Lens Academy Terms of Service
Last updated: 4 November 2026
These Terms are a contract between you and us about your use of Lens Academy. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your personal data. It is a notice, not part of this contract.
1. Who you are contracting with
1.1 Lens Academy ("Lens", "we", "us") is an online AI-safety education platform at lensacademy.org and its subdomains. Lens Academy is a fiscally sponsored project of Beacon Institute for Global Catastrophic Risk, a Delaware nonprofit corporation recognized by a 501(c)(3) public charity ("Beacon"). Beacon is the legal entity you contract with.
1.2 Definitions. "Service" means the website, our courses, our AI features (including the AI tutor), our Discord server and bots, group meetings we host, credentials, and messages we send you. "Content" means course material, readings, videos, exercises, prompts, software and design. "Your Content" means anything you submit: answers, essays, chat messages, voice input, survey answers, feedback, application materials, and what you say in meetings.
2. Acceptance
2.1 You accept these Terms by clicking "I agree" when you create an account.
2.2 If you use course content or the AI tutor without an account, Sections 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17 and 19 apply to that use. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
3. Eligibility
You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter into a binding contract. We may close accounts that we reasonably believe belong to someone under 18.
4. Accounts
4.1 Sign-in. You sign in with one of the methods we offer, such as a Google or Discord account or a code sent to your phone. You can link several sign-in methods to one account. We may merge accounts that belong to the same person.
4.2 Discord. Discord's terms and our server rules apply to our Discord server.
4.3 Your responsibilities. Give accurate information. Use one account per person and do not share it. Tell us at team@lensacademy.org if you think someone else has used your account.
5. The Service is free
5.1 Courses and AI features are free. You can donate through Every.org, under its own terms. Donations are gifts to Beacon for Lens Academy. They do not buy places, grades, credentials or any other rights.
5.2 We may change, pause or stop any course or feature.
6. Courses and cohorts
6.1 Enrolment. Some cohorts have limited places and need an application. We decide admissions. Applications are scored by AI as the Privacy Policy (Section 6) describes.
6.2 Participation. Attendance and participation count towards your scores. We may remove you from a cohort if you repeatedly miss meetings without notice.
6.3 Guests. If you invite a guest to a meeting, you must tell them before the meeting that breakout rooms are recorded.
6.4 No guaranteed outcome. We do not guarantee a place, a particular facilitator, completion, a credential, or any career or academic result.
7. Recording and transcription of meetings
7.1 A Lens meeting bot records and transcribes breakout rooms. We use the transcripts to grade your participation and to personalise the AI tutor. Participation grading is part of how the course works, so by joining a cohort you agree to be recorded and transcribed in its meetings. If you do not want this, use the self-study materials instead of joining a cohort. You can opt out of AI tutor personalisation from transcripts without leaving your cohort. The Privacy Policy (Section 5) gives the details.
7.2 Do not record meetings yourself. Do not share recordings, transcripts or summaries outside your group without our permission and the permission of the people in them.
8. AI features
8.1 What they are. We use AI models to provide tutoring, feedback, grading, application scoring, meeting summaries and some messages to you. The Privacy Policy (Section 4) explains what happens to your data, including who can read your conversations.
8.2 Automated grading. Coursework and meeting participation are graded automatically by AI against our rubrics, and scores are calculated automatically. If you think a grade is wrong, email team@lensacademy.org and a person on the team will re-assess it. We may re-grade past work when we improve our grading methods, and your scores and credentials may change as a result.
8.3 AI output. You may use AI output you receive for your own learning. We do not promise that it is accurate, original or free of third-party rights.
9. Volunteer facilitators
9.1 Facilitators are volunteers, not our employees or agents. Their views are their own, and they cannot make commitments on our behalf.
9.2 If you volunteer as a facilitator, you must complete our training and be certified. You must keep learners' personal data (roster, progress, AI conversations, transcripts) confidential, use it only to facilitate your group, and delete any copies when your role ends. You must follow our conduct and safeguarding guidance. We may withdraw certification or access at any time.
10. Your Content
10.1 Ownership. You keep ownership of Your Content (defined in Section 1.2 above).
10.2 Licence to us. You give Beacon, for Lens Academy, an irrevocable worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, copy, transcribe, analyse and display Your Content so that we can:
- (a) run the Service;
- (b) give you feedback and grades, and re-grade past work;
- (c) improve our courses, exercises, prompts, rubrics and AI systems, including re-running past conversations through new versions;
- (d) produce and publish anonymous statistics, research and excerpts, including reports to funders;
- (e) share it as the Privacy Policy describes, including where you have agreed to sharing.
Our service providers may process Your Content for these purposes.
10.3 Your promises. You have the right to share Your Content, and it does not break the law or anyone's rights.
10.4 Suggestions. If you suggest changes to course content, we may use them in our courses.
11. Our Content and third-party materials
11.1 Our content. Course structure, original text, exercises, rubrics, AI prompts, software, and the Lens Academy name and logo belong to Beacon for Lens Academy, or are licensed to us. You may use them for your own non-commercial learning. You may not scrape, copy, redistribute or sell them, or build a competing product from them.
