Terms of Use

Last updated: 13 September 2026

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using World Republic (the "Service"), and by signing in to the Service, you agree to these Terms of Use ("Terms") and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

World Republic is a Swiss association (Verein) under Art. 60 et seq. of the Swiss Civil Code, with its seat in Zug, Switzerland. It has legal personality under Art. 60(1) of the Civil Code and is not entered in the commercial register. The Service is administered from Hungary by our board. These Terms constitute a legally binding agreement between you and World Republic. Please read them carefully before using the Service.

2. Definitions

"World Republic," "we," "us," or "our" — the Swiss association described in Section 1. It is the other party to these Terms, and any claim under these Terms is a claim against it. Section 17 gives the addresses at which you can reach us.
"Service" — the World Republic application, website, and related services. This includes the same application where it is served under the name Raised by Humanity at https://www.raisedbyhumanity.org: the same software, the same accounts and the same database. These Terms apply on both.
"the app" — the World Republic application, which is one part of the Service.
"User," "you," or "your" — the individual accessing or using the Service.
"Citizen" — a User. The Service uses this word on screen in place of "User". It does not mean citizenship of any country.
"Consumer" — a User who uses the Service for personal purposes, and not for the purposes of a trade, a business or a profession.
"Content" — all information, data, text, software, graphics, and other materials available through the Service.
"User Content" — content you create, upload, or submit through the Service, including political parties and related information.
"WDD" — World Drachma, the digital token used within the Service.

3. Description of Service

World Republic is an experimental global-democracy platform that enables people to participate in collective decision-making. The Service provides:

Identity verification to confirm you are a unique, live, real person, using AWS Amazon Rekognition Face Liveness. AWS is the only provider we use for this check. If the check refuses you, you can ask us to have a person look at that decision, as Section 4.1 of the Privacy Policy sets out.
Political party creation and management tools. Registering a party requires the check described in Section 5.
Non-binding test elections and voting (currently experimental).
A WDD balance and withdrawal functionality.
Community engagement and participation features.

We may add to the Service, change it, or withdraw part of it. We may also suspend the Service, or part of it, for example to deal with a fault or a security problem. Those are powers over the Service itself. They are not powers to change these Terms: Section 14 sets out the only reasons we change these Terms, and when a change to these Terms takes effect. Your WDD balance is governed by Section 8, and Section 8.5 sets out what happens to your balance if your account ends.

4. Eligibility and Account Registration

4.1 Eligibility requirements

To use the Service, you must:

Be at least 18 years of age. Before we verify your identity we ask you to confirm this, and we do not verify anyone who does not. Where we have reason to believe a user is under 18 we decline or revoke their verification and we close the account. Section 12 of the Privacy Policy says what then happens to their data.
Have the legal capacity to enter into binding agreements in your jurisdiction.
Comply with all applicable laws and regulations.
Provide accurate information and keep it up to date.

4.2 Account creation

You may create an account using:

Google sign-in, or
a passkey / biometric authentication (WebAuthn).

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your sign-in method and for all activities under your account.

4.3 Account security

You agree to keep your sign-in method secure, to notify us promptly of any unauthorised use, and to sign out on shared devices. We are not liable for loss arising from your failure to meet these obligations.

5. Identity Verification and Biometric Consent

To vote in a test election, and to register a party, you must complete a face liveness check that processes biometric data, as described in our Privacy Policy. Two things sit under that check. The check is necessary for the service you ask us for: a test election in which one verified person has one vote. Because the check processes biometric data, we also need your explicit consent for the biometric data itself, and we ask for that consent on the screen that comes before the check. You tick a box beside a statement that names the processing, and the check cannot start until you have ticked that box. That consent covers processing by us and by AWS, our service provider for this check. AWS is the only provider that receives your biometric data. If we ever add another provider to this step, we will say so in the Privacy Policy and ask for your consent again before any of your data reaches that provider. You may decline. If you decline, you cannot vote in a test election and you cannot register a party, and the rest of the Service stays open to you. Section 4.4 of the Privacy Policy sets out both layers and what declining costs you. You may withdraw consent and request deletion at any time.

The check can also refuse you. The check compares your face with the faces of accounts that are already verified. If the comparison finds a match, verification for your account is refused at that moment. The comparison makes that decision by itself, and no person takes part in it. A refused account cannot vote in a test election and cannot register a party, and no further face liveness check can be started for that account. The refusal stands unless a person changes it. You can ask us to have a person look at the decision, as Section 4.1 of the Privacy Policy sets out.

6. Acceptable Use

6.1 Permitted uses

You may use the Service for lawful purposes in accordance with these Terms and all applicable laws.

6.2 Prohibited activities

You agree NOT to:

Violate any applicable law or regulation.
Infringe the intellectual property rights of others.
Transmit malicious code or harmful software.
Attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service, other accounts, or systems.
Interfere with or disrupt the Service or the systems it runs on.
Create fake accounts or impersonate any person or entity.
Engage in fraudulent, deceptive, or illegal activity.
Manipulate, interfere with, or compromise voting or verification processes.
Harass, abuse, threaten, or harm other users.
Collect or harvest other users' information without their consent.
Use the Service for commercial purposes without our prior written consent.
Use bots or scrapers to access the Service without permission.

7. Test Elections and Voting

Important notice: test elections conducted through the Service are experimental and non-binding. A test election is not a public election. Test elections:

Do not constitute binding governance decisions.
Are not legally enforceable as governance decisions.
Do not represent actual governance outcomes.
Confer no public office, no mandate and no authority on anyone.
May be modified, suspended, or discontinued at any time.

A test election result decides how WDD is distributed. The statements above are about governance. Those statements do not affect the rewards described in Section 8, and they are not a reason for us to refuse to pay a reward. When a test election closes, the result of that election decides how the election's subsidy pool is divided:

We decide the size of the pool for each election. We may change the size of a pool, and we may set a pool to zero.
The pool is divided among the parties in proportion to the votes each party received. We use the vote totals that the Service publishes.
Each party's share is awarded to the Citizen who registered that party, as a reward under Section 8.4.
A reward becomes part of your WDD balance. Section 8 governs that balance, including the limits on withdrawing it and what happens to it if your account ends.

8. Digital Currency (WDD)

8.1 Nature of WDD

WDD (World Drachma) is a digital token used within the Service.
WDD has no guaranteed value and may fluctuate.
We do not offer WDD as a security, as an investment, or as a financial instrument, and we do not offer WDD as a way to make money.
We do not guarantee its value, stability, or liquidity.
You can lose the entire value of your WDD. No deposit-guarantee scheme and no investor-compensation scheme covers WDD.
You do not buy WDD from us and you do not pay us for WDD. We do not undertake to buy WDD back from you, and we do not undertake to exchange WDD for money.

8.2 Balances and transactions

Internal WDD balances and rewards are recorded off-chain within the Service.
Withdrawals are executed on-chain (World Chain or Base Chain) on your instruction. The app calls the chain you choose the Network.
When you instruct a withdrawal, we deduct the amount from your balance at that moment, before the transfer is sent.
A minimum withdrawal amount applies on each chain. The app shows the minimum on the withdrawal screen, and we may change the minimum. You cannot withdraw an amount below the minimum.
We may pause withdrawals on a chain — for example, while we are dealing with a security problem or a payment problem. While a chain is paