Terms of Service

Effective version: 2026-04-16

Draft pending legal review. This text is a working first draft and has not yet been reviewed by counsel. Do not rely on it as final.

1. Who you are agreeing with

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) form a binding contract between you and Timeline Scan, LLC, a limited liability company (“Timeline Scan,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). They are not a contract with any individual employee, founder, or contractor of Timeline Scan, LLC. By creating an account or using the service at timelinescan.com or any related domain (the “Service”), you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy and Acceptable Use Policy.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account. By creating an account, you represent that you are 18 or older and that all information you provide is accurate.

The Service is intended for personal and family use within the United States. You agree not to use the Service for commercial data aggregation, resale, or redistribution.

3. Your content and the rights you grant us

You retain ownership of every photo and other file you upload (“Your Content”). You grant Timeline Scan a limited, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, transmit, copy, analyze, and display Your Content solely as needed to operate the Service for you (for example, to extract dates, generate face embeddings for clustering, generate thumbnails, package downloads, and back up your archive). This license ends when you delete Your Content or your account, except as required by law (see Sections 8 and 11).

You represent and warrant that you have all rights necessary to upload Your Content, including the right to upload images of any person depicted (your own children, with the consent of any other adults appearing in the photographs).

4. Face recognition and biometric processing

Timeline Scan generates mathematical signatures called face embeddings from faces it detects in your uploaded photos. These embeddings are used solely to cluster photos of the same person across your archive and to assist with dating. They are biometric identifiers under the laws of several U.S. states, including Illinois (BIPA), Texas (CUBI), Colorado, Washington, and Virginia.

We obtain your separate, written consent for biometric processing before generating any embeddings. You may revoke that consent at any time by deleting the affected archive or by deleting your account, which permanently destroys the embeddings.

We do not sell, lease, trade, or otherwise profit from your biometric data. We retain face embeddings only while needed to operate the Service for you, and in any event no longer than three (3) years after your last interaction with the Service, whichever is sooner. See the Privacy Policy for our full retention and destruction schedule.

5. AI processing

We use Google Cloud’s Vertex AI (Gemini) to extract dates and related metadata from your photos. Per Google’s contractual AI/ML Privacy Commitment, your photos are not used to train Google’s foundation models, are not retained by Google beyond the duration of the processing request, and remain owned by you. Google Cloud, Microsoft (PhotoDNA), Stripe, AWS, and Clerk are named sub-processors in our Privacy Policy.

6. Prohibited content and child safety scanning

You agree not to upload content that depicts the sexual exploitation or abuse of any minor. To detect such content, every image uploaded to Timeline Scan is scanned automatically using Microsoft PhotoDNA, which compares a mathematical signature of the image against a database of known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) maintained by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (“NCMEC”). PhotoDNA does not view, classify, or otherwise analyze the visual content of your photos; it computes and compares signatures only.

If a match is identified, we will:

1. Remove the matching image from your archive and from our primary storage.
2. Preserve a copy of the image and associated account information in restricted-access storage for a minimum of one year, as required by 18 U.S.C. § 2258A.
3. Report the matter to the NCMEC CyberTipline, which may result in further investigation by law enforcement.
4. Suspend your account pending investigation.

We may also be required to disclose user information in response to lawful requests from law enforcement.

7. Acceptable use

You agree to comply with our Acceptable Use Policy. We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate it.

8. Account termination

You may delete your account at any time from your account settings. We may suspend or terminate your account, with or without notice, if (a) you materially breach these Terms, (b) we are required to do so by law, (c) your activity creates a risk of legal liability for us or other users, or (d) you fail to pay for the Service.

Upon termination we will delete Your Content within sixty (60) days, except for content we are legally required to preserve (such as CSAM scanning records under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A).

9. Subscriptions and billing

Paid plans are billed in advance for the term you select. Auto-renewal terms are disclosed at checkout and confirmed by email after purchase. You may cancel at any time from your account settings; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. Refunds are governed by the policy presented at purchase.

10. Service warranty disclaimer

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY OF AI-GENERATED DATES, ACCURACY OF FACE CLUSTERING, OR UNINTERRUPTED OPERATION. AI-derived dates and face groupings are best-effort estimates and may be incorrect.

11. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, TIMELINE SCAN’S TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID TIMELINE SCAN IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO LIABILITY, OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100). TIMELINE SCAN WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES. THIS LIMITATION DOES NOT APPLY TO DAMAGES THAT CANNOT BE LIMITED BY LAW.

12. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Timeline Scan, LLC and its officers, members, employees, and contractors from any claim, loss, or expense (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising from (a) Your Content, (b) your use or misuse of the Service, (c) your violation of these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, or (d) your violation of any law or third-party right.

13. Arbitration and class-action waiver

Please read carefully — this section affects your legal rights.

Any dispute between you and Timeline Scan arising out of or related to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. You and Timeline Scan each waive any right to a jury trial and any right to participate in a class action or class-wide arbitration.

30-day opt-out: You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing support@timelinescan.com within 30 days of first creating your account, with the subject line “Arbitration Opt-Out” and your account email in the body. Opting out will not affect any other provision of these Terms.

14. Governing law and venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Subject to the arbitration agreement above, any action that is not subject to arbitration must be brought in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you consent to that venue.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify you by email and within the Service, and we will update the version date at the top of this page. Continued use of the Service after the effective date of the updated Terms means you accept the updated Terms.

16. Miscellaneous

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and the Acceptable Use Policy, are the entire agreement between you and Timeline Scan about the Service. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. We may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets; you may not assign these Terms without our written consent. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later. Neither party is liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond reasonable control (force majeure).

17. Contact

Timeline Scan, LLC. Questions about these Terms: support@timelinescan.com. DMCA designated agent contact information is available in our Privacy Policy and on the U.S. Copyright Office’s registry.