Terms of Service
Effective Date and Last Updated: August 17, 2026
This Terms of Service is a platform document and is not a substitute for advice from qualified Indian legal counsel. Fensta should obtain a legal review before production launch. Fensta operates as a digital technology intermediary and campus software infrastructure provider under the laws of the Republic of India.
1. Acceptance, Eligibility & Account Architecture
These Terms of Service (“Terms”) constitute a legally binding agreement between you (“User”, “you”, or “your”) and Fensta (“Platform”, “we”, “us”, or “our”), governing your access to and usage of our web applications, client portals, APIs, and associated campus management systems.
By accessing, browsing, registering for an account, or creating content on Fensta, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not accept all of these terms, you must immediately cease accessing and using the platform.
1.1 Eligibility & Minors
Fensta is designed primarily for higher-education students, faculty, student club organizers, and collegiate institutional administrators. Users must be at least 18 years of age or possess valid institutional authorization from an affiliated university or college. Where a student is a minor under applicable Indian law, account creation and event participation must be guided by institutional policies and authorized guardian/institutional supervision.
1.2 Identity Authenticity & Security
You represent and warrant that all information provided during signup and onboarding (including your legal name, institutional email address, student roll number/identifier, and academic department) is accurate, truthful, and current. You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your authentication credentials and session tokens. Sharing credentials or impersonating other students or faculty members is strictly prohibited.
2. Stakeholder Responsibility Matrix
Fensta is a multi-sided campus enablement platform. Clear operational and legal distinctions exist among the following stakeholders:
Responsible for authentic registration, adherence to campus codes of conduct, original submissions in hackathons/competitions, and presenting valid QR passes for on-site verification.
Responsible for lawful event creation, truthful representation of prizes/timelines, fair volunteer management, accurate QR scanning, and legitimate certificate generation.
Responsible for vetting event proposals from their institution, verifying campus safety, ensuring alignment with academic guidelines, and approving or providing reasons for event rejections.
University Admins maintain institution-scoped member roles and handle campus disputes. Super Admins govern platform-wide compliance, canonical directory integrity, and audit logging.
3. Institution Directory, Provenance & Governance
Fensta maintains an authoritative Indian institutional directory indexing universities, engineering colleges, polytechnics, and higher-education entities across all Indian states and union territories.
3.1 Canonical Selection & User Submissions
Users are encouraged to search and select their verified institution during onboarding. If an institution is unlisted, users may submit an institutional addition request. User-submitted institutions immediately enter a pending_review state and record complete provenance (submitting user, timestamp, state, city, and affiliation).
3.2 Administrative Curation & Merging
Unlisted submissions do not receive verified platform status automatically. Super Administrators review, approve, reject, or merge duplicate submissions into canonical directory entries. All curation actions generate immutable audit log records ensuring provenance and accountability.
4. Event Lifecycle, Digital Passes & Attendance
Event publishing on Fensta follows a strict institutional governance pipeline designed to ensure campus safety, scheduling integrity, and genuine student participation.
4.1 Creation, Review & Publishing Gate
Event Hosts draft opportunities with schedules, eligibility parameters, FAQs, multi-round stage criteria, and prize structures. All institutional events remain invisible to the public directory until reviewed and approved by an authorized institutional Faculty Approver.
4.2 Event Changes, Postponement & Cancellation
Event Hosts must promptly notify registered attendees of any venue, schedule, or modality changes. In the event of postponement or cancellation, hosts are solely responsible for attendee communications and honorarium or fee reconciliation where applicable.
4.3 Digital Passes & QR Attendance Scanning
Upon successful registration, students receive a tamper-resistant Digital Pass featuring an encrypted dynamic QR code. Organizers verify presence at venues using the Fensta Host Scanner. The scanning system rejects duplicate check-ins, unauthorized ticket transfers, and expired tokens.
5. Volunteers, Certificate Studio & Analytics
5.1 Volunteer Applications & Selection
Students applying for event volunteer roles commit to fulfilling the assigned tasks, logistical coordination, and attendance desk obligations. Hosts retain sole discretion in selecting, assigning, or replacing student volunteers based on event requirements.
5.2 Certificate Studio & Public Verification
Fensta provides Certificate Studio tools allowing hosts to design and issue digital certificates of participation, merit, or coordination. Issued certificates carry a unique cryptographic verification identifier enabling third-party verification via Fensta's public verification portal. Fensta does not independently guarantee the academic accreditation or external employment recognition of issued certificates.
