Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy (this “Policy”) applies to every business or public body (an “Operator” or “you”) that uses the Lotably parking-management platform under a Software Services Agreement or other written agreement for the Services with Intake Scout LLC d/b/a Lotably (“Lotably,” “we” or “us”), and to every person who uses the platform under an Operator’s account, including administrators, enforcement officers and other staff (“Users”). It applies in the United States and Canada and forms part of each Operator’s agreement with Lotably (the “Agreement”). Capitalized terms that are not defined here have the meanings given in the Agreement. If this Policy conflicts with the Agreement or the Order Summary, the Order Summary and then the Agreement control. Drivers, parkers and visitors who use Lotably’s websites are covered by our Terms of Use.

The short version: use Lotably only to enforce parking lawfully, fairly and honestly, at properties you are authorized to manage, and use the information it collects only for that purpose. You are responsible for every User on your account.

1. Lawful enforcement only

• Use the Services only for lawful parking management and enforcement at your Locations, and for related parking services such as passes, permits, guest passes and monthly parking.
• Follow every law that applies to your enforcement program, including the laws about signs, fines and fees, notices, booting and towing, consumer protection, collections, privacy, license plate recognition, messaging and public records described in the Agreement.
• Do not enforce on public streets or other public property unless you are the public body, or its authorized contractor, with legal authority to do so.
• Do not use the Services for anything other than parking management, such as vehicle repossession, skip tracing, private investigation, or collecting debts that do not arise from parking at your Locations.

2. Authority over every Location

• Before you activate a Location, issue a Citation there or take a payment for it, have current written authorization from the property owner, or from someone with legal authority to grant it (such as the owner’s property manager or your client that controls the property), covering every activity you carry out there and every amount you charge, including any booting or towing.
• Keep that authorization current for as long as you enforce at the Location. If it expires, is revoked, is disputed or stops covering what you do, stop the activity that is not covered and deactivate the Location or feature in the Services immediately.
• Signup no longer asks for an authorization letter. If you uploaded one when you signed up under an earlier version, it is used only for our review of your account. It is not your authorization for any Location, including the one it refers to, and it does not replace the authorization you need for each Location. Neither does the box you tick at signup to confirm that you are authorized.
• Keep a copy of each authorization and give it to us within 5 business days if we ask.
• Do not add a Location you are not authorized to enforce, and do not combine properties with different owners into a single Location.

3. Booting and towing

• Boot or tow only where it is lawful at that Location, where your Property Authorization covers it, and only after Lotably has approved the feature for your account.
• Hold every license, permit, certificate, registration and insurance policy the law requires, and use only properly licensed tow and storage providers.
• Follow all sign, notice, rate, police notification and vehicle release requirements.
• Release vehicles promptly on payment as the law requires, and never hold a vehicle to force payment of an amount that is not lawfully owed.
• Never boot or tow a vehicle based only on a plate reading, a missing record or an automated suggestion. A person must check the facts first.
• Do not boot or tow an occupied vehicle, and do not put anyone’s safety at risk.

4. Fair, truthful fines and notices

• Charge only amounts that are lawful, that match your signs and your Property Authorization, and that were disclosed in advance where the law requires.
• Do not use predatory practices, such as hidden fees, charges that do not appear on your signs or Citations, unlawful or excessive late fees, inflated administrative fees, or charging more than once for the same violation unless the law allows it and you have disclosed it.
• Make every Citation and notice truthful and clear. Identify yourself as the operator and give the violation, Location, date and time, amount, how to pay, how to dispute and any deadline.
• Do not use false urgency or threats. Do not threaten arrest, criminal charges, license or registration consequences, credit reporting, court action or vehicle seizure unless the statement is true, the action is lawful, and you are entitled to and actually intend to take it.
• Do not issue a Citation that you know, or should know, is invalid, for example for a vehicle with a valid permit or paid session, outside your posted enforcement hours, or during a grace period.

