Terms of use

1. Who runs Lock

Lock is a private project operated by Glorija Poena. Contact: [email protected].

2. Who may use it

• You must be at least 18 years old. By registering you confirm that you are.
• One account per person, used only by you. Keep your password to yourself.
• Accounts are confirmed by hand: you fill in a short application and Glorija reads it, then confirms your account or tells you why not (you may apply again a day later). Until yours is confirmed you can start only a trial lock of up to 6 hours, and you may release it early without consequences.

3. What Lock is

Lock is a commitment device: you pick a duration, photograph the combination of your own physical lock and seal the photo in the app. The photo stays hidden until the countdown reaches zero and you tap to reveal it.

Lock does not operate any physical device. It only keeps a timer and a hidden photo. The combination lock and everything you use it for are yours.

4. Keyholder

The operator, acting as Keyholder, may approve accounts and may add or remove time on a running lock. She may also freeze the timer of a lock, so that the time left stands still, and unfreeze it again whenever she decides; while a lock is frozen nobody can add time to it and the games are paused. She may also hide the timer: while it is hidden you and the visitors of your public page see "??" instead of the time left and instead of every amount of time in your history, so you still see what happened but not how much, until she shows the timer again. Once your time is up the timer is shown as usual so you can open your lock. Every change, freezing, unfreezing, hiding and showing included, is recorded in your session history. The Keyholder decides at her own discretion and is not obliged to shorten a lock.

Public lock page. You may share your lock yourself ("Share my lock"), and the Keyholder may, at her own discretion and without asking you, create the same public link and share it anywhere, including on social media. Anyone who opens the link, without an account, can see:

• your display name with every letter hidden except the first and the last (for example "A****i"), unless you choose to show it in full (only you can switch that on, under "Share my lock"). Your email address and the combination photo are never shown;
• whether you are locked, the running timer (or the word "Frozen" when the Keyholder froze it, or "??" when she hid it), and the time visitors added to your current lock.

Visitors of that page may add time to your running lock. Each addition is 1 hour more than the number of additions in the last 24 hours (1 hour, then 2, then 3...), up to 6 hours. After any addition the button is paused for everyone for a waiting period set by the Keyholder (currently 5 minutes), and each visitor can add only once every 2 hours. There is no limit on the total time added this way. Each addition appears in your history with the visitor's country, worked out from their IP address. Visitors cannot remove time or open your lock. You cannot add time to your own lock: to tell, the site remembers the devices and IP addresses you sign in from (IP addresses only as a one-way hash). For every addition you receive 1 coin.

Only approved accounts can have a public page. The Keyholder can replace or remove the link and can stop you from sharing; replacing or removing it makes the old link stop working at once. Time added through the public page is binding in the same way as time added by the Keyholder; your options for ending a lock early (section 5) do not change.

5. Ending a lock early

• Unapproved accounts: "Release early" ends the lock at once. Nothing is held against the account.
• Approved accounts: "Emergency Release" ends the lock at once, but the account is permanently marked as a Deserter. A Deserter cannot start new locks. Sign-in and viewing your history keep working. The mark is not reversed by the operator on request except at her own discretion.

Both options are confirmed in a dialog before they take effect, and both work while your lock is frozen or its timer is hidden.

Break. Approved accounts can buy a break in the shop: 15 minutes out of the cage for hygiene. A break does not end your lock. When you press Start your timer freezes and the photo of your combination is shown so you can open the lockbox; with the camera on the site you then photograph the cage on, the cage off, the cage on again and finally the new combination you set. The new photo replaces the old one and stays sealed until your time is up, and the timer runs again. If you finish later than 15 minutes after Start, nothing is cut short: you still finish every step, and then 24 hours are added to your lock. The Keyholder checks the photos of every break and may send you on another break if they are not right. The photos are kept with your session history.

6. Your safety comes first

• The timer in Lock is not a safety mechanism. You use any physical device at your own risk and remain responsible for your own health and safety.
• If you feel pain, numbness, or any medical or other emergency, end the lock by whatever means you have and seek help. Do not wait for the app.
• Never rely on Lock for anything where a delay could cause harm.

7. Your photo and content

• Take the photo of your own combination lockbox with the camera on the site; it is stored as a JPG of up to 5 MB.
• The photo must not show other people, and must not contain anything unlawful. Avoid including your face or other identifying details you do not want stored.
• Only the operator can access the stored photo. It is not shown to other users.

8. Acceptable use

Do not attempt to bypass the timer or the approval process, access other people's accounts, probe or overload the service, or use it for anything unlawful. We may suspend or delete accounts that break these rules.

9. Availability and liability

Lock is provided as it is, without a guarantee that it will always be available or error-free. To the extent the law allows, the operator is not liable for indirect losses or for harm resulting from how you use a physical device. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including for intent, gross negligence, or injury to life or health.

10. Your account and your data

You can stop using Lock at any time and ask us to delete your account and data by writing to [email protected]. How your data is handled is described in the Privacy policy.

11. Changes and law

We may update these terms; the date above changes when we do, and significant changes will be shown in the app. Mandatory consumer protections of the country where you live stay unaffected.