Terms of Use

This page (together with the documents referred to on it) tells you the terms of use on which you may make use of the HUB website (our site), whether as a guest or a registered user. Please read these terms of use carefully before you start to use the site. By using our site, you indicate that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to abide by them. If you do not agree to these terms of use, please refrain from using our site.

1. Information About Us

www.hubasia.org is a site operated by Shelter Centre (“We”). We are registered in the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland.

We are an independent and non-profit organisation. The aim of the Association is to relieve the suffering and reduce the vulnerability of those affected by conflicts and natural disasters through supporting impartially all stakeholders involved in transitional settlement and reconstruction. In recognising the human rights to adequate housing, Shelter Centre seeks to strengthen the collaboration, consensus and capacity of humanitarian and developmental agencies and donors, international financial institutions, and affected governments and populations. Through these actions, Shelter Centre endeavours to promote peace and security through achieving sustainable livelihoods recovery, risk management and environmental management.

Unless otherwise stated the terms "we" and "us" refer to "Shelter Centre" and you may be referred to as "the user".

2. Accessing our site

Access to our site is permitted on a temporary basis, and we reserve the right to withdraw or amend the service we provide on our site without notice (see below). We will not be liable if for any reason our site is unavailable at any time or for any period.

From time to time we may restrict access to some parts of our site, or our entire site, to users who have registered with us.

You are responsible for making all arrangements necessary for you to have access to our site. You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these terms, and that they comply with them.

3. Eligibility

Membership to the HUB website is open to anyone interested or actively participating in the humanitarian sector. Membership is not open to people representing a profit-making agency. By registering, you agree that you are not and will not represent a profit-making agency.

Shelter Centre reserves the right to refuse or revoke your membership if Shelter Centre believes that you have infringed any of these terms and conditions or that you have acted in any way which may or potentially may harm or compromise Shelter Centre’s work, relationships or reputation.

4. Registration Data and Account Security

When you register into the website, you will be asked to select a user name and password, which you can then use to access your account and log on to and/or participate in areas of the Site reserved for Members only. We reserve the right to reject user names that are offensive, defamatory or otherwise unsuitable. You may update certain details via your account. In certain areas of the Site, you may be able to set your Membership profile and control parts of this e.g. the information other users can see.

You accept it is your sole responsibility to maintain the confidentiality of your password and you are responsible for all activity that occurs under this. Shelter Centre is unable to check the identity of people acting as Members or using Members' areas and will not be liable where your password is used by someone else. You should make sure you are the only person using your password and you agree to notify us of any unauthorised use of your password and any other breach of security as soon as you become aware of it.

We have the right to disable any user name or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms of use.

5. User Conduct

You are solely responsible for your interactions with other Members. Shelter Centre reserves the right to moderate the material you post on this site if it is deemed unsuitable in any way. By uploading any information to this website the user accepts full responsibility for the accuracy of that information.

By uploading any material to this website, you represent that you have the rights to use, copy, distribute and disclose to third parties the material you upload, and are granting Shelter Centre the right to use, copy, distribute and disclose to third parties the material you are uploading. You agree that you will indemnify Shelter Centre against all claims of infringement of copyright or any other intellectual property rights of any and all material you upload. We also have the right to disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any material posted or uploaded by you to our site constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.

Additionally, you grant Shelter Centre permission to include the material you upload, your name and/or the name of the organisation you represent, in promotional material.

Shelter Centre will not be responsible, or liable to any third party, for the content or accuracy of any materials posted or uploaded by you or any other user of our site.

The user is responsible for all content posted on, uploaded or transmitted through the site. The user may not post content that: Infringes the copyright, trademark, patent right or other proprietary right of any person or that is used without the permission of the owner or that;

• the user knows to be inaccurate;
• is pornographic, sexually explicit, indecent or obscene;
• exploits children or minors;
• violates the rights of privacy or publicity of any person;
• is libellous, slanderous or defamatory;
• may abuse, harass, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights of others;
• contains any personally identifying information about any person without their consent or about any person who is a minor;
• incites or is likely to incite discrimination, hate or violence towards one person or a group because of their sex or sexual orientation or because of their belonging to a race, a religion or a nation or that insult the victims of crimes against humanity by contesting the existence of those crimes;
• may be deemed generally offensive to the site community, including blatant expressions of bigotry, prejudice, racism, hatred or profanity;
• is likely to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to any person;
• includes advertisements, promotions, solicitations or offers to sell any goods or services for any commercial purpose;
• promotes or provides instructional information about illegal or illicit activities;
• violates any applicable laws or regulations; or
• contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to destroy, interrupt or otherwise limit the functionality of any computer software, computer hardware or other equipment.