5. No impersonation and nothing misleading

• Do not impersonate, or suggest that you are, a police department, court, government agency, parking authority or other public body, unless you are that body.
• Do not use badges, seals, crests or words such as “police,” “court,” “municipal,” “city of,” “state,” “provincial,” “DMV,” “violation bureau” or “official” in your Subdomain, custom domain, business name, logo, notices or signs, unless they are true and you are entitled to use them.
• Do not make your Citations, notices or Customer Site look like government or court documents.
• Do not use a Subdomain, custom domain, name or logo that is confusingly similar to another business or a government website, or that infringes anyone’s trademark.
• Use the name or logo of a property owner, client or other business only with its permission, and do not suggest that Lotably issues your Citations or endorses your business.
• Show your real business name and working contact details to Drivers.

6. Respect Drivers’ disputes

• Give Drivers a real opportunity to dispute a Citation and consider each dispute in good faith.
• A person at your business must decide each dispute after reviewing the evidence and the Driver’s statement. An AI recommendation can help, but it must not make the decision.
• Do not add fees because a Driver disputed a Citation, and do not retaliate against a Driver for disputing.
• Tell Drivers your decision, and give your reasons where practicable. Refund promptly when you uphold a dispute on a paid Citation or when the law requires it.
• If you turn off the contest page, provide another way to dispute and say so on your Citations.
• Respond to Driver complaints that Lotably refers to you.

7. Plate, photo and location data are for parking management only

• Use license plate numbers, vehicle photos, times, Locations and Driver contact details only for parking management at your authorized Locations, such as enforcement, permits, passes, payments, disputes, reports to property owners and legal compliance.
• Do not use the Services or this data to track or locate people, to track, locate or follow vehicles for any purpose other than parking management at your Locations, or to build profiles of individuals.
• Do not sell, rent or license this data, and do not share it with data brokers, advertisers, insurers, repossession agents, private investigators, skip tracers or anyone else for their own purposes.
• Do not build watchlists or “hot lists” of people or vehicles for surveillance. Keeping records of permits, warnings, unpaid Citations and violation history for your own Locations, and using them to manage parking there, is permitted.
• Disclose this data to police or other government bodies only where the law requires or clearly permits it, for example in response to valid legal process, or where you are a public body acting within your legal authority.
• Photograph vehicles and plates, not people. Avoid capturing faces and the inside of vehicles where you reasonably can, and do not upload unrelated images.
• Keep this data only for as long as you need it for these purposes or the law requires and, where the law requires you to keep it for a shorter period than Lotably keeps it under the Agreement, direct Lotably to delete it under Section 12.15 of the Agreement.

8. License plate recognition, vehicle records and privacy laws

• Comply with laws on automated license plate recognition, such as California Civil Code § 1798.90.5 et seq., which requires operators to keep reasonable security and to adopt and post a usage and privacy policy, and with Canadian privacy laws on the collection of license plate information.
• Obtain and use registered-owner or other vehicle-record information only for a use permitted by law, such as a permissible use under the United States Driver’s Privacy Protection Act or as allowed by a provincial registry agreement, and do not enter it into the Services except as those rules allow.
• Do not use the Services to look up or identify vehicle owners for any purpose other than parking management at your Locations.
• Give Drivers the privacy notices, and obtain the consents, that the law requires.

9. Messages

• Send messages through the Services only about a Driver’s own Citation, payment, pass, permit, subscription, dispute or account.
• Do not send marketing, spam, bulk or unsolicited messages, and do not send text messages without any consent the law requires, including under the United States Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).
• Keep sender information and message content truthful, and honor opt-out requests where the law requires.
• Do not use contact details that a Driver gave for one purpose, such as a receipt, to send unrelated messages.

10. No harassment or discriminatory enforcement

• Enforce your posted rules consistently.
• Do not target, harass, threaten, intimidate or retaliate against anyone, and do not enforce differently based on race, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or any other characteristic protected by law.
• Respect accessible parking laws and permits.
• Require your officers to act professionally, to avoid physical confrontations, and never to use the officer app while driving.

