SAM Terms and Conditions

The SAM app provides SAM: Social Analysis of Meaning, a qualitative research and analysis platform for uploaded, imported, or sample research materials.

Billing status does not grant research-data permissions by itself. Workspace roles continue to control upload, corpus, analysis, support, and admin access.

SAM outputs are research aids. They are not legal, medical, clinical, financial, or institutional compliance advice, and users remain responsible for interpreting and checking outputs before relying on them.

Users must keep sign-in links, passwords, and workspace access secure, and must not share access with unauthorised people.

SAM may suspend, restrict, or remove access where needed to protect the service, enforce workspace boundaries, respond to non-payment, or address misuse.

Invited, trial, paid, billing-admin, support-admin, demo, and platform-admin roles have different access boundaries. These boundaries are part of SAM's product safety model.

Users must only upload data they are entitled to process in the SAM app. This includes having the necessary consent, ethics approval, lawful basis, licence, institutional permission, or other authority for the material.

Users are responsible for checking uploaded material, excluding unnecessary personal data, and applying the appropriate Shield, deletion, export, and retention choices for their project.

SAM may reject, quarantine, remove, or restrict material where it appears to breach these terms, create security risk, or fall outside the agreed launch-safe use case.

SAM Collect retrieves bounded public, official, scholarly, registry, parliamentary, funding, and social-platform source records through configured source routes. Users remain responsible for checking that their project has the necessary lawful basis, licence, ethics approval, platform permission, institutional permission, or other authority for the material they collect and analyse.

SAM Collect retrieves bounded public Bluesky content through a SAM-managed read-only connector. It does not require researchers or participants to connect personal Bluesky accounts. Collection is capped, reviewed before analysis, and media files are referenced rather than retained by SAM. Institutions that require individual account authorisation or a different platform access model may require a future OAuth-based connector configuration.

SAM Collect may let authorised workspace users collect or analyse public YouTube-sourced material, including video metadata, descriptions, available transcripts or subtitles, thumbnails, public comments, channel names, public usernames and associated public engagement metadata for URLs supplied by the user. YouTube remains the source of that material. By using SAM features that access or display YouTube-sourced content, users must also comply with the YouTube Terms of Service at https://www.youtube.com/t/terms and any applicable platform, copyright, research, institutional or ethics requirements.

Users must only use YouTube Collect features for lawful research or review purposes, keep source attribution and links intact, and must not use SAM to download, store, or redistribute YouTube audiovisual content unless they have the necessary rights and permissions. SAM does not ask for or store YouTube login credentials and does not provide access to private YouTube account data.

Where SAM displays an active source-retention deadline, YouTube and Bluesky material collected through SAM Collect is available for 30 days from collection. Saving, analysing or copying the collection does not extend that deadline. Original source text, identifiers, media references and copied quotations in derived analyses expire. Other Collect sources and independently uploaded data follow the researcher’s applicable institutional retention rules.

SAM’s 30-day policy limits how long identifiable YouTube and Bluesky data collected through SAM Collect is kept. It supports the storage-limitation principle explained in the ICO’s guidance. For YouTube API data, see the YouTube Developer Policies on storage, refreshing and deletion.

SAM prepares a separate AI-generated summary where supported saved analyses are available. Retaining that narrative requires the researcher to review its fidelity, contextual identification risk and institutional permission before expiry. Changes to the underlying analysis or coding invalidate that review. Without a current approved summary, no narrative is retained. Rewritten wording is not presented as a quotation, and automated generalisation is not a guarantee of anonymity or legal compliance.

Use Reports before expiry to export a permitted summary. Researchers remain responsible for downloaded copies, access controls and institutional retention requirements; SAM cannot delete files outside the service. Retained findings do not preserve source-level reproducibility. SAM’s 30-day period is a product policy, not a statutory or universal research-retention requirement.

The public SAM app route is intended for public, sample, de-identified, low-risk, or explicitly approved pilot material.

Do not upload identifiable patient or clinical data, highly sensitive special-category data, children's data, legal case data, or other controlled data unless BigQualDataLabs Ltd has agreed and enabled a separate controlled-data route in writing.

Privacy Shield can reduce exposure, but it is not a guarantee of anonymisation and it is not a substitute for a Safe Haven, DPIA, ethics review, data-processing agreement, or institutional approval where those are required.

The SAM app may use configured AI providers to produce analyses, summaries, classifications, coding support, and related outputs when users start those workflows.

