UCP Knowledge Network: Applied knowledge for action

Terms of Service

These Terms of Service establish what you can expect from the UCPKN platform services and what we expect from you.

These Terms of Service reflect the way the Union Civil Protection Knowledge Network (UCPKN) works, the laws that apply to our website, and our values, which may be updated by us from time to time without prior notice. As a result, these Terms of Service help define our platform’s relationship with you as you interact with our services. This includes:

  • What you can expect from us: how we provide and develop our services
  • What we expect from you: rules for using our services
  • Content of the UCPKN services: intellectual property rights to the content you find on our platform - whether that content belongs to you, the European Union, or others
  • In case of problems or disagreements: other legal rights you have, and what to expect in case someone violates these terms.

Understanding these terms is important because, to use our services, you must accept these terms and not breach any of them. We encourage you to read them to understand how you can engage as a user of the platform and how you can update, manage, export, and delete your information. See also the different Community Roles available on the platform.

The following are deemed to constitute inappropriate content. Posting such content may result in account suspension or banning as well as the removal of the offending posts:

  • Posts or images of a defamatory, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane or threatening nature. This includes any messages or material ethnically, racially, religiously or sexually offensive, insulting or demeaning.
  • Posts or images that violate any laws or regulations, including copyright.
  • Advertising of products or services without our prior consent or the adequate context. You can talk about you or your company through your personal profile but no advertisement as such will be allowed. Registering solely to promote yourself, your company or others could eventually lead to the user removal from the site.
  • Discussion of illegal activities including software and movie piracy and other intellectual property infringement.
  • Posting other people's personal contact information (i.e., telephone numbers, addresses etc.) on any publicly viewable forums.
  • Any content that contains viruses, Trojan horses, or the like, or other computer programming routines that may damage or interfere with the website.
  • Activities linked to financial transactions, including fundraising and crowd sourced campaigns.
  • Anything else deemed inappropriate by us.
  • Links to any of the above.

  • The content on this website is subject to some copyright rules:
    • We require that you cite the original content and its author and include a link to the source content on the UCPKN platform.
    • Material on the UCPKN platform is not intended for commercial use.
    • It is forbidden to remix, transform or build upon the UCPKN platform materials.
  • When contributing original work authored or created by you on the UCPKN platform, you agree that the contribution will be freely available to users (with sufficient access) of the UCPKN platform.
  • When you contribute contents on the UCPKN platform that are not authored or owned by you (such as, but not limited to, documents, pictures, video, audio or any other content and combination of contents or direct links to them), it is your responsibility to ensure that by doing so you do not infringe any third party's copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other proprietary rights or rights of publicity or privacy; violate any law, statute, ordinance or regulation. The UCPKN Team / the Commission will not be held liable in any such a case.

  • Keep all contributions within the appropriate community area of interest.
  • Use short, clear, and concise titles when posting materials.
  • Please try to communicate as clearly as possible.
  • Refrain from using foul or offensive language.
  • All content posted by users express the views of the author; the UCPKN Team / the Commission will not be held responsible for any offending message, comment, post or other material published on the site.
  • Always treat all other community members in a respectful and courteous manner, even in the event of disagreements.
  • Users who are not recognized as Site Administrators with full credentials should not pretend to be such by using "site administrator" in their profile.

While these rules cover most common situations, they cannot anticipate everything. Consequently, we reserve the right to take any actions we deem appropriate to ensure that the UCPKN platform is not disrupted or abused in any way.

If you feel that specific content or a fellow UCPKN community member breaks the portal's policies and rules of conduct, please report it to the UCPKN support team at ECHO-CP-KNOWLEDGE-NETWORK-PLATFORM@ec.europa.eu.

The European Commission’s Privacy & Cookies policies are part of these Terms of Service. In addition, the UCPKN platform Privacy Policy further defines what personal information do we collect, for what purpose, and how do we safeguard your data. By reading the statement, you can also understand how you can update, manage, export, and delete your information.

We reserve the right to monitor the UCPKN platform, including groups and discussion spaces etc. and remove/block any postings or members who do not adhere to these rules, our standard Terms of Service and our privacy policy. This includes postings that disrupt or interfere with our technical operations. In such a case a note from the Site Administrator that removed the posting will replace the original offending post or upload.

We reserve the right to close or ban, temporarily or permanently, any user's account as we deem necessary. The user will be notified and informed of the reasons and measures taken.

Should you feel you have been treated unfairly by a Site Administrator, you may appeal directly to us by sending an email to ECHO-CP-KNOWLEDGE-NETWORK-PLATFORM@ec.europa.eu. When contacting us, please provide the email address you used to sign up. We do not discuss the suspension of members or any disciplinary action taken with the general public.