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Terms of Service

Last updated 26 October 2026.

Version 2. This version takes effect on the date shown as last updated at the top of this page, and replaces the terms dated 1 January 2021. It has been rewritten for South African law and for what Bïndo does today, including paid membership, community photos and sound recordings, and the sharing of records with conservation science.

In plain language

These are the parts that matter most. The full terms below are what you agree to.

  • Finding a bird, logging it, keeping your lists and reading the map are free, and stay free. Membership pays for the tools that go further and for the cost of running Bïndo.
  • Your sightings, photos, recordings and words are yours. You give us a licence to use them to run Bïndo, to show them inside and outside the app, to share them with conservation science, and to build and improve the tools that identify birds.
  • Any sound recording you make or upload in Bïndo may be used to train and improve the models that identify birds by their calls, whether or not you choose to share it with other birders.
  • When you delete your account we delete your records, photographs and recordings. We keep a copy of your sightings for 90 days so that you can still ask us for them, and then that goes too. We may keep something longer only where we need it for an investigation or to comply with the law. The one exception is a recording of yours chosen as the reference recording for a species, which stays on the species page without your name.
  • You must use your real name, log what you actually saw, and treat other birders decently.
  • Membership renews automatically until you cancel. A free trial needs no card, is once per person, and ends on its own. If you subscribe on the web without having had a free trial, you can get your first payment back in full within 7 days. After a free trial there is no refund window, but you can cancel at any time and keep Membership to the end of the period you paid for. If you subscribe through the App Store or Google Play, the store's rules apply.
  • Birding happens outside, and outside has risks. You take those on yourself.
  • These terms are governed by South African law and nothing in them takes away rights the Consumer Protection Act gives you.

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

Bïndo is provided by Bindo Group (Pty) Ltd, a company registered in South Africa with registration number 2020/853100/07, whose address is Unit 105 La Montagne, 35 Marmion Road, Oranjezicht, Cape Town, 8001. In these terms "Bïndo", "we", "us" and "our" mean Bindo Group (Pty) Ltd. The name is written Bindo and Bïndo; they are the same.

These terms cover the Bïndo mobile apps for iOS and Android, the web app at web.bindo.app, the website at bindo.app, and any related services we offer (together, the "Services"). They apply to everyone who uses the Services, whether or not you have an account.

By creating an account, signing in, or using the Services you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy, which explains how we handle personal information. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

These terms are written in English. If we publish a translation, the English version applies where they differ.

2. Who may use Bïndo

You may use Bïndo if you are 18 or older.

If you are between 13 and 17, you may use Bïndo only if a parent or legal guardian has read these terms and the Privacy Policy and agrees to them on your behalf. By allowing a child under 18 to use Bïndo, a parent or guardian accepts these terms for that child and takes responsibility for the child's use of the Services.

Children under 13 may not hold their own account. A parent or guardian may log a child's sightings under the parent's own account.

We may ask for proof of age or of a guardian's consent, and we may suspend or close an account if we reasonably believe these requirements are not met. Our Child Safety Standards form part of these terms.

3. Your account

Real names. Bïndo is a community of real birders and a source of citizen-science data, and both depend on knowing who recorded what. When you register you must give your real full name and a working email address, and keep them current. Accounts using a pseudonym, an alias or a false email address may be reviewed and closed. Your name appears with your sightings, lists, photos and recordings, and on leaderboards, as described in the Privacy Policy.

One account. You may hold one account. You may not share your account or let anyone else use it. You are responsible for everything done through your account, and you must tell us at support@bindo.app as soon as you become aware of any unauthorised use.

Signing in. You may register and sign in with an email address and password, or with Sign in with Apple or Google. If you use a third-party sign-in, that provider's terms apply to your relationship with them. Signing in to the web app by scanning a code in the mobile app links the two sessions; keep your phone secure.

Keeping it secure. We take reasonable steps to protect your account, but no system is perfectly secure and we cannot promise that it will never be accessed without authority.

4. What Bïndo is, and is not

Bïndo is a tool for recording bird sightings, keeping lists, seeing what other birders are finding, and contributing records to bird atlassing and conservation science. The free tier includes everything you need to find a bird and log it, and we intend it to stay that way. Membership, described in section 12, adds tools on top.