AI outputs can contain errors, omissions, bias, or overconfident interpretations. Users must review outputs in context and should not treat them as replacing qualitative judgement.

Controlled-data routing, data-residency assurances, model choice, and provider-retention terms must be separately agreed where a customer requires them.

SAM subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled before the next renewal date.

Where the SAM app offers a free trial, Stripe may collect payment details at checkout and the selected plan may start automatically at the end of the trial unless cancelled. Free trials may include workspace-level usage limits for uploaded corpora, uploaded words, analysis runs, Ask SAM answers, reports, and exports.

Deleting uploaded corpora, chat history, reports, or exports does not restore self-serve trial allowances. Deletion remains available for data minimisation, but trial usage is counted historically at the workspace level.

Trial SAM Collect access includes up to 50 records across three collection runs in total for the workspace, shared across eligible sources. A successful run with no matching records still counts as a run. Reopening or downloading saved results does not use another run, and deleting a collection does not restore its allowance. Paid YouTube collection is available only to eligible paid subscriptions and has its own collection allowance, separate from AI processing.

Annual renewal reminders are planned 30 days before renewal and 7 days before renewal. Monthly renewal reminders are planned before every sixth monthly renewal payment.

Trials, introductory offers, concessionary periods, and bespoke invoice arrangements may have additional reminders or manual confirmation steps.

Cancel before the next renewal to stop the next charge. Cancellation normally keeps access open until the end of the paid billing period.

The Stripe Customer Portal is the normal self-service route for the payment contact to cancel renewal, update cards, and view invoices.

Cancelling does not create an automatic refund. Refunds are handled under SAM's published policy and any legal rights that apply.

Contact Support about a refund or payment dispute. Previously agreed purchase terms and applicable statutory rights remain unchanged, including rights where a service is faulty or a right to cancel applies.

SAM may separately issue a refund or credit note where its published policy, a signed agreement, or applicable legal rights require one.

Stripe Checkout and the Stripe Customer Portal handle payment details, invoices, subscription changes, and cancellation for the payment contact.

Self-service plans use Stripe card checkout. If your institution requires a purchase order or invoice, contact Support before checkout. Access and any invoiced services are activated only after the arrangement is approved.

Prices shown by SAM are plus VAT where applicable. The reviewed Stripe Tax or agreed institutional-invoice arrangement determines the applicable tax treatment and billing document.

Workspace Owners and Billing Admins can see SAM's subscription summary and coordinate billing, but they do not receive a customer portal session unless their SAM profile is the Stripe payment contact.

Refunds, credit notes, disputes, and manual subscription changes are handled in Stripe Dashboard by authorised Stripe team members, not through customer portal impersonation.

SAM covers AI processing for eligible subscription and SAM-sponsored workspaces, including retries and recovery. Existing workspace, trial and collection limits still apply; this is not unlimited processing. Subscription prices and renewals are unchanged. Existing balances, previously agreed purchase terms and refund rights remain unchanged. Private teaching arrangements retain their separately agreed terms.

Existing institutional and individually agreed arrangements continue on their agreed terms. An existing subscriber remains on their agreed terms unless they explicitly choose an offered change.

SAM Collect has separate record allowances. AI processing, collection and private teaching access remain subject to their applicable workspace limits.

Users keep rights in the data, research materials, coding decisions, exports, and reports they upload or create, subject to any rights held by their own institutions, funders, participants, or licensors.

BigQualDataLabs Ltd keeps rights in the SAM app, SAM's platform code, product design, analytical methods, prompts, workflows, documentation, and service materials.

Users grant BigQualDataLabs Ltd the limited right to process their uploaded and generated content as needed to provide, secure, support, and improve the SAM app, subject to the privacy notice and any signed agreement.

Institutional, NHS, Safe Haven, legal, and DPIA-heavy use may require separate written terms, provider-routing controls, data-processing documentation, and manual invoice arrangements.

SAM should not be used for identifiable, patient, clinical, or highly sensitive controlled data unless the relevant controlled-data route has been agreed and enabled.

Where a signed agreement, purchase order, DPA, or institutional statement conflicts with these general terms, the signed agreement controls for that customer.

The SAM app is offered with reasonable efforts to maintain availability, support, and launch continuity, but no online service can be guaranteed uninterrupted.

Support is available through the in-app support widget and support@bigqualdatalabs.com.

These terms may be updated as the SAM app's launch services, support tooling, controlled-data routes, or provider arrangements change.