Terms of use

In short

Life Mapper is a public-interest, EU-funded scientific project. Everything we publish on this website and on the Knowledge Platform is free to read, with no account required. The pages below explain what you can do with that content, what we promise (and what we don't), and how to contact us if something goes wrong.

By using the site you accept these terms. If you don't, please leave the site.

1. Scope and operator

These Terms of Use govern your access to the website life-mapper.eu and to the Life Mapper Knowledge Platform served under the /knowledge/ path (together, "the Site"). The Site is operated, on behalf of the Life Mapper consortium, by:

2. Purpose of the Site

The Site provides scientific information, methodologies and tools related to marine habitat mapping, condition assessment and restoration. It is intended to support practitioners, researchers, Member State authorities and the wider public interested in marine restoration in the European Union.

Content on the Site is published for informational and educational purposes. It does not constitute professional, legal, technical, medical, environmental or regulatory advice. Decisions taken on the basis of information found on the Site remain the responsibility of the reader.

3. No account required

Consistent with the open-access obligations of the EU LIFE Programme and the project's Communication Plan, no user account is required to read, search, download or share any of the public content (chapters, tutorials, resources, news, deliverables). There is no paywall, no registration wall, and no tracking of individual reading behaviour beyond the cookie categories described in our cookie policy.

A separate administration interface exists for the consortium's content editors. It is not open to public registration and is governed by a separate internal access policy.

4. Newsletter (planned)

The Site offers a "Subscribe" call-to-action inviting visitors to express interest in a future Life Mapper newsletter. Until the newsletter service is launched, this call-to-action functions as a simple expression of interest — typically by sending an email to the project mailbox.

When the newsletter goes live, subscription will be:

• Opt-in only, with explicit consent under Article 6(1)(a) of the GDPR;
• Limited in scope to project updates (deliverables, events, calls, scientific outputs);
• Revocable at any time via a one-click unsubscribe link in every issue, or by writing to lifemapper@ismar.cnr.it;
• Not used for advertising or shared with third parties for marketing purposes.

See the privacy policy for the data we collect and how long we keep it.

5. Acceptable use

You may freely browse, search, download and share the public content as permitted by its licence (see the licence page). When using the Site, you agree not to:

• Disrupt or attempt to disrupt the operation of the Site (e.g. denial-of-service attempts, intrusive automated scraping that disregards robots.txt or causes degradation of service);
• Misrepresent the Site, the Life Mapper consortium or the European Union as the source of derivative works that they did not produce or endorse;
• Use the Site to distribute malware, illegal content, or content that infringes the rights of third parties;
• Probe, scan or test the vulnerability of the Site without prior written authorisation from the operator;
• Reuse content in a way that breaches the CC BY 4.0 attribution requirement or any third-party licence applicable to specific assets (see exceptions on the licence page).

Reasonable, well-behaved bots that respect robots.txt and rate-limit themselves are welcome.

6. Intellectual property

Unless otherwise stated, Life Mapper public content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). The full statement, attribution template and exceptions for third-party assets (partner logos, EU/LIFE logos, embedded videos, third-party photos, cited works) are on the licence page.

Names, trademarks and logos of the consortium partners and of the European Union remain the property of their respective owners.

7. External links and embedded content

The Site contains links to external websites operated by third parties (consortium partners, the European Commission, scientific publishers, video platforms, the Life Mapper Geoportal hosted by CNR-ISMAR, and others). We provide these links for the convenience of our readers; we do not control and are not responsible for the content, accuracy, availability or policies of those external sites.

Embedded videos (e.g. from YouTube or Vimeo) are loaded only after you accept the corresponding cookie category in the cookie consent banner. The presence of an embed does not imply that the embedded platform endorses Life Mapper or vice versa.

8. Disclaimer of warranties

The Site and its content are provided "as is" and "as available". While we make every reasonable effort to ensure the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of scientific content, we make no warranty — express or implied — that the Site or its content will be uninterrupted, error-free, complete, up-to-date or fit for any particular purpose.

Datasets, methodologies and scientific findings published on the Site may be subsequently revised in the light of new evidence. Where possible, we will mark such revisions with a "Last updated" date or version notice on the relevant item.

9. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by Italian and European Union law, neither the operator, the consortium partners, the European Union nor the granting authority shall be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or punitive damages arising out of your access to, use of, or inability to use the Site, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for fraud, gross negligence, intent (dolo) or any liability that cannot be excluded under Italian law.

10. EU funding disclaimer

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

11. Changes to the Site and to these Terms

We may update, modify, add to or remove parts of the Site at any time, without prior notice. The same applies to these Terms of Use; the updated version will always be the one shown on this page, with a fresh "Last updated" date at the top. Material changes affecting your rights will be flagged in the news section.

12. Termination

We may, at our sole discretion and without notice, block access to the Site to any user who breaches these Terms or whose activity threatens the security or stability of the Site. This does not affect content already lawfully downloaded under CC BY 4.0.

13. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms of Use are governed by the laws of the Italian Republic and, where applicable, by directly applicable European Union law. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Terms that cannot be resolved amicably shall be submitted to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Rome, Italy, without prejudice to any mandatory provisions of law affording consumer protection or alternative dispute resolution.

14. Contact

For any question about these Terms of Use, please write to:

lifemapper@ismar.cnr.it