free, is nil), or (b) AUD 100.

Important: nothing in these Terms limits our liability for anything that cannot lawfully be limited — including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any liability under a non-excludable consumer guarantee (see Section 13). The Medical Disclaimer in Section 3 and these limitations allocate risk between us; they do not purport to limit any liability that the law does not allow us to limit.

13. Your consumer rights (non-excludable guarantees)

Australia. Our Service comes with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law (ACL). Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts or modifies the application of the ACL, the exercise of a right or remedy under it, or the imposition of any liability under it, where to do so would contravene the ACL or make a term void. For failures that do not amount to a major failure, and to the extent the law permits us to do so, we limit our liability for a failure to comply with a consumer guarantee in respect of services to re-supplying the services or paying the cost of having the services re-supplied.

Other jurisdictions. If you are a consumer in another jurisdiction (including the EEA, UK or certain US states), you may have statutory rights that cannot be excluded or limited. Nothing in these Terms affects those rights. Where mandatory consumer-protection law gives you rights or remedies beyond those in these Terms, those rights and remedies apply.

14. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time (see the Privacy Policy for how deletion works). We may suspend or terminate your access, with or without notice, if you breach these Terms, if required by law, or if continuing to provide the Service to you poses a risk to other users, to us, or to the integrity of the Service. On termination, the licences granted to you end; Sections that by their nature should survive (including Sections 3, 7 (final sentence), 8, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 17) survive termination.

15. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. You and we submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales, Australia. Nothing in this Section deprives you of the protection of mandatory consumer-protection laws of the country in which you live, or of your right to bring proceedings in your local courts where the law gives you that right.

16. Apple-specific terms (App Store)

These additional terms apply to your use of the Protocol app obtained through the Apple App Store. In the event of any conflict between this Section and the rest of these Terms, this Section governs for the Apple app:

This agreement is between you and Protocol only, not Apple. Protocol, not Apple, is solely responsible for the app and its content.
Scope of licence. The licence granted to you for the app is a non-transferable licence to use the app on any Apple-branded device that you own or control, as permitted by the App Store Usage Rules, except that the app may be accessed by other accounts associated with you via Family Sharing or volume purchasing where applicable.
Maintenance and support. Protocol is solely responsible for any maintenance and support for the app. Apple has no obligation to furnish any maintenance or support.
Warranty. Protocol is solely responsible for any product warranties, whether express or implied by law, to the extent not effectively disclaimed. If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any) for the app; to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation with respect to the app, and any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs or expenses attributable to a failure to conform to a warranty are Protocol's responsibility.
Product claims. Protocol, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims by you or a third party relating to the app or your use of it, including: (a) product-liability claims; (b) any claim that the app fails to conform to a legal or regulatory requirement; and (c) claims arising under consumer-protection, privacy or similar legislation.
Intellectual property. In the event of any third-party claim that the app or your use of it infringes that third party's intellectual-property rights, Protocol, not Apple, will be solely responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement and discharge of that claim.
Legal compliance. You represent and warrant that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo or designated as "terrorist supporting", and that you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
Developer contact. Questions, complaints or claims about the app should be directed to: Naman Sharma, privacy@protocol-ai.net.
Third-party terms. You must comply with any applicable third-party terms when using the app.
Third-party beneficiary. You acknowledge and agree that Apple, and Apple's subsidiaries, are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms, and that upon your acceptance Apple will have the right (and will be deemed to have accepted the right) to enforce these Terms against you as a third-party beneficiary.

17. General

Entire agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service and supersede any prior agreement on that subject.
Changes to these Terms. We may update these Terms from time to time. We will update the "Last updated" date and, for material changes, give you notice in the app or by email before they take effect. Continued use after the changes take effect means you accept them.
Severability. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect, and the unenforceable provision is modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable.
No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, or by operation of law.
Force majeure. We are not liable for failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
Notices. We may give you notice through the app, by email, or by posting on protocol-ai.net.
Contact. Questions about these Terms: privacy@protocol-ai.net, Naman Sharma.

These Terms are published at protocol-ai.net/terms and incorporate the Protocol Privacy Policy by reference.