Terms of Service

About Groundtruths

Groundtruths is a two-sided research platform. Researchers publish surveys and fund compensation with credits. A survey either runs natively in Groundtruths or opens the researcher’s own external form — we tell you which before you start, and for an external form your answers go to the researcher, not to us. Participants share opinions and receive points that can be redeemed for airtime, and for other options when those paths are enabled. We provide the platform, the participant panel, account-level reputation controls, and compensation delivery through licensed payment partners.

Eligibility and accounts

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account. Some sensitive survey topics are only available to people aged 21 or older. You must provide accurate account information, keep your login secure, and use only one account unless we expressly allow otherwise. Accounts may be verified by phone and, where required, additional identity checks.

If you answer surveys

When you take surveys on Groundtruths, you act as an independent participant accessing opportunities through the platform — not as our employee or contractor. Participation is voluntary. Each survey starts with an informed-consent screen covering topic, who is running it, estimated time, compensation, how data is used, and your right to withdraw. You must agree before you begin.

We quality-check participation using signals from your account and how a response was completed. For a survey built natively in Groundtruths we also check the answers themselves. For a survey on an external form we never see the answers, so we cannot check them; judging response quality in that form is the researcher’s job. Borderline cases are flagged for review rather than auto-rejected. You can appeal a quality decision within the window shown on the flagged response. Full detail on compensation and redeeming is in the Compensation rules under Compensations.

If you run surveys

Researchers buy credits to fund participant compensation and platform fees. Credits do not expire. What you are charged for depends on how you collect responses: a native survey is charged per verified complete; an embedded external form is charged per confirmed completion — a participant who submitted your form and entered the code from its thank-you message. Groundtruths cannot verify the content of a response it never receives. Unused credits for a survey that closes early are returned to your balance. You must only publish lawful research, honour the compensation you advertise, and follow our content and community rules.

You may use aggregated insight from your surveys for the disclosed research purpose. You must not resell raw individual responses, use participant contact details for unsolicited marketing, or use data to harm participants. If you embed an external form (for example Google Forms), responses may be stored by that provider under their terms — you remain responsible for that form and for telling participants what happens to their answers.

Content and community rules

Surveys and account activity must not involve deception, illegal activity, hate or harassment, predatory targeting, collecting bank/card or full identity documents without a lawful need, or causing undue distress without the safeguards we require for sensitive topics. We may remove content, suspend participation, or close accounts that break these rules.

Intellectual property and data ownership

You own your individual survey responses. For a survey built natively in Groundtruths, you grant Groundtruths and the relevant researcher a non-exclusive licence to use them for the research purpose disclosed at consent, for as long as that purpose lasts; it is not transferable beyond the researcher named at consent, and it ends when you withdraw or the data is deleted. For a survey that runs on an external form, we never receive your responses, so we take no licence in them — what happens to them is governed by the researcher’s terms and their form provider’s terms. Researchers own aggregated insight and analysis from their surveys, subject to these Terms. Groundtruths may use anonymised, aggregated data (with no personal identifiers) to improve the platform, for benchmarking, and for published research. We never sell your personal data.

Compensation

Points, confirmation, clawbacks, redemption options, limits, and expiry are governed by the Compensation rules, which form part of these Terms. Cash mobile-money payouts may be unavailable until our regulatory position is confirmed; until then, compensation delivery follows the options we enable in product (such as airtime).

Tax and regulatory notices

Compensation may be taxable under applicable law. Unless we are required to withhold and tell you otherwise, you are responsible for understanding and meeting your own tax obligations. We may provide compensation statements from your account settings when available. Our characterisation of participant balances as rewards/loyalty liabilities (not customer e-money) depends on written legal opinion; product behaviour will follow that opinion.

Suspension and liability

We may suspend or terminate access to protect users, comply with law, or stop abuse. The platform is provided as available; we work to keep balances and submissions safe, but we are not liable for losses caused by factors outside our reasonable control, misuse by other users, or third-party providers, except where the law does not allow that limitation. Nothing in these Terms limits rights that cannot be waived under applicable law.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the product and legal requirements evolve. Material changes will be announced in-app and, where appropriate, by the contact details on your account. Continued use after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms, unless applicable law requires a different process.

Contact

Questions about these Terms: use in-app support or WhatsApp support from Help in Settings.