Bïndo is not a safety, navigation or emergency service. Do not rely on it to find your way, to warn you of danger, or to call for help. Map data, distribution maps and identification suggestions may be wrong or out of date.

Identification features such as Bird Call ID, Voice Add, bird traits and Next Bird offer suggestions. The species on a sighting is always your claim, not ours, and you are responsible for what you record.

Bïndo works offline and syncs when you are back in range. Records made offline are stored on your device until they sync. If you delete the app or lose the device before that happens, unsynced records are lost.

5. Your content

What "Content" means. Content is anything you add to the Services: sightings and the details attached to them, lists, photographs, sound recordings, notes, comments, profile details and photos, and anything else you upload or create. Aggregated and de-identified data we derive from many people's Content, and species pages, distribution maps and other things we compile, are not your Content.

You own it. You keep every right you have in your Content. You may use it anywhere else you like, and you may export it from Bïndo at any time.

The licence you give us. So that we can run Bïndo and do the things this section describes, you grant Bïndo a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable and sub-licensable licence to store, copy, reproduce, adapt, crop, trim, transcode, translate, publish, display, perform, distribute and otherwise use your Content, and your name and profile photo alongside it, for the following purposes:

  1. Running the Services. Storing, syncing, backing up and showing your Content to you and, subject to your privacy settings, to other birders.
  2. Showing it inside and outside the app. Displaying your Content on any Bïndo surface, including the mobile apps, the web app, species pages, feeds, leaderboards, area and challenge pages, public and search-engine-indexed pages on our websites, our social media accounts, and material that describes or promotes Bïndo. Where we display a photograph or recording we will credit you by your display name, unless you ask us not to, or crediting is impractical in the format.
  3. Conservation, atlassing and research. Sharing your sightings, photographs and recordings, with the associated place, date and species, and with your name where attribution is part of the dataset, with bird atlas projects, universities, research institutions, conservation organisations and open biodiversity datasets, under terms that require attribution and that do not allow your Content to be sold as a standalone product. Section 9 explains atlas submissions, which you initiate yourself.
  4. Building and improving the tools. Using your Content, including photographs, sound recordings, sightings and text, to develop, train, test, evaluate and improve the models and features that identify birds by sound and image, detect errors, suggest species and otherwise make Bïndo better, and to produce derived data such as embeddings, labels and statistics.
  5. Keeping the record honest. Reviewing, verifying, flagging, hiding or annotating Content as part of moderation and data quality.

This licence lasts as long as your Content is on the Services. When you delete Content or your account, we delete it, which can take up to 90 days, and the licence ends, except that:

  • copies may remain in backups for a limited period, as described in the Privacy Policy;
  • Content you have already shared with other birders, or that we have already shared with conservation, research or atlas partners, may remain where it was shared, and we cannot recall it from them;
  • models and derived data already built using your Content are not unbuilt, though your Content is not added to any new training set after deletion;
  • a sound recording of yours that a moderator has chosen as the reference recording for a species remains on that species page after you delete your account, with your name removed, and this licence continues for it, unless you withdrew the recording from community sharing before deleting your account; and
  • we may keep Content where we reasonably need it to investigate suspected misuse of the Services or a breach of these terms, to comply with the law or a lawful request, or in connection with an actual or possible legal claim, for as long as that requires.

The Privacy Policy sets out what is deleted when you delete your account and how long we keep what remains.

Sound recordings. Any recording you make or upload in Bïndo, including Bird Call ID clips you keep, recordings attached to sightings, and recordings attached to lists or trips, may be used to develop, train, test and improve the models that identify birds by their calls, and to produce derived data such as embeddings and labels, as described in purpose 4 above. This applies whether or not you share the recording with other birders. Sharing is a separate choice: a recording attached to a sighting may be shared with the community and, after review by a moderator, played on the species page, credited to you, and you can withdraw it from community sharing at any time from My Recordings. A moderator may choose a shared recording as the reference recording for its species. A reference recording stays on the species page after you delete your account, with your name removed, so withdraw it first if you would rather it did not. A recording attached to a list or a trip is never shared with the community. Withdrawing a recording from sharing stops it being played; it does not remove it from training use. Deleting a recording removes it from any future training set, though models already built are not unbuilt. Audio used for Voice Add is processed to recognise the bird's name, is not kept, and is not used for training. You may only record where you have the right to do so, and you must not upload recordings that capture other people's conversations without their agreement.

