Terms

Terms & Conditions

Last updated: July 6, 2026

1. Acceptance of Terms

This User Agreement ("Agreement", "Terms") is a binding contract between you and SqoolQuest ("we", "us", "our") governing your access to and use of the SqoolQuest mobile application and any related services (collectively, the "Service"). By downloading, installing, creating an account with, or otherwise using the Service — including in Guest mode without creating an account — you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by this Agreement and by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into this Agreement by reference. If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not access or use the Service. Your continued use of the Service after any updated version of this Agreement is published constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms, subject to the re-acceptance process described in Section 32.

2. Eligibility and Minors

The Service is designed to be used by students of all school levels, together with their parents or guardians, and by school staff and bus drivers acting within their official duties. Many users of the Service are minors. If you are under the age of majority in your jurisdiction, you represent that you have the permission of a parent, legal guardian, or your school to use the Service, and that a parent, guardian, or authorized school official has reviewed and agreed to this Agreement on your behalf where required by law. Schools and districts that distribute or recommend the Service to students are responsible for obtaining any parental consent or notice required under applicable education and privacy law before doing so. See Section 32 for additional detail on children's privacy and school compliance.

3. Account Types Overview

The Service supports several distinct account types, each with different features, data access, and responsibilities: Guest accounts (no sign-up, anonymous, device-local); Registered accounts (username and password, no email required); Premium accounts (a paid or sponsor-granted subscription unlocking additional features); Family-linked accounts (a primary account with additional linked members sharing certain privileges); District-sponsored accounts (an account whose premium access is granted or revoked by a school district rather than by direct payment); School Staff accounts (master-level or district-level administrative privileges); and Bus Driver accounts (operational access limited to their assigned route). This Agreement applies to all account types; where a provision applies only to one type, that is stated explicitly.

4. Guest Mode (No Sign-Up)

Guest mode lets you use core bus-tracking features immediately, without creating an account, an email address, or a password. Guest sessions are tied to your device rather than to a portable account: they are not backed by a server-side profile, cannot be recovered if you reinstall the app or switch devices, and do not carry over avatars, coins, or history to a registered account unless you create one. Guest mode currently includes a limited-time trial period during which it behaves like a full registered account; once that trial period ends, Guest mode reverts to a reduced base feature set until you create an account. We may change the length or existence of any trial period at our discretion, including for devices already in Guest mode. Location and battery data described in Sections 9 and 10 are collected in Guest mode on the same basis as for registered users whenever you actively track a bus.

5. Account Creation and Username Rules

Registered accounts are created with a username and password; supplying an email address is optional at sign-up. If you do not choose a username, or your chosen username is unavailable, the Service may generate one for you automatically. Usernames must be unique across the Service, must not impersonate another person, organization, school, or SqoolQuest staff member, and must not contain content that is obscene, harassing, or otherwise violates Section 30 (Prohibited Conduct). We reserve the right to reclaim, reject, or reassign a username that violates this Agreement or that is reserved for administrative use. Custom, non-generated usernames may be restricted to Premium accounts as described in Section 19.

6. Email, Recovery, and Login Methods

Because email is optional at sign-up, an account created with only a username and password may have no way to recover access if the password is forgotten. We strongly encourage you to add a real email address to your account as soon as practical: a verified email is required to use password-reset and passwordless email-link sign-in, and is required before a Premium subscription can be billed to your account. You are responsible for keeping any email address on file accurate and for maintaining access to it. Where a synthetic, internally generated email address is stored on your behalf to satisfy technical requirements of our authentication provider, it is not a real contact address and will not receive mail.

7. Profile Information We Store

Depending on your account type, your profile may store: your username, display or full name, account type (student, parent/guardian, school staff, or bus driver), school name and address, home or bus-stop address, preferred school range (elementary, middle, high, or other), your chosen avatar, and, where applicable, your district or family linkage. You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you provide and for updating it if it changes. We use this information to route you to the correct bus and stop, to personalize your experience, and for the purposes described in our Privacy Policy. You may review and edit most profile fields from Settings at any time.

8. Account Security and Your Responsibility

You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and any device or session used to access your account, and for all activity that occurs under your account, whether or not you authorized it. You agree to notify us promptly at the contact address in Section 32 if you become aware of any unauthorized access to, or use of, your account. We are not liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to safeguard your login credentials, except to the extent caused by our own negligence or breach of this Agreement. We may suspend or require re-authentication of an account we reasonably believe has been compromised.

