Acceptable Use Policy

1. Purpose

Symposed exists to help people find and organise genuine research and related healthcare/academic collaboration opportunities. Use the Service in good faith, lawfully and with respect for other users, patients, institutions and research integrity.

2. Illegal and harmful content is prohibited

You must not use Symposed to create, upload, share, request, promote or facilitate illegal content or criminal activity. This includes, without limitation, content involving terrorism, child sexual exploitation or abuse, threats or incitement to violence, unlawful hate, stalking or serious harassment, intimate image abuse, fraud or scams, illegal drugs or weapons, human trafficking, or other illegal conduct.

Do not use Symposed to threaten, blackmail, extort, doxx or intimidate another person. Do not encourage self-harm or use the Service to target vulnerable users.

3. Patient, clinical and confidential data is prohibited

• Do not post or message patient names, NHS numbers, hospital numbers, addresses, dates of birth, direct identifiers or combinations of information that could identify a patient.

• Do not upload clinical records, clinic letters, discharge summaries, images, scans, photographs, screenshots of clinical systems, data extracts or spreadsheets containing patient information.

• Do not send identifiable or pseudonymised research datasets, case report material or confidential participant information through Symposed.

• Do not post confidential NHS, university, employer, journal peer-review or research information that you are not authorised to disclose.

• A high-level description of a project may be appropriate, but you must remove patient details and comply with your institution's rules. Rare or highly specific clinical narratives may still identify a person and should not be posted.

4. Research misconduct and academic abuse are prohibited

• Fabrication or falsification of data, results, approvals, credentials, experience or project status.

• Plagiarism, paper-mill activity, ghost research, bought or sold authorship, honorary authorship offered regardless of contribution, or trading authorship positions for money or unrelated benefits.

• Creating fake references, manipulating images or results, or using AI tools to fabricate data, citations, participant information or research activity.

• Advertising a project as ethically approved, registered, funded or supervised when that is not accurate.

• Using another person's work, protocol, manuscript, data or confidential idea in breach of rights or obligations.

• Manipulating reviews, reliability scores, applications, project status, badges or verification systems.

5. Identity, qualifications and verification

• Do not impersonate another person or institution.

• Do not misrepresent your profession, grade, qualification, institutional affiliation, research experience, publication record or eligibility to supervise.

• Do not use another person's institutional email address or professional profile to obtain verification.

• Do not describe a person as your supervisor or use their name, title or institution in a listing without permission where permission is reasonably required.

6. Harassment, discrimination and unwanted contact

• Do not harass, bully, sexually harass, threaten or abuse users.

• Do not publish unlawfully discriminatory project criteria. Genuine role requirements must be relevant, proportionate and lawful.

• Do not repeatedly message a person who rejected, blocked or has not accepted a message request.

• Do not retaliate against a user for withdrawing from a project, making a good-faith report, exercising a legal right or posting an honest review.

• Do not pressure users to provide personal contact details or move off-platform.

7. Spam, scraping and platform manipulation

• Do not mass-message users, send unsolicited commercial marketing, or use Symposed primarily to promote unrelated services.

• Do not scrape profiles, listings, emails, phone numbers or platform data, or build external contact or marketing databases from Symposed.

• Do not use bots, scripts or automation to create accounts, apply to projects, send messages, harvest information or manipulate rankings.

• Do not evade application, messaging, project or account limits through multiple accounts or coordinated abuse.

• Do not post duplicate, misleading, fake or expired listings merely to obtain credits, visibility or badges.

8. Intellectual property and privacy

Do not post content that you do not have the right to share or that unlawfully infringes copyright, database rights, trademarks, confidentiality, privacy or data protection rights. Do not publicly post personal phone numbers or private email addresses. You may privately share your own contact details, but you must not share another person's private details without permission or another lawful authority.

9. Security abuse

Do not probe, scan, circumvent or attack the Service; access another user's account or data; introduce malware; exploit vulnerabilities; interfere with availability; or attempt to bypass authentication or security controls. Security researchers must follow our Security and Vulnerability Reporting Policy. That policy does not give blanket authorisation to access user data or disrupt the Service.

10. Clinical advice and emergencies

Do not use Symposed to provide patient-specific clinical advice, obtain urgent medical help, or make clinical decisions. Symposed is not an emergency service. If there is an immediate risk to life or safety, contact the appropriate emergency service or relevant authority.

11. Enforcement

We may restrict, remove or preserve content; reduce functionality; revoke verification or badges; suspend or terminate accounts; and make reports to competent authorities where required or lawfully appropriate. We may consider the seriousness, context, history, risk and available evidence. You can use the appeal route described in our Safety, Content Reporting, Moderation and Appeals Policy.