6. Intellectual Property Rights

6.1 Our Material

6.1.1. Definition

We are the owner or licensee of all intellectual property rights of the material published on this site by us (referred hereafter as “Our Material”) (but excluding material published, posted or uploaded in the Community Library and information gathered from Third Party Websites as referred to below). Our Material is protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.

6.1.2. Use of Our material

You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of Our Material for your personal reference and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to Our Material.

You must not use any part of Our Material on our site for commercial purposes.

Any part of Our Material may be used, cited, copied, published digitally, translated into other languages or adapted to meet local needs without prior permission from Shelter Centre, provided that it is clearly stated that the information originated from Shelter Centre. On the same page as the copyright information, the previous statement will appear in each material or extract.

6.1.3. Disclaimer

The following disclaimer will appear in each material or extract: “the designation employed and the presentation of the material in the publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of Shelter Centre and cannot conduct to any liability”. The material contained in this site has been provided for your convenience with the aim to support the humanitarian shelter sector. Shelter Centre will not be held responsible for adverse effects arising from any errors or omissions on this website (see ‘8. Our liability’ below).

6.2 Third Party Material

6.2.1. Definition

In this clause, “Third Party Material” is defined as any material published, posted or uploaded in the Community Library and information gathered from Third Party Websites.

6.2.2. Use of Third Party Material

You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.

The status of any identified contributors as the authors of material on our site must always be acknowledged.

You must not use any part of Third Party Material on our site for commercial purposes.

If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

6.2.3. Disclaimer and Standard Operating Procedure for the HUB Library

The Third Party Material contained in the HUB Library has been published by a number of organisations. Shelter Centre believes that these materials were published by the organisations concerned for public use. In order to ascertain this, Shelter Centre will follow the Standard Operating Procedure for inclusion of additional material in the HUB Library:

• take reasonable steps to verify that the publisher is understood to have the authority, qualifications and/or knowledge to publish, use and develop the material, in as much as this information is attainable;
• take reasonable steps to verify that the publisher intended this material to be placed in the public domain, either directly or through a third party;
• record evidence of the publication being publicly available on request, usually by means of saving and dating the source web page;
• record and display the copyright holder of the publication, usually as publisher.

Should any organisation or individual have any queries or concerns about the content on this site they are requested to contact us at librarycontent@sheltercentre.org.

7. Third Party Websites and Content

The HUB website contains information gathered from other sites, for example from ReliefWeb and AlertNet, including the geolocation of news feeds extracted from these sites. This information is provided for your convenience and is not checked before being published on this site. Shelter Centre will not be held responsible for the content or accuracy of the information gathered from external sources or third party organisations, or for the regularity or availability of this material. All links are for information purposes only and no guarantees, conditions or warranties are given as to their content, accuracy or suitability for any other implicit or explicit purpose.

8. Our Liability

Information on this HUB website may contain technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Shelter Centre will not be held responsible for adverse effects arising from any errors or omissions on this website and does not give any guarantee, condition or warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or timeliness of the information, text, graphics, links or other items contained within the website. To the extent permitted by law we and third parties connected to us hereby expressly exclude any liability for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage incurred by any user in connection with our site or in connection with the use, inability to use, or results of the use of our site, any websites linked to it and any materials posted on it, including, without limitation any liability for:

• loss of income or revenue;
• loss of business;
• loss of profits or contracts;
• loss of anticipated savings;
• loss of data;
• loss of goodwill;
• wasted management or office time; and
• for any other loss or damage of any kind, however arising and whether caused by tort (including negligence), breach of contract or otherwise, even if foreseeable.