Photographs. A photograph attached to a sighting is placed at the sighting's location, not at the location stored in the photo file. A photograph attached to a list keeps the location information in the file, if any. Please think about that before attaching photographs taken at a private home.

Your promises about Content. You confirm that you own your Content or have permission to use it and to grant this licence; that it does not infringe anyone's copyright, privacy or other rights; and that it does not include anyone's personal information beyond what is needed to record a sighting. Where your Content shows or records another person, you confirm they agreed.

Sensitive species and places. Some species are vulnerable to disturbance or persecution. Mark sightings of them as sensitive so that the precise location is hidden from others, and do not share precise locations of nests, roosts or rare birds outside Bïndo in a way that could put them at risk. We may hide, blur or delay the location of any sighting where we think the bird or the place needs protecting.

Moderation. We do not review all Content before it appears. We may review, hide, edit for format, remove or refuse any Content at any time if we believe it breaks these terms, is inaccurate, or puts a person, a bird or a place at risk. We are not responsible for Content other birders post.

Feedback. If you send us ideas or suggestions we may use them without any obligation to you.

6. Community conduct

Bïndo works because birders trust each other's records. When you use the Services you must not:

  • log a sighting you did not make, backdate or relocate sightings to mislead, or "sofa log" records from memory in a way that misrepresents when and where they happened;
  • enter other people's sightings as your own, except imported records that you own and that are described in section 10;
  • harass, threaten, demean or impersonate anyone, or post anything unlawful, defamatory, obscene or hateful;
  • share another person's personal information, or the precise location of a sensitive species or a private home, without permission;
  • disturb birds or trespass to obtain a record, or encourage others to;
  • use another person's account, or create more than one account;
  • scrape, harvest, bulk-download or systematically collect data or Content from the Services, whether by automated means or by hand, except through the export tools we provide for your own data;
  • reverse engineer, decompile or interfere with the apps, the API or our systems, or attempt to access them by any means other than the interfaces we provide;
  • circumvent limits, entitlements or security measures, or resell or commercially exploit the Services without our written agreement;
  • upload malware, or do anything that imposes an unreasonable load on our infrastructure; or
  • do anything that is harmful to children, or that breaks our Child Safety Standards.

You can block another birder and report recordings and other content from within the app, or by emailing support@bindo.app. We investigate reports and may act on them without telling you the outcome.

7. Sightings, verification and data integrity

Sightings may be marked verified or unverified, and unusual or interesting, by our team, by reviewers we appoint, and by automated checks that compare a record against species distributions, dates and past records. Verification is our opinion about a record; it is not a guarantee that it is right or wrong, and it does not change your ownership of the record.

Where we believe records were fabricated, mislocated or logged in a way that misrepresents the observation, we may flag them, hide them from public feeds and leaderboards, ask you to correct or delete them, set your profile to private for a period, exclude you from challenges, or close your account. Flagged records that you do not resolve within 7 days may be deleted. Decisions with a significant effect on you are made by a person, informed by the automated checks, and you may ask us to review any decision at support@bindo.app.

Sightings imported from other platforms count towards your own lists but are excluded from challenge, area and group leaderboards.

8. Challenges, prizes and sponsors

Bïndo runs challenges, usually one at a time. Unless a challenge page says otherwise, there is nothing to sign up for: sightings and atlas cards you log during the challenge dates count automatically.

Each challenge is a promotional competition under section 36 of the Consumer Protection Act. Entry is free, no purchase is required, and being a Member never buys a place on a leaderboard or improves your chances in a draw. The rules for a challenge, including its dates, categories, prizes, sponsors and how winners are chosen, are published on the challenge page and form part of these terms for that challenge.

We may verify any record before awarding a prize, and may disqualify entries that break these terms, including imported records and records we believe to be fabricated. Winners are announced on the Services and contacted by email. We will share a winner's name and delivery details with a sponsor only where the sponsor supplies the prize. Prizes are not exchangeable for cash unless we say so, and any tax on a prize is the winner's responsibility. Where a prize must be collected or delivered within South Africa, a winner outside the country may be offered a substitute.