9. GPS Location Sharing and Consent (the "GO" Button)

When you tap "GO" to actively track a bus, you affirmatively consent to the collection of your device's GPS location for the duration of that tracking session. This includes brief collection in the background if you leave the app open but switch to another application while a ride is in progress. Location data collected this way is used to update the live position of the bus you are tracking and to help the Service learn the actual path of the route from real, observed movement over time, as described in Sections 11 and 12. You may withdraw this consent and stop location collection at any time simply by tapping the button again or by ending active tracking; doing so does not affect the lawfulness of any collection that already occurred. Your individual location is never displayed to other users — see Section 13. Location permission is also requested independently by your device's operating system, and this Agreement does not override your ability to deny or revoke that operating-system-level permission at any time.

10. Battery-Aware Tracking Rotation

While you are actively sharing your location, the Service also reads your device's battery percentage and whether it is currently charging, checked roughly every thirty seconds. We use this solely to decide, among the group of nearby devices tracking the same bus, which device or devices should carry the heaviest tracking load at any given moment — for example, preferring a device that is plugged in and charging over one running low on battery — so that no single rider's battery is disproportionately drained by keeping the bus tracked for everyone. We do not use battery or charging data for advertising, for profiling your device's battery health or hardware condition, or for any purpose other than this tracking-duty rotation. Battery data is not retained beyond the active tracking session and is never shown to other users.

11. Route Learning and Map-Matching

The Service improves the accuracy of the routes and stops it displays by analyzing anonymized, aggregated patterns in the GPS traces contributed by riders who tap "GO," together with third-party mapping, routing, and map-matching services. Over time this allows the Service to infer the real path a bus actually travels, refine the location of stops, flag stops that appear to be suspected rather than confirmed, and improve predicted arrival behavior. This is a best-effort, statistical process: it can be temporarily wrong immediately after a route changes, and it improves as more observed trips accumulate.

12. Route Snapping and ETA Disclaimer

To present a cleaner, more readable map, the bus marker you see may be "snapped" to the learned route line or to the underlying road network rather than showing every raw, noisy GPS coordinate exactly as received. Estimated arrival times, distances, and progress-along-route indicators are estimates only, generated from imperfect real-world data such as GPS signal quality, traffic, weather, and driver behavior. They are not guarantees of a bus's actual position or arrival time, and the Service, its route-snapping logic, and its ETA predictions may be inaccurate, delayed, or temporarily unavailable. See Section 29 for the broader accuracy and safety disclaimer that applies to all tracking data.

13. Live Bus Data Privacy

Your individual GPS location and device battery/charging status, collected as described in Sections 9 and 10, are never displayed to other users of the Service. Only an aggregated representation of the bus's position and progress — derived from one or more contributing devices — is shown to the people who follow that route or stop. We store your pinned route and chosen pickup stop so the app can remember which bus you follow between sessions; this preference is private to your account and is not shared with other riders.

14. Driver Publishing Scope

Bus drivers and administrators who are granted driver tools may publish live location for the specific route and vehicle they are assigned to, and only for that route and vehicle. Using driver-facing publishing tools for any route, vehicle, or time period you are not authorized for is strictly prohibited and constitutes a material breach of this Agreement, and may additionally violate school district policy or applicable law. We may audit driver publishing activity and suspend driver access at our discretion where misuse is suspected.

15. Notifications and Push Tokens

With your permission, the Service sends push notifications for events such as bus departures and arrivals, delay alerts, Late Bus Pass updates (Section 24), support ticket responses, and other account notices. To deliver these, we collect and store a device push notification token associated with your account or guest session. You can control notification permissions from your device's operating-system settings at any time; disabling notifications does not affect your ability to use the rest of the Service, though you will not receive time-sensitive alerts.

16. Avatars and Customization

You may personalize your profile with an animal avatar. A base set of avatars is available to every account at no cost; additional avatars may be locked behind a Premium subscription or may be purchasable with Reward Coins (Section 17). Your avatar selection is stored as part of your profile. If a change to your account (for example, the expiration of Premium or a coin-based unlock) removes your access to a previously selected avatar, the Service will revert your avatar to one you remain entitled to.

