Terms of Service

Last updated: 25 September 2026

These terms are a legal agreement between you and EDU&Y LTD, trading as Arete (“Arete”, “we”, “us”), which operates the Arete product (“the service”). By creating an account and using the service you agree to these terms. Please read them carefully. If you do not agree, do not use the service. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your personal data and forms part of these terms.

Eligibility

You must be at least 16 years old and able to form a binding contract to use Arete. The service is designed for university students and recent graduates.

Early-stage service

Arete is a new and evolving product. Features may change or be removed, and the service may be unavailable from time to time for maintenance or for reasons outside our control. We will do our best to give notice of planned downtime. Nothing in this section affects your statutory rights as a consumer, including your right under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 to digital content that is of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described.

Your account

You sign in with Google or another sign-in method we offer, and you are responsible for keeping access to your account secure. Your account is for your personal use; do not share it or let others use it. Tell us promptly if you believe your account has been compromised.

Acceptable use

When using Arete, you agree not to:

  • upload content that is unlawful, infringing, or that you do not have the right to share;
  • upload another person’s CV or personal data without their permission;
  • include sensitive personal information (such as health, racial or ethnic origin, religious or political beliefs, sexual orientation, or criminal offence details) in your CV, your answers or any working record, as Arete does not need it;
  • present work as your own that was substantially produced by someone else, or misrepresent how you produced it when we ask;
  • attempt to disrupt, overload, reverse-engineer or gain unauthorised access to the service;
  • use the service to build a competing product, or scrape or bulk-download its content, including role standards, project briefs and rubrics;
  • share a partner company’s brief, data or materials outside the project, or use them for any purpose other than completing that project;
  • use a promotion or society code you are not entitled to, or share one with people who are not; or
  • misuse generated output in a way that is misleading, fraudulent or harmful.

Using AI tools in your work

You may use AI tools (such as ChatGPT or Claude) while completing projects on Arete unless a specific competition or partner project says otherwise. What we assess is your judgement: how you frame the problem, check the output, decide what to keep and explain the result. You must be able to explain and defend the work you submit. Where we ask you to state which tools you used and what you verified, you must answer honestly. Uploading a record of how you worked with an AI tool is always optional.

Your content and your work

You own the CV and information you upload, and you own the work you create on Arete, including projects, reasoning answers and portfolio items. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide licence to host, process, display and analyse that content solely to provide the service to you, including sending relevant inputs to the processors described in our Privacy Policy, and to share it with others only where you have asked us to (see “Competitions, partner projects and sharing”). We may use your content in anonymised and aggregated form to improve our role standards and assessments; this never identifies you. You confirm you have the right to share the content you upload, and you are responsible for its accuracy.

Competitions, partner projects and sharing

Entry is free. Entering and taking part in any hackathon or competition we run, being judged, reaching a final and being considered for any opportunity with an employer are free. No payment, membership or code ever affects a score, a finalist place, judge attention or an employer’s consideration. We never charge you a fee for being introduced to or considered by an employer.

Judging. Submissions are assessed against published criteria. Assessments are our honest opinion and that of the judges; they are not a guarantee of any outcome. Finalists and winners are decided by people. Judges’ decisions on rankings are final, but you may ask us how an assessment of your work was produced.

Sharing. When you enter a competition, complete a partner project or publish a portfolio page, you choose what may be shared and with whom: for example a summary of your work and assessment with the judges or the co-hosting organisation, short excerpts of your own words as evidence, or a public portfolio page. You can withdraw that choice at any time as described in our Privacy Policy. We never share a raw working record with a third party.

Partner projects. When you complete a project set by a company, you keep ownership of your work. Unless the project page says otherwise, you grant that company a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use your deliverable internally. Material the company gives you (briefs, data, documents) is confidential to that project; you must not share it or use it for any other purpose, and you must delete it if the company asks. Completing a partner project does not create any employment, agency or partnership relationship between you and the company or between you and us.

Fair play. We may withdraw a submission, a finalist place or a prize, and may suspend an account, where we reasonably believe a submission breaches these terms, for example plagiarism, misrepresentation of how work was produced, or misuse of a partner’s materials. We will tell you why and give you a chance to respond.

Prizes and opportunities. Any prize, fast-track or introduction offered by us or a partner is described on the relevant event page. An introduction or fast-track is at the partner’s discretion and is not a promise of an interview or a job.

Generated output

Reports, recommendations, projects, feedback and assessments are produced with the help of AI and reviewed as described in our Privacy Policy. They may contain errors or omissions. They are for guidance only and are not professional, legal, financial or careers advice, and we do not guarantee any particular outcome (such as a job or an interview). You are responsible for reviewing output and deciding how to use it.

Our intellectual property

The Arete application, brand, role standards, rubrics, project templates and underlying software are owned by us and protected by intellectual property laws. These terms do not grant you any right to our trademarks or software beyond using the service as intended. Your own work is yours, as set out above.

Membership, billing and cancellation

Arete membership is £6 a month, billed monthly in advance through our payment processor, Stripe. If you join with a valid partner-society code, checkout shows the applicable price before you pay; codes are for members of the named society and we may withdraw a code that is misused. Membership renews automatically each month until you cancel. You can cancel at any time from Settings; your access continues until the end of the month you have paid for, and you are not charged again.

If we change the price or materially reduce what membership includes, we will give you at least 30 days’ notice by email, and you may cancel before the change takes effect. For your refund and cancellation rights, including the 14-day cooling-off period and the waiver that applies when you choose immediate access, see our Refund and Cancellation Policy.

Account and termination

You may delete your account and all associated data at any time from your account settings. We may suspend or terminate an account that breaches these terms, or where necessary to protect the service or other users; where reasonable we will warn you first. If we terminate a paid membership without cause, we will refund the unused part of the current month.

Limitation of liability

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, for breach of your statutory rights as a consumer, or for anything else that cannot be limited by law.

Subject to that, we are not liable for any loss that was not foreseeable when you agreed to these terms, for business losses, or for loss arising from your reliance on generated output, from your dealings with any employer or partner, or from interruptions to the service outside our reasonable control. Our total liability to you under these terms is limited to the greater of £100 and the amount you have paid us in the 12 months before the claim.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction over any dispute. If you live elsewhere in the UK or in the EU, you may also bring a claim in the courts of your home country, and you keep the protection of any mandatory consumer law that applies there.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. When we make material changes we will update the date at the top and notify you in the product or by email at least 14 days before they take effect, unless the change is required by law or does not reduce your rights. If you do not agree to a change, you may cancel your membership and stop using the service before it takes effect. Continued use after changes take effect means you accept the updated terms.

Who we are

Arete is provided by EDU&Y LTD, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17014117), registered office Albert Mansions, Luxborough Street, London, W1U 5BQ. EDU&Y LTD is the party you contract with under these terms.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Contact us at contact@aretecareer.com.