Backstop
backstop.family

Terms of Service

Last updated · DRAFT

DRAFT — this policy has not yet been reviewed by counsel. Do not treat as legally binding until reviewed and signed off.

1. Acceptance

By creating a Backstop account, you accept these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

2. Description of service

Backstop is a parental audit product. You install our endpoint agent on a device you own or have authority over. The agent captures screenshots on a schedule, sends them to a large language model provider under your own API key, and forwards structured alerts through our control plane to notification channels you configure.

We are not a substitute for parenting, therapy, medical care, or the police. Backstop surfaces information; how you act on it is your responsibility.

3. Who may use Backstop

  • You must be 18 years or older to create an account.
  • You must be the child’s parent or legal guardian, or acting with a parent or guardian’s explicit authority.
  • You must have legal authority to install monitoring software on the device in question. Installing Backstop on a device you do not own or control, or a device belonging to an adult without their consent, may violate federal and state wiretap or computer-fraud laws.

Under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), parental consent to collect data about a child under 13 must be verified. When you enable Backstop for a child under 13, we obtain that consent by charging your credit card on file, per the FTC-approved method. You can revoke consent at any time in the parent app; revocation triggers deletion of your child’s records within 30 days.

We recommend informing your child that Backstop is running, and Backstop provides a transparent mode with an on-screen indicator for exactly this purpose. Covert mode exists but is your legal and ethical responsibility to use appropriately. See our Privacy Policy for details.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  • Install Backstop on devices belonging to people who have not consented (see above).
  • Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the endpoint’s private keys.
  • Use Backstop to stalk, harass, or surveil individuals outside the parent-child scope described above.
  • Use Backstop for commercial employee monitoring — that is not what this product is for.
  • Use Backstop in a jurisdiction where its use would violate local law.

6. Bring your own key (BYOK) LLM inference

Backstop requires you to bring your own key (BYOK) for a supported large language model provider (currently: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and self-hosted OpenAI-compatible endpoints).

  • You are the customer of your LLM provider. All screenshot content, all token usage, and all associated costs are between you and them under their terms.
  • We are not responsible for outages, price changes, content policy actions, or account suspensions at your LLM provider.
  • We do not resell, mark up, or receive any share of your LLM spend.

7. Fees

If you subscribe to a paid tier, the price and billing cadence are shown at checkout. Payment is processed by Stripe. You may cancel at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period. Charges already made are not refunded except where required by law.

8. Warranty disclaimer

Backstop is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranty of any kind, express or implied. We do not warrant that Backstop will detect every harm your child encounters, that alerts will be timely, or that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free. LLMs make mistakes; screenshots can be missed; networks fail.

9. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Backstop’s total liability to you for any claim arising out of your use of the service is limited to the greater of (a) the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose, or (b) US$100.

We are not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages, including harm arising from a missed or delayed alert.

10. Termination

You may delete your account at any time from the parent app. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, on notice where feasible.

On termination, your ciphertext and account fields are deleted within 30 days.

11. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Disputes will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and both parties consent to that jurisdiction. Nothing in this section limits your rights under mandatory consumer-protection laws of your home jurisdiction.

12. Changes

We may update these Terms. Material changes will be posted at this URL at least 30 days before they take effect and, where we have your email, sent to you.

13. Contact