Terms of use

Version 1.0, March 2^th, 2017

Adopted

1. Access to resources
2. Compliance
3. Use of resources
4. Acknowledgement and reporting

1 – Access to resources

1. By applying for access to Compute Canada’s resources, you must agree to these Terms of use.

2. You agree to access and use Compute Canada’s resources in a way that is compatible with the Compute Canada Access Policy.

3. You must never access or attempt to access any of Compute Canada’s resources (or any other user’s data on Compute Canada’s resources) other than those resources or data for which you have been explicitly granted access.

4. You must always abide by any Compute Canada policies, and any local and applicable policies such as an Acceptable Use Policy of the institution from which you are accessing the resources. In the situation where a conflict exists, you must notify^* Compute Canada and comply with any additional directives that Compute Canada will provide to resolve the inconsistency.

5. You must not allow any other individual to use your credentials to access Compute Canada’s resources. If additional personnel require access to Compute Canada’s resources as part of your research, each individual must apply for an account, and obtain their own credentials.

6. Compute Canada credentials are confidential and must remain secret and secure. Minimal requirement for credentials are provided in the Compute Canada directive on password management.

7. You must provide and keep up to date user related information in the Compute Canada Portal (CCDB). Current and valid information is critical for efficient incident response.

2 – Compliance

1. Failure to abide by these Terms of use may result in legal action to you or your institution as well as the revocation of access privileges.

2. You have full responsibility for the activities associated with your account or for the use of resources being assigned to you. You are responsible to clarify with your home institution any responsibility or liability issue resulting from the use of Compute Canada’s resources.

3. In the situation where your account is compromised or suspicious activity is being recorded on resources assigned to you, you agree to work with Compute Canada, its members and your home institution to resolve the issue.

4. At no time will you use Compute Canada’s resources for any activity in contravention of Canadian law or any other applicable laws in your jurisdiction. You are responsible to identify with your local institution all applicable laws or regulations that may apply in the use of Compute Canada resources for your research, including the access or use of resources outside of your local province.

5. You agree that should you ever be investigated or found liable for any contravention of Canadian law, or any other applicable law in your jurisdiction, Compute Canada is in no way responsible or liable for such contraventions. If anyone attempt to make Compute Canada liable for anything related to your research or your use of Compute Canada’s resources, you agree to work with Compute Canada, its members and your home institution to resolve the issue.

6. Compute Canada reserves the right to proactively monitor for and detect activity that violates Compute Canada policies and applicable laws. You agree to provide information and access to data to Compute Canada to enable this monitoring and any related investigation. Such access to your data or assigned resources will be monitored, temporary, minimized and limited to the scope and timeframe of the investigation.

7. You must immediately notify^* Compute Canada if you become aware of any unauthorized access or use of Compute Canada resources or data or of any event that might affect Compute Canada information security or privacy.

8. You agree to provide Compute Canada, upon request, with appropriate documentation to demonstrate proper authorisation is in place for the use of CC resources, including ethical approvals of the research being conducted on Compute Canada allocated resources.

3 – Use of resources

1. You may not knowingly use the Compute Canada resources in any situation where failure or fault of the Service could lead to death or serious injury of any person or animal, or to serious physical or environmental damage.

2. Should your research involve the use of or contain any personal information^†, you must inform Compute Canada and only select or use the appropriate resources that provide the required protection for such data. You agree to abide by additional terms applicable to the protection of personal information, such as to those required by Compute Canada privacy and data protection policy.

3. Should your research involve the use or contain sensitive information^†, you must institute appropriate safeguards to ensure your data remains secured and confidential. Compute Canada holds no responsibility for the protection of your data.

4. You may not knowingly introduce malicious software into the Compute Canada environment that may damage, interfere with, or capture any system, program, or data outside of your own assigned resources. Compute Canada reserves the right to quarantine or delete any such software and any related data.

5. You may not knowingly attempt to probe, scan, penetrate or test for vulnerability Compute Canada services or systems.

6. You may not knowingly try to access or intercept data not intended for yourself or for the resources that are assigned to you.

7. You may not send or provide assistance for unsolicited bulk communications.

8. You may not use applications without valid and adequate licensing.

9. You may not use software services that would override Compute Canada authentication or policy enforcement.

10. You may not use software or services that provide unprotected access to shared Compute Canada resources.

11. You must use Compute Canada’s resources in an efficient manner that does not impede or deny the ability of others to use the resources to which they have been granted access. This includes the removal of deprecated data and software.

12. You will protect data you have been granted access to and will ensure proper consent is obtained before sharing or disclosing it.

13. You must complete an annual account renewal process to retain access to resources assigned to you.

14. If access is revoked or expired, Compute Canada will archive or retain your data for a one year period. Temporary data^‡ will not be preserved and may be deleted at any time. Past this grace-period, if no action has been taken to reactivate the account, Compute Canada reserves the right to permanently delete all of your data.

4 – Acknowledgement and reporting

1. In any publication or communication related to your use of Compute Canada resources, you agree, where possible and appropriate to acknowledge Compute Canada’s contribution as prescribed in Compute Canada’s acknowledgment policy.

2. You agree to provide Compute Canada with reporting information about your access and use of Compute Canada resources.

^* Contact by email at security@computecanada.ca or contact your local Compute Canada representative

^† Defined in https://www.computecanada.ca/research-portal/information-security/privacy-and-data-protection-policy/

^‡ Temporary data includes any information stored on volatile device not intended for data preservation (e.g. scratch storage, temporary disk allocation, caches, etc.)