Data Annotation Platform – Terms and Conditions
1. Introduction and Acceptance
These Terms and Conditions govern access to and participation in the MicroMappers data annotation platform, operated by QCRI (“the Organization”).
By registering, accessing, or participating in annotation activities on the Platform, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agreed to these Terms and Conditions and the accompanying Privacy Notice.
Participation is voluntary and most often paid. Even if you register to the platform you should not participate in any task whose applicable requirements you do not accept.
2. Account Registration and Personal Information
To access the Platform, annotators may be required to provide certain personal information, including their name, email address, and other information necessary for account administration.
The Organization will use this information for purposes including:
- Creating and managing annotator accounts.
- Assigning and administering annotation tasks.
- Communicating with annotators.
- Monitoring annotation quality and maintaining task records.
- Maintaining Platform security and integrity.
Personal information will be accessed only by authorized personnels with a legitimate need.
The Organization will handle personal information in accordance with applicable data protection laws in Qatar and its Privacy Notice.
3. Annotation Activities
The Platform supports data collection, annotation, and validation activities for research and technology development.
Depending on the assigned task, annotators may be asked to:
- Annotate, classify, label, transcribe, or evaluate text, audio, images, or video.
- Record or submit speech, audio, video, or other responses.
- Review, correct, or validate existing annotations.
- Provide judgments, feedback, or other task-related information.
Annotators agree to follow the task instructions and provide accurate, genuine, and independently completed contributions.
4. Use of Annotations and Recordings
All annotations, recordings, responses, labels, transcripts, feedback, and other materials submitted or created through the Platform (“Contributions”) may be used by the Organization for both research and commercial purposes, subject to applicable law.
These purposes include, but are not limited to:
- Scientific research, academic studies, and publications.
- Creation, development, validation, and distribution of datasets.
- Development, training, fine-tuning, testing, and evaluation of artificial intelligence and machine learning models.
- Development and improvement of speech, language, multimodal, and other AI technologies.
- Development, licensing, distribution, and commercialization of technologies, software, products, and services.
- Collaboration with academic institutions, research organizations, industry partners, and other authorized third parties.
Contributions may be processed, modified, combined with other data, and transformed into derived datasets or technologies for these purposes.
The Organization may share or license Contributions to authorized collaborators and commercial partners, subject to applicable privacy and confidentiality requirements.
Public release of identifiable recordings or other identifiable personal information will require any additional notice or authorization required by law.
5. Recording Consent
Certain tasks may require annotators to record or submit their voice, speech, image, or video.
Before undertaking a recording task, annotators will be informed of the recording requirements and asked to provide the applicable recording consent.
By expressly consenting to a recording task, you acknowledge that:
- Your voice, speech, image, or video may be recorded and stored.
- Recordings may be transcribed, annotated, processed, and analyzed.
- Recordings may be used for research and commercial purposes as described in Section 4.
- Recordings may contribute to the development and evaluation of AI systems, including speech and language technologies.
- Recordings may contain characteristics that make you identifiable, even when your name and account details are removed.
Recordings will not be used to impersonate you or falsely represent your endorsement of a product or service. Uses involving personal voice replication or similarly sensitive applications will be subject to any additional authorization required by law.
You must not intentionally record other identifiable individuals without appropriate authorization.
You may contact the Organization to exercise applicable rights concerning your recordings and personal data, including withdrawal of consent where relevant.
6. Intellectual Property and Usage Rights
For each Contribution submitted through the Platform, the annotator grants the Organization a non-exclusive, worldwide, transferable, and sublicensable license, for the duration of the applicable intellectual property rights and to the extent permitted by law.
This license permits the Organization and its authorized partners, for the research and commercial purposes described in Section 4, to:
- Store, reproduce, and make copies of the Contribution in any quantity and in digital or other media.
- Edit, correct, translate, transcribe, annotate, adapt, and transform the Contribution.
- Incorporate the Contribution into datasets, software, AI models, research outputs, products, and services.
- Publish, display, distribute, communicate, license, and otherwise make authorized uses of the Contribution.
The annotator confirms that they have the necessary rights to submit any original material they contribute.
These provisions do not transfer rights in third-party materials to which the annotator has no rights and do not limit any non-waivable legal rights, including applicable personal-data and moral rights.
Subject to applicable law, licenses granted for previously submitted Contributions may continue after an annotator stops using the Platform.
7. Confidentiality and Data Protection
Annotators may encounter information that is confidential, unpublished, proprietary, or personally identifiable.
Annotators agree to:
- Access and use assigned data only for authorized annotation activities.
- Not disclose, distribute, publish, or share assigned data outside the Platform without authorization.
- Not copy, download, retain, or transfer task materials except where explicitly permitted.
- Not upload confidential task data to external services, including third-party AI tools, without permission.
- Protect their account credentials and report suspected security incidents.
These confidentiality obligations continue after participation ends, for as long as the relevant information remains confidential.
8. Privacy, Data Retention, and Individual Rights
The Organization will collect and process personal information necessary for Platform administration and authorized data collection activities.
Personal data will be retained only for as long as justified by the applicable purposes, legal obligations, and retention policies described in the Privacy Notice.
Access to identifiable personal information will be restricted using appropriate technical and organizational safeguards.
Annotators may contact the Organization to request access to, correction of, or deletion of their personal information, withdraw applicable consent, or exercise other rights available under Qatar's personal data protection legislation.
Requests will be handled in accordance with applicable law. Account closure or withdrawal does not automatically invalidate prior lawful processing, and certain records or outputs may remain subject to applicable retention obligations or other lawful processing grounds.
Where personal data is shared with third parties or processed outside Qatar, the Organization will provide relevant information and apply the requirements of applicable law.
9. Responsible Participation
Annotators agree not to:
- Submit intentionally false, fabricated, or misleading annotations.
- Misrepresent their identity or permit unauthorized account access.
- Circumvent Platform security or quality-control mechanisms.
- Upload unlawful material or content they are not authorized to provide.
- Use task materials for unauthorized personal, public, or commercial purposes.
The Organization may restrict or terminate Platform access for violations of these Terms and Conditions.
10. Changes to the Terms
The Organization may update these Terms and Conditions when necessary.
Material changes will be communicated through the Platform or other appropriate channels. Where a change requires new consent or authorization, this will be requested separately before the relevant processing begins.
11. Governing Law
These Terms and Conditions are governed by the applicable laws of the State of Qatar.
Nothing in these Terms limits rights that cannot lawfully be excluded under applicable legislation.
12. Contact Information
For questions about the Platform, these Terms, or personal data processing, please contact:
Organization: QCRI
Contact: https://micromappers.qcri.org/ platform management team.