TERMS & CONDITIONS

1. About This Service and Acceptance of These Terms

The R.A.T.E.S. Responsible AI Readiness Assessment™ (the “Service”) is owned and operated by New Skills Online, LLC (“we,” “us,” “our”). The Service is an evidence-based organizational readiness and capacity-building tool that helps organizations assess, build, and demonstrate their ability to govern artificial intelligence responsibly.

By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy. If you use the Service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have authority to accept these terms for that organization.

If you do not agree with these terms, do not use the Service.

2. What R.A.T.E.S. Is — and Is Not

R.A.T.E.S. is a readiness assessment and capacity-building tool. It helps you identify readiness gaps, prioritize safeguards, document evidence, and record leadership decisions.

R.A.T.E.S. is not a certification, audit, legal opinion, or regulatory approval. Completing an assessment does not constitute R.A.T.E.S. certification, ISO certification, NIST certification, or any government approval, and does not guarantee that an AI system cannot cause harm. High-consequence AI uses may require qualified legal, cybersecurity, privacy, technical, financial, clinical, safety, regulatory, or other specialist review.

The Service may recommend decisions, but the decision to authorize, condition, modify, pause, or retire an AI use always belongs to your organization's leadership — never to the Service.

3. Your Account

You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you provide, for keeping your login credentials confidential, and for all activity that occurs under your account.

Assessments are intended to be completed by a person with knowledge of the organization's AI use. AI tools may assist you in understanding questions, but the responses entered should reflect your organization's actual practices, safeguards, and evidence.

You may invite other users to your workspace and assign them roles. Do not share one account between multiple people.

4. Acceptable Use

You agree not to misuse the Service. In particular, you agree not to:

• •Use automated tools (bots, scrapers, or scripts) to submit assessments, probe the Service, or exceed normal human usage.
• •Attempt to gain unauthorized access to other users' data, accounts, or systems.
• •Enter content that is unlawful, defamatory, or that infringes the rights of others.
• •Interfere with the operation or security of the Service or its hosting infrastructure.
• •Misrepresent your organization's practices, safeguards, or evidence when completing an assessment.

The Service includes server-side rate limiting and abuse detection. We may suspend or restrict access that appears automated, abusive, or a threat to the Service or its users.

5. Your Content

You retain ownership of the information you enter — assessment responses, notes, evidence records, and action plans (“Your Content”). By using the Service, you grant us a limited license to store and process Your Content solely to operate and provide the Service to you.

We may use aggregated, de-identified information about how the Service is used to improve it. We do not sell Your Content.

6. Availability and Changes to the Service

We aim to keep the Service available, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. We may add, change, or remove features, and we may discontinue parts of the Service. Features described as planned (such as secure file attachments) are not promises of future functionality.

We may also update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be reflected in the effective date above; continued use after changes means you accept the updated terms.

7. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, New Skills Online, LLC shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any losses arising from your use of the Service or from decisions made based on assessment results. Your use of the Service and reliance on its outputs are at your own risk — and the responsibility for AI governance decisions remains with your organization.

8. Privacy and Contact

Our handling of your information is described in our Privacy Policy, available in the footer of every page.

Questions about these Terms can be sent to us through the R.A.T.E.S. app or the New Skills Online, LLC website.