Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of these terms

OttaDesk (“OttaDesk”, “we”, “us”) is operated by Ashir Raza, a sole proprietor established in Quebec, Canada, operating as OttaDesk. These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) form an agreement between you and Ashir Raza, operating as OttaDesk.

By creating an account, accessing the service, or otherwise using OttaDesk, you agree to these Terms. If you are agreeing on behalf of a driving school, you confirm that you have authority to bind that school, and “you” refers to both you and that school. If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the service.

2. What OttaDesk does

OttaDesk is a software service that helps driving schools manage lesson booking, instructor scheduling, student records, and communication with students by SMS text message. Depending on the features a school uses, the service may include:

• Receiving and responding to student messages sent to the school's assigned phone number;
• Sending booking confirmations, lesson reminders, and rescheduling notifications by SMS;
• Scheduling lessons across instructors, vehicles, and lesson types;
• Recording student progress against Quebec licensing requirements;
• Storing documents that a school uploads in connection with a student's file.

We may add, change, or remove features over time. We will not make changes that materially reduce the core functionality a school is paying for without giving reasonable notice.

3. Accounts and eligibility

Accounts are created for driving schools and for the staff members a school authorises, including school administrators and instructors. You must be at least 18 years old to hold an OttaDesk account. Students do not hold OttaDesk accounts; they interact with the service only by text message.

You are responsible for the accuracy of the information in your account, for keeping login credentials confidential, and for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us promptly at support@ottadesk.com if you believe an account has been used without authorisation.

4. Responsibilities of driving schools

A school using OttaDesk is responsible for the personal information it enters into the service and for how it communicates with its own students. In particular, by using OttaDesk you agree that:

• You obtain consent before entering a student's phone number. You will inform each student, at the point you collect their number, that the school will send them lesson-related text messages, and you will obtain their consent to do so. You will not enter a phone number into OttaDesk for a person who has not agreed to receive these messages.
• You honour opt-out requests. If a student asks your staff directly to stop receiving text messages, you will act on that request, in addition to the automatic STOP handling described in section 7.
• You collect parental consent where required. Where a student is a minor under applicable Quebec law, you are responsible for obtaining the consent of a parent or guardian before collecting their information or sending them messages.
• Your information is accurate and lawfully collected. You have the right to provide the student information you enter, and it is accurate to the best of your knowledge.
• You remain responsible for your own legal obligations, including those under Quebec's privacy and consumer-protection legislation and any rules applicable to driving schools.

5. Students receiving messages

If you are a student receiving text messages from a driving school through OttaDesk, you are not required to create an account or agree to a subscription. You may stop receiving messages at any time as described in section 7. Please do not send us information you do not want your driving school to see: messages sent to the school's number are visible to that school's authorised staff.

6. Subscription and fees

Access to OttaDesk for driving schools is provided on a subscription basis. The fees, billing period, and included usage applicable to your school are those set out in the plan or written arrangement agreed between you and us at the time you sign up.

Unless your agreed plan says otherwise, fees are payable in advance, are exclusive of applicable taxes, and subscriptions renew for successive periods until cancelled. We will give reasonable advance notice before any change to your fees takes effect. If you do not accept a fee change, you may cancel before it takes effect as described in section 12.

7. Text messaging terms

OttaDesk sends SMS text messages on behalf of driving schools using telecommunications providers, including Twilio. The following applies to everyone who receives these messages.

• What we send. Messages are transactional and relate to a student's lessons: booking confirmations, lesson reminders, rescheduling notifications, and replies to messages a student sends the school. Message frequency varies with a student's lesson activity.
• Message and data rates may apply. Your mobile carrier may charge you for sending or receiving text messages, according to your plan. OttaDesk does not charge students for these messages.
• To stop receiving messages, reply STOP to any message. You will receive a confirmation, and no further messages will be sent to that number.
• For help, reply HELP to any message, or contact us at support@ottadesk.com.
• Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

Opting out of text messages may prevent your driving school from confirming or reminding you about lessons by SMS. Your school can arrange another way to reach you.

8. Acceptable use

You agree not to use OttaDesk to:

• Send marketing, promotional, or solicitation messages of any kind, or any message unrelated to a student's lessons;
• Send messages to any person who has not consented to receive them, or who has opted out;
• Send unlawful, misleading, harassing, threatening, or abusive content;
• Upload material that infringes someone else's rights, or that you have no right to share;
• Attempt to access accounts, schools, or data other than your own;
• Probe, scan, disrupt, overload, or attempt to circumvent the security of the service;
• Reverse engineer, resell, or provide access to the service to third parties outside your school without our written permission;
• Use the service in violation of any applicable law, including anti-spam and telecommunications rules.

Misuse of the messaging features, in particular, may cause our telecommunications providers to suspend messaging for all schools on the platform. We take it seriously and may suspend an account immediately for it, as described in section 12.

9. Intellectual property

OttaDesk, including its software, design, and branding, remains our property. These Terms grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the service during your subscription, and nothing more.

The data your school enters remains yours. You grant us the limited right to host, process, and transmit it as necessary to operate the service for you — for example, passing a phone number and message to our SMS provider so a text can be delivered.

10. Third-party services

OttaDesk relies on third-party providers to operate, including Twilio for SMS delivery and cloud infrastructure providers for hosting and data storage. Their handling of information is described in our Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for outages, delays, or failures caused by these providers, though we will make reasonable efforts to address them.

11. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

OttaDesk is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that every message will be delivered.

OttaDesk is a scheduling and communication tool, not a system of record for licensing purposes. Schools remain responsible for meeting their obligations to the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) and any other authority, and for retaining whatever records those obligations require.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, or lost or corrupted data. Our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the service will not exceed the amount you paid us for the service in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law, including under Quebec consumer-protection legislation where it applies.

12. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from claims, damages, and reasonable costs arising from your use of the service in breach of these Terms, including claims arising from messages sent to people who did not consent to receive them, or from personal information you entered without the right to do so.

13. Suspension and termination

You may cancel your subscription at any time by contacting us at support@ottadesk.com. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period unless agreed otherwise.

We may suspend or terminate an account if you materially breach these Terms, if your use puts the service or other schools at risk (including through misuse of messaging), if required by a provider or by law, or for non-payment. Where circumstances reasonably allow, we will give notice and an opportunity to correct the problem first.

After termination, you may request an export of your school's data within 30 days. After that period we may delete it, subject to the retention described in our Privacy Policy.

14. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make a material change, we will give reasonable notice — by email to account administrators, or by notice in the service — before it takes effect. Continuing to use OttaDesk after that date means you accept the updated Terms. The effective date at the top of this page always shows the current version.

15. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Quebec and the laws of Canada applicable in it, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. The parties agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the Province of Quebec, district of Montreal, subject to any right you may have under applicable consumer-protection law to bring proceedings elsewhere.

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