17. Coins and Rewards

Reward Coins are a virtual, in-app reward with no monetary value. Coins cannot be purchased directly with real money, redeemed for cash, exchanged for any other form of value, or transferred between accounts. You may earn Coins through activities such as boarding a tracked bus, contributing ride distance or stop data while actively sharing your location, and completing optional rewarded advertisements (Section 18). Coins may be spent on cosmetic unlocks such as avatars or on other features we make available from time to time; spending Coins does not reduce or affect any separate leaderboard or activity score the Service may display. We may adjust Coin earning rates, spending costs, or your Coin balance at our sole discretion, including to correct errors or to address suspected fraud or abuse, as described further in Section 30.

18. Ads and Rewarded Ads

Free-tier use of the Service may include advertisements supplied by third-party advertising partners. Some ads are optional "rewarded" ads that grant Reward Coins when voluntarily viewed to completion. Advertising partners may collect and process data about your device or app usage in accordance with their own privacy policies and applicable law, independent of this Agreement; we require our advertising partners to comply with applicable child-directed advertising restrictions where relevant. A Premium subscription, where available, removes standard advertising from the Service.

19. Premium Subscription

Premium is a paid subscription, currently offered on an annual billing basis at the price displayed in the app at the time of purchase, that unlocks additional features which may include, without limitation: faster live-tracking refresh, a full-screen map view, unlimited active tracking sessions, additional bus alerts, an ad-free experience, priority customer support, a custom (non-generated) username, expanded avatar access, and other features we may add or remove over time. Where Premium is purchased through a device app store, billing, renewal, cancellation, and refunds are governed by that app store's policies and your account settings there, not directly by SqoolQuest; we do not control or guarantee refund outcomes handled by a third-party app store. A verified email address is required before Premium billing can be enabled on an account, per Section 6. Premium access may also be granted or revoked administratively, including through a school district's sponsorship (Section 21) or a promotional discount, independent of app-store billing.

20. Family Plans and Linked Members

A primary Premium account may invite a limited number of additional people to join as linked family members, up to the limit associated with the plan at the time (additional slots may be purchasable where offered). The primary account holder is responsible for the family plan and for the conduct of linked members using access it grants. Linked members receive only the specific privileges the primary account assigns to them; being linked to a family plan does not automatically grant a linked member every Premium feature available to the primary account. Removing a linked member, or cancellation or expiration of the underlying Premium subscription, ends the linked privileges granted through that plan.

21. District Sponsorship and Student Linking

A school district may sponsor Premium-equivalent access for its students and staff independent of any personal subscription. District sponsorship works by linking an existing SqoolQuest account to a district-provided roster using a district code, a student identifier, and a verification method the district configures. District sponsorship can enable or disable premium-equivalent access on a linked account without deleting the account itself or its history, and takes precedence over, or works alongside, any personal subscription the user separately holds. A district administrator may reset or revoke a roster claim in accordance with the district's own policies; SqoolQuest is not responsible for a district's decisions about who it chooses to sponsor.

22. Parent and Guardian Linking Codes

A student account can generate a one-time linking code that a parent or guardian enters to link their own account and view the buses that student tracks. These codes expire after a short period (currently thirty minutes) for security, and generating a new code invalidates any earlier unused code. Linking in this way grants the parent or guardian view access to the student's tracked bus information; it does not transfer ownership or administrative control of the student's account, and the student may unlink a parent or guardian from their account at any time from Settings.

23. Staff and Driver Privilege Scopes

School Staff accounts are divided into master-level staff, who may administer Service-wide settings and content across districts, and district-level staff, whose administrative access is limited to their own district's data, routes, and rosters. Bus Driver accounts have operational access — including "My Routes," ride logs, and, where granted, sub-driver management — limited to the route(s) and vehicle(s) they are assigned. Staff and driver privileges are granted and revoked administratively and may be changed, narrowed, or removed at any time by a master administrator or, for district-scoped staff, by an authorized district administrator.

24. Late Bus Pass

Where available, the Late Bus Pass feature lets an eligible user request or receive a notice associated with a bus running behind its expected schedule, and may notify relevant staff or family members linked to the account. Late Bus Pass information is generated from the same live tracking and route-learning data described elsewhere in this Agreement and is subject to the same accuracy limitations described in Section 29 — it is a best-effort convenience feature, not a guaranteed or official excusal record, unless your school or district separately treats it as one under its own policies.