Sponsors do not run the Services and are not responsible for them, and we are not responsible for a sponsor's products.

9. Atlas submissions

Bïndo lets you submit full protocol atlas cards to the Southern African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP2). A submission is made only when you choose to submit a card. When you do, we transmit the card, including the species, times and pentad, together with your SABAP2 observer number and the email address on your account, to the atlas project. Once submitted, a card is held by the atlas project under its own terms and we cannot recall it. You are responsible for the accuracy of the cards you submit.

10. Imports and exports

You can import records you made on other platforms. You may only import records that are yours, and you are responsible for their accuracy. Imported records are treated as described in section 7.

You can export your sightings and lists from the Services in standard formats, including for eBird and BirdLasser, at any time. Some export tools are Member features on the web; a copy of your own data is always available on request under the Privacy Policy, free of charge.

11. Groups and shared lists

You can create and join groups, collaborative lists and private challenges. Sightings you log to a shared list are visible to its other members, and your contributions remain part of the shared record if you later leave the group or delete your account, although your name may be removed. Group organisers may remove members and manage the group's settings. We may close a group that breaks these terms.

12. Membership

What it is. Bïndo Membership is a paid subscription that adds tools such as Bird Call ID, Voice Add, bird traits, Next Bird, private areas, community photos, deeper statistics and the web import and export tools. The features included are shown at the point of purchase and on bindo.app/membership, and may change over time. If we remove a significant feature from Membership we will tell you, and you may cancel.

Price. Prices are shown in South African rand before you subscribe and are the full amount you pay: Bïndo is not registered for VAT, so no VAT is added to what we charge. We may change prices. A change applies to new subscriptions immediately and to your existing subscription only from its next renewal after we have given you at least 30 days' notice by email or in the app. If you do not accept a change you may cancel before it takes effect.

Renewal. Membership is billed in advance, monthly or annually, and renews automatically at the end of each period until you cancel. You authorise us, and our payment providers, to charge your chosen payment method each period.

Where you buy it matters. Membership bought on the web is billed by us through Paystack. Membership bought inside the iOS or Android app is billed by Apple or Google under their terms, and Apple or Google, not Bïndo, handle the payment, receipts, refunds and cancellation of those subscriptions. We never see your full card number.

Cancelling. You may cancel at any time. Web subscriptions are cancelled on your Account page at web.bindo.app. Store subscriptions are cancelled in your Apple or Google subscription settings; deleting the app does not cancel a subscription. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have paid for, and you keep Member features until then. Your account and your records remain, and your account continues on the free tier.

The 7-day full refund. If you subscribe on the web and have not had a free trial of Membership before, you may ask for a full refund of your first payment within 7 days of starting that paid subscription, from your Account page, for any reason. Your Member features end when the refund is made. The 7-day full refund does not apply if you have had a free trial of Membership, including a trial that required a payment method: in that case you may cancel at any time as described above, and you keep Member features until the end of the period you have paid for. This is in addition to, and does not limit, any right you have under the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act or the Consumer Protection Act. Refunds of store subscriptions are requested from Apple or Google under their policies, and we cannot process them ourselves. Apart from this, and where the law requires otherwise, subscription payments are not refundable.

Trials. We may offer a free trial of Membership. A free trial is available once per person and lasts 14 days. It needs no card or other payment method, nothing is charged, and it ends on its own on the date shown, after which your account continues on the free tier unless you choose to become a Member. Any limits of a trial are shown before you start it. Where a trial does require a payment method, the first charge is made when the trial ends unless you cancel before then; cancel during the trial and you pay nothing. Once you have had a free trial, the 7-day full refund does not apply to a later subscription.

Failed payments. If a renewal payment fails we will tell you and try again. You keep Member features for a grace period of about 7 days while we retry. If payment still fails, your subscription ends and your account continues on the free tier.

When Membership ends. Nothing you recorded is deleted when Membership ends. Member-only tools stop working, and items that exceed the free tier's limits, such as additional private areas, are frozen or detached rather than deleted, and are restored if you subscribe again. Records you imported and exports you made are yours to keep.

Memberships for clubs and comps. We may provide Membership to clubs, organisations, verified professional birders and others under separate arrangements. Those memberships are managed by us rather than through the Account page, and may be withdrawn on notice.