11. Security and system integrity

• Give each User their own log-in. Do not share log-ins, and remove access promptly when someone leaves.
• Protect your devices and accounts, and tell us promptly at cody@lotably.com about lost devices or any suspected unauthorized access.
• Do not access, or try to access, any account or data you are not authorized to access, including another Operator’s data.
• Do not probe, scan or test the vulnerability of the Services unless we agree in writing. If you find a vulnerability, report it to cody@lotably.com and do not exploit or disclose it.
• Do not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Services, except to the extent the law prohibits this restriction.
• Do not scrape, crawl or use bots or other automated means to access the Services, except through features we provide for that purpose.
• Do not overload, disrupt or interfere with the Services, and do not upload malicious code.
• Do not bypass rate limits, usage limits, Plan or Location limits, feature controls, approval steps or security measures.
• Do not use the Services to build or help build a competing product.

12. Payments

• Charge only lawful parking-related amounts at your authorized Locations, and describe every charge accurately.
• Do not commit or facilitate fraud, including fake or test transactions with real cards, charges without the payer’s authorization, or money laundering.
• Take payments only for your own parking management at your authorized Locations, including Locations you manage for your clients. Never use your account or the Services to process payments for any other business or for goods or services that are not related to parking at your Locations.
• Follow Stripe’s terms, including its list of restricted businesses, and the rules of the card networks and other payment methods, including rules on surcharges, refunds and statement descriptors.
• Do not ask for, record or enter card numbers or security codes anywhere except Stripe’s payment fields.
• Make refunds when your own decisions, Stripe’s rules or the law require them, and respond honestly to chargebacks.

13. Content

• Do not upload or publish content that is unlawful, defamatory, obscene, hateful, harassing or infringing, or that violates anyone’s privacy.
• Upload only logos, images, documents and other materials you have the right to use.
• Do not upload sensitive personal information, such as Social Security or social insurance numbers, government identification numbers or health information, unless it is necessary for your lawful enforcement purposes.
• Do not add malware, phishing or misleading links to your Customer Site, Citations or messages.

14. Reporting abuse

Anyone, including Drivers, property owners and members of the public, can report a suspected breach of this Policy by emailing cody@lotably.com with “Abuse report” in the subject line. Please include the Operator’s name or website address, any Citation number, and what happened. We may share reports with the Operator concerned. Lotably cannot decide disputes about Citations or order refunds; those are the Operator’s decisions, so please also contact the Operator directly.

15. How Lotably enforces this Policy

15.1 Investigation. We are not obliged to monitor how the Services are used, but we may investigate any suspected breach of this Policy, and we may ask you for information, including copies of your Property Authorizations.

15.2 Actions we may take. If we believe this Policy has been breached, or may be breached, we may take any of the following actions, with or without advance notice:

• warn you;
• remove or disable content;
• turn off features, such as booting, towing, messages or payments;
• suspend Locations, Users, your Customer Site or your account;
• refuse, change or reclaim a Subdomain, or stop serving a custom domain;
• terminate your Agreement under its terms;
• report the matter to Stripe, card networks, law enforcement, regulators or the affected property owner, and cooperate with lawful investigations; and
• preserve information as evidence.

15.3 How we decide. We decide what action to take in our discretion. We aim to act proportionately and, where practicable, to give you notice and a chance to respond, unless there is a risk of harm, the law requires us to act quickly, or notice would compromise an investigation.

15.4 Your responsibility. A breach of this Policy is a material breach of the Agreement. Fees remain payable during any suspension, and the Agreement’s indemnities apply. Following this Policy does not by itself mean that you comply with the law; you remain responsible for your own legal compliance, and nothing in this Policy is legal advice.

16. Changes to this Policy

We may change this Policy by giving Operators at least 30 days’ notice, as described in the Agreement, or shorter notice where a law, regulator, Stripe or a card network requires it or to address an urgent security risk. The version date at the top shows when this Policy was last changed.

17. Contact

Questions about this Policy can be sent to Intake Scout LLC d/b/a Lotably, 1142 Carney Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202, or to cody@lotably.com.