5.3 Event Report Studio
Organizers may generate analytics PDF summaries reflecting registration demographics, check-in percentages, and feedback scores. These reports are compiled based on operational database records and are intended for institutional review.
6. User Content, Intellectual Property & AI Disclaimers
6.1 Content Ownership & Platform License
You retain all proprietary intellectual property rights in original materials, codebases, slide decks, project descriptions, and media uploaded to Fensta (“User Content”). You grant Fensta a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, limited license to host, transmit, format, and display your User Content strictly for the purpose of operating, protecting, and delivering the platform services.
6.2 AI-Assisted Features & Output Disclaimer
Where Fensta provides automated or AI-assisted tooling (e.g., event summary generation, schedule formatting, recommendations, or search indexing), such outputs are generated algorithmically on an “as is” basis. Fensta makes no representations regarding the accuracy, completeness, or professional reliability of AI-generated suggestions. Users must exercise independent human judgment before relying on automated outputs.
6.3 Copyright & Trademark Compliance
Fensta respects intellectual property rights. If you believe your copyrighted work or trademark has been infringed by content posted on Fensta, please notify our designated grievance mechanism with specific evidence pursuant to Rule 3 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
7. Prohibited Conduct, Academic Misconduct & Safety
Fensta is dedicated to fostering an ethical, inclusive, and safe academic environment. Users must strictly refrain from:
- Engaging in academic dishonesty, plagiarism, submitting purchased code or unauthorized team members in hackathons.
- Creating fraudulent profiles, fabricating academic affiliations, or falsifying faculty verification documents.
- Harassing, bullying, stalking, defaming, or issuing threats of violence against any attendee, organizer, or faculty member.
- Uploading hate speech, explicit sexual content, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), or material violating Indian public order.
- Attempting to bypass security controls, tamper with RLS policies, execute SQL injection, or deploy automated scraping bots.
- Falsifying attendance logs, selling complimentary tickets, or generating counterfeit certificate records.
Violations may lead to immediate account suspension, disqualification from campus events, reporting to relevant university disciplinary boards, and referral to law enforcement authorities under the Information Technology Act, 2000.
8. Disclaimers, Limitation of Liability & Indemnification
8.1 Platform Disclaimers (“As-Is”)
Fensta provides software infrastructure as an intermediary. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable Indian law, the platform is provided on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis without warranties of any kind, whether express, statutory, or implied. We do not warrant that service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or entirely secure.
8.2 Limitation of Liability
Under no circumstances shall Fensta, its developers, operators, affiliates, or licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including loss of profits, academic penalties, event cancellations, physical venue accidents, or data loss) arising out of or in connection with your use of the platform.
8.3 Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Fensta and its operational personnel from and against any third-party claims, liabilities, losses, damages, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) resulting from your User Content, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any rights of another individual or institution.
9. Privacy, Data Protection & Statutory Data Rights
Your privacy is paramount. Fensta processes personal data in accordance with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA), 2023 and associated statutory rules.
9.1 Purpose Limitation & Data Principles
Data collected (including student names, roll numbers, institutional emails, event attendance, and certificate records) is used strictly for authentication, event administration, ticket issuance, and institutional verification. For complete details, consult our Privacy Policy.
9.2 Data Principal Rights & Erasure
Under DPDPA 2023, you have the right to access summary information, correct inaccuracies, and submit an account erasure request via our Data Deletion Portal. Erasure requests are processed subject to statutory retention obligations, pending dispute resolution, and append-only audit logging requirements.
9.3 Append-Only Audit Logging
Administrative actions, role escalations, institution approvals, and critical event modifications are permanently recorded in an append-only audit log. These audit records cannot be modified or deleted through application interfaces to guarantee accountability and legal compliance.
10. Governing Law, Grievance Redressal & Final Provisions
10.1 Governing Law & Jurisdiction
These Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or related to them shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the substantive laws of India. Subject to initial good-faith informal dispute resolution, the competent courts situated in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India shall have exclusive jurisdiction over all legal proceedings.
10.2 Grievance Officer & Redressal Mechanism
Pursuant to Rule 3(2) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, any user grievances or reports of violations may be submitted via our official Grievance Redressal Portal or through the Support Desk. Grievances are acknowledged within 24 hours and addressed within statutory timelines.
10.3 Severability, Waiver & Entire Agreement
If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, such provision shall be severed and the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect. These Terms, alongside the Privacy Policy and referenced guidelines, constitute the entire agreement between the user and Fensta.