13. Third-party services

Parts of the Services rely on other companies' services, including map data from Mapbox, sign-in from Apple and Google, app distribution and in-app billing from the App Store and Google Play, and payment processing from Paystack. By using those parts of the Services you also agree to the applicable third-party terms, including the Mapbox Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for third-party services, or for the terms of any bird club, atlas project or other organisation you deal with through Bïndo.

14. Our rights in the Services

The Services, the software, the design, the species data we compile, the Bïndo name and logos, and everything on the Services that is not your Content or another birder's Content, belong to us or our licensors. We grant you a personal, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the apps and the Services in accordance with these terms. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell or lease any part of the Services, or use our name or logos, without our written permission.

15. Availability and changes

We work to keep Bïndo available, but we do not promise that it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may change, suspend or withdraw any part of the Services, and update the apps automatically. Where a change materially reduces what paying Members receive, we will tell you in advance and you may cancel.

16. Risks, warranties and our liability

Please read this section carefully. It limits our liability, but it does not take away any right you have under the Consumer Protection Act or any other law that cannot be excluded by agreement.

Birding risks. Birding takes you outdoors, on foot, by road, on water and into remote places. You accept the risks of that, including injury, illness, loss and damage, and you are responsible for your own safety and for obeying the law and the rules of the places you visit. Bïndo does not organise or supervise your birding, or any challenge or group outing, and is not responsible for it.

The Services are provided as they are. To the extent the law allows, we give no warranty that the Services, or any identification, map, distribution data or other information on them, will be accurate, complete, reliable, secure or fit for a particular purpose.

What we are not liable for. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of data that has not synced, loss of profits, or any loss arising from your birding activities, from Content posted by other birders, from third-party services, or from unauthorised access to your account that is not caused by our negligence.

Cap. To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for all claims arising out of the Services in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of the amounts you paid us in that period and R1,000.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits our liability for death or injury caused by our gross negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be excluded under South African law.

17. Indemnity

If someone brings a claim against us because of your Content, your use of the Services in breach of these terms, or your breach of another person's rights or of any law, you agree to cover our reasonable costs and losses arising from that claim, to the extent the law allows.

18. Suspension and ending your account

By you. You can delete your account at any time from Settings in the app, or by emailing support@bindo.app. Deleting your account cancels nothing you have bought through Apple or Google; cancel those subscriptions in the store first. If you want your sightings, email support@bindo.app from the address the account used within 90 days of deleting it and we will send you the copy we keep for that purpose. What happens to your data when you delete your account is set out in the Privacy Policy.

By us. We may suspend or close your account, remove Content, or restrict features, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have broken these terms, if the law requires it, if your account has been inactive for a long period, or if we withdraw the Services. Where we close a paid account for a reason other than your breach, we will refund the unused part of your subscription.

Sections 5, 14, 16, 17, 19 and 20 continue to apply after your account ends.

19. Disputes and governing law

These terms, and any dispute about them or the Services, are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa.

If you have a problem, please tell us first at support@bindo.app and we will try to sort it out with you. If we cannot, you may take the matter to the South African courts, which have jurisdiction, or, as a consumer, to the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud, the National Consumer Commission or the National Consumer Tribunal. Nothing in these terms prevents you from using those routes, and nothing requires you to give up your right to bring a claim as part of a group.

If you live in the European Union, the United Kingdom or another country whose law gives you consumer rights that cannot be taken away by these terms, those rights are not affected.

20. General

These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the Services. If any part of them is found to be unenforceable, the rest continues to apply. If we do not enforce a term, that does not mean we have given it up. You may not transfer your account or your rights under these terms to anyone else. We may transfer our rights and obligations to a successor of our business, and will tell you if we do. We may give you notice by email, in the app or on the Services. Headings are for convenience only.

21. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is material we will tell you at least 30 days before it takes effect, by email or in the app, and we will update the date at the top of this page. If you continue to use the Services after the change takes effect you accept the new terms; if you do not accept them, you should stop using the Services and may delete your account. A change to the price or content of Membership is handled as described in section 12.

22. Contact

Bindo Group (Pty) Ltd Unit 105 La Montagne, 35 Marmion Road, Oranjezicht, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa support@bindo.app

Read these terms alongside our Privacy Policy and our Child Safety Standards.