25. District-Level Anonymized Analytics

We may generate aggregated, anonymized analytics at the district level — for example, ridership trends, on-time performance, or account-type distribution — to help districts and school administrators understand and improve bus service. These analytics are derived from data across many riders and are designed not to identify any individual student or rider; they are shared with the relevant district or school administrators for operational and planning purposes only.

26. User Submissions, Notes, and Support Tickets

The Service allows you to submit content such as proposed routes or stops, reports of route or stop inaccuracies, notes attached to your account, and support tickets. By submitting content, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, and display that content as needed to operate, review, moderate, and improve the Service. Submissions may be reviewed by our staff before or after they take effect. You agree not to submit content that is false, harassing, defamatory, infringing, or otherwise in violation of Section 30. We may remove, edit, or decline to act on any submission at our discretion.

27. Analytics, Diagnostics, and Third-Party Services

We collect limited technical and usage information — such as anonymized session identifiers, app version, device platform, and general usage patterns — to diagnose problems, understand feature usage, and improve the Service. Operating the Service also relies on third-party infrastructure providers, including cloud hosting and database services, authentication services, mapping, routing, and geocoding providers, push-notification delivery services, and, where applicable, payment processors and advertising partners. These providers process data on our behalf or independently under their own terms, as described further in our Privacy Policy. We do not sell your personal information to third parties for their own marketing purposes.

28. Data Retention, Soft Delete, and Permanent Deletion

We retain account data for as long as your account remains active. Live GPS position and battery/charging data are short-lived and are not retained once an active tracking session ends. Route trace data contributed while tracking may be retained for a longer period to support route learning, confidence review, abuse prevention, and service reliability, as described in Section 11. When you request account deletion, your account is first soft-deleted: it is hidden and inactive but can be fully recovered simply by signing back in within a limited recovery window (currently ninety days). After that window passes without a sign-in, the account and its associated data are permanently deleted and cannot be recovered.

29. Accuracy and Safety Disclaimer

Bus location, stop timing, learned route geometry, and arrival estimates displayed by the Service are provided on a best-effort basis, using data contributed by users and by third-party mapping and routing services. We do not guarantee that this information is accurate, complete, current, or uninterrupted, and it may be late, temporarily unavailable, or wrong — including in ways that could cause a rider to miss a bus or arrive at a stop earlier or later than expected. You should not rely solely on the Service for safety-critical transportation decisions, and should always follow the guidance of your school, district, and bus driver over any information shown in the app.

30. Prohibited Conduct and Misuse

You agree not to: scrape, reverse-engineer, or systematically extract data from the Service beyond normal personal use; interfere with, disrupt, or attempt to circumvent the security of the Service; fabricate, spoof, or otherwise misrepresent GPS location, battery status, or route data; impersonate any other person, school, district, or SqoolQuest staff member; use the Service to harass, stalk, or threaten any other person, including by misusing location-sharing or family-linking features; publish driver or live bus location for any route or vehicle you are not authorized for (Section 14); or abuse the Coin, Rewards, referral, or discount systems, including through fraudulent boarding, self-referral, or exploiting bugs for unintended gain. We may investigate suspected violations, remove or adjust ill-gotten Coins or unlocks, and suspend or terminate accounts involved in any of the above, with or without prior notice.

31. Warranty Disclaimer, Limitation of Liability, and Indemnification

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether 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 completely secure. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SqoolQuest and its officers, employees, and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of data, use, or goodwill, arising out of or related to your use of, or inability to use, the Service, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold SqoolQuest harmless from any claim, loss, liability, or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your misuse of the Service, your content or submissions, or your violation of this Agreement or applicable law.

32. Governing Law, Changes to Terms, Children's Privacy, and Contact

This Agreement is governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which SqoolQuest is organized, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, and any dispute arising from it will be resolved in the courts or other forum designated in our published dispute-resolution policy, where applicable. If any provision of this Agreement is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force. We may update this Agreement from time to time; when a change is significant enough to require it, the Service will prompt you to review and re-accept the updated Agreement before you can continue using features that require an account, and you may decline and discontinue use instead. Because many users are students, we take children's privacy and school-related compliance obligations seriously, including under applicable children's online privacy law and student-data-privacy law; where a school or district acts as the authorizing party for student use, it is responsible for any notices or consents required of it under such law. Questions about this Agreement can be sent to support@sqoolquest.com or through Help & Support in the app.