This does not affect our liability for death or personal injury arising from our negligence, nor our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter, nor any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

Commentary and other materials posted on our site are not intended to amount to advice on which reliance should be placed. We therefore disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such materials by any visitor to our site, or by anyone who may informed of any of its contents.

9. Our Site Changes Regularly

We aim to update our site regularly, and may change the content at any time. If the need arises, we may suspend access to our site, or close it indefinitely. Any of the material on our site may be out of date at any given time, and we are under no obligation to update such material.

Shelter Centre reserves the right to make any changes to the website without notice.

10. Your Information: Sharing, Collecting, Using

Many of the services available to you as a member of this site including, but not limited to, Projects and Community Library, are in a public and not private area. Further, posts and other communications between users and by users are not endorsed by Shelter Centre, and such communications shall not be considered reviewed, screened, or approved by Shelter Centre and they are public to all users. Any registered user has the option to hide certain parts of their account profile to other users and make them private.

Shelter Centre reserves the right to collect user information as outlined in this paragraph. If you are just browsing on the HUB website, we do not collect any personal information regarding your use of the site. However, if you register as a user, we may use your location in the form of IP address to provide you with more relevant information according to where you are and to help you quickly to find information based on your interests.

Shelter Centre collects user submitted information such as name and email address to authenticate users and to send notifications to those users relating to HUB website services. Shelter Centre also logs non-personally-identifiable information including IP address, profile information, aggregate user data, and browser type, from users to the site. This data is used to manage the website, track usage and improve the website services. This non-personally-identifiable information may be shared with third-parties to provide more relevant services to members. User IP addresses are recorded for security and monitoring purposes. User Profile information including members' pictures and usernames are displayed to people in order to facilitate user interaction in the HUB Community.

Email addresses are used for the purposes of inviting new members to join the HUB Community, to add users to members’ networks, and to send notifications related to the website services. With the exception of inviting members, adding members and notifications, the user’s email address is not shared or displayed to people within a user’s personal network. Users full names are never directly revealed to other members. We also may use a user's email address to send updates, a newsletter or news regarding the website services. Users may choose not to receive email of this type by sending an email to administration@sheltercentre.org.

Shelter Centre will not share, sell, distribute or rent your personal information to anyone, and will not disclose any personal information to any third party without express permission unless we believe that disclosure is necessary: (1) to conform to legal requirements; (2) to enforce these terms and conditions or to protect our rights; or (3) to protect the safety of members of the public and users of the site.

HUB member accounts are secured by member-created passwords. Shelter Centre takes precautions to insure that member account information is kept private. We use reasonable measures to protect member information that is stored within our database. Please note that we can not guarantee the security of member account information. Unauthorised entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors may compromise the security of member information at any time.

We process all information about you in accordance with these terms and conditions. By using our site, you consent to such processing and you warrant that all data provided by you is accurate.

11. Changing or Removing Information

Access and control over most personal information on the HUB is readily available through the profile editing tools. You may modify or delete any of your profile information at any time by logging into your account. Information will be updated immediately. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of the HUB.

12. Termination

Individuals who wish to deactivate their HUB account may do so by contacting us via email at administration@sheltercentre.org. Shelter Centre will then delete your account at the earliest possible opportunity. Deleting an account does not necessarily entail the removal of all content uploaded to the site from that account.

Shelter Centre also reserves the right to freeze or remove your account for misuse of the website, for failure or refusal to comply with these Terms and Conditions of membership, or if we believe your actions harm or compromise the HUBs work, relationships or reputation.

13. Jurisdiction and Applicable Law

These terms and conditions shall be governed and interpreted in accordance with Swiss law. Swiss courts will have exclusive jurisdiction over any claim arising from, or related to, a visit to our site.

14. Variations

We may revise these terms of use at any time by amending this page. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we make, as they are binding on you. Some of the provisions contained in these terms of use may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on our site.

By continuing to use our site, you indicate that you accept any amendments that we may make to these terms of use from time to time and that you agree to abide by them.

Your Concerns

If you have any concerns about material which appears on our site, please contact administration.

Thank you for visiting our site.