11.2 Third-party materials. Courses include readings, papers, videos and excerpts by other authors. Their terms, not ours, govern your reuse of that material.
11.3 Takedown. If you think material on the Service infringes your rights, email team@lensacademy.org with the link, a description of the work and your rights, and your contact details. We will remove infringing material promptly.
12. Credentials
12.1 Certificates and other credentials record your participation and results under our own scoring scheme. They are not academic credit, accredited qualifications or professional certifications, and no university, government or accreditation body endorses them. Do not describe them otherwise, and do not alter them. We may revoke a credential for cheating, misrepresentation, a scoring error or a breach of these Terms.
12.2 We may change, replace or stop our scoring, tiers, certificates and other credentials at any time, including for courses you have already completed. We do not promise to keep supporting, displaying or verifying any of them, including their public pages.
13. Acceptable use
You must not:
- harass, threaten or discriminate against anyone, or share content that is unlawful, hateful, sexually explicit or promotes violence;
- impersonate anyone, or misrepresent your identity, qualifications or affiliation;
- repeat outside a group what a named person said in it, or share other people's personal data, or recordings, transcripts or chats from the Service, without permission;
- submit work that is not your own, including AI-generated answers, where an exercise asks for your own thinking, or otherwise game grades or credentials;
- try to extract our prompts or other users' data, jailbreak our AI features, or use them for bulk generation or purposes unrelated to learning;
- advertise, recruit or sell through the Service without our written permission;
- access accounts, data, admin tools or systems you are not authorised to use; test the Service for security weaknesses without our written permission; disrupt or overload the Service; or scrape or bulk-download Content;
- use the Service in breach of any law, including export-control and sanctions law.
14. Leaving and termination
14.1 You can stop using the Service at any time. To get a copy of your data or delete your account, see the Privacy Policy (Section 10).
14.2 We may suspend or end your access, limit or disable AI features, remove you from a cohort, remove content, or revoke credentials if you break these Terms, if you create legal or safety risk, or if we stop the Service or a course.
14.3 Sections 7.2, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17 and 19 continue to apply after your account ends.
15. Disclaimers
15.1 The Service is free and provided "as is" and "as available". AS FAR AS THE LAW ALLOWS, WE GIVE NO WARRANTIES, INCLUDING THAT THE SERVICE IS ACCURATE, FIT FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR UNINTERRUPTED.
15.2 Content and AI output are educational, can be wrong, and are not professional, legal, medical, financial, psychological or career advice, or statements of fact by us.
15.3 Difficult material. Our courses deal with catastrophic and existential risk, and some people find this material distressing. Lens Academy is education, not mental-health support, and our AI features are not a crisis service or a substitute for professional help. If you are in crisis, contact your local emergency number or a crisis helpline.
15.4 We are not responsible for third-party services you use with the Service (such as Discord, Zoom, Google, WhatsApp and Every.org), or for what other users or volunteers say or do.
16. Limitation of liability
16.1 Nothing in these Terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, for gross negligence or wilful misconduct, for damage caused by unlawful processing of personal data, or any other liability that the law does not allow us to limit.
16.2 APART FROM 16.1, BEACON AND ITS DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS AND VOLUNTEERS ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL LOSSES, LOST PROFITS OR OPPORTUNITIES, OR LOSSES CAUSED BY RELYING ON CONTENT OR AI OUTPUT.
16.3 Apart from 16.1, our total liability to you for all claims in any 12-month period is limited to US $100. The Service is free, and donations do not change this limit.
16.4 If you are a consumer in the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland, you keep the mandatory consumer rights of the country where you live. Sections 16.2 and 16.3 apply only as far as that law allows.
17. Indemnity
If you use the Service for a business, you will cover Beacon's costs from third-party claims caused by Your Content or your breach of these Terms. Consumers are liable only as their national law provides.
18. Changes to these Terms
We may change these Terms, for example because of new features or changes in the law. We will email you before important changes take effect and give you reasonable notice, normally at least 14 days. Changes we must make for legal or security reasons may take effect immediately. If you do not agree, you can stop using the Service and delete your account. If you keep using the Service after the changes take effect, you accept them.
19. Governing law and disputes
19.1 These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Disputes must be brought in the state or federal courts in New York City, and you and we agree to their jurisdiction.
19.2 If you are a consumer in the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland, you keep the protection of any mandatory consumer protections and court access your local law gives you.
19.3 Before going to court, please email team@lensacademy.org and give us 30 days to resolve the problem.
20. General
These Terms are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service. We send notices to the email address on your account. We are not responsible for failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, including outages at our service providers. If a part of these Terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce a term, we have not given up the right to. You may not transfer these Terms to someone else. We may transfer them to a successor organisation or a new fiscal sponsor of Lens Academy, and we will tell you if we do. The English version of these Terms prevails over any translation.
21. Contact
Lens Academy, a project of Beacon Institute for Global Catastrophic Risk. Email: team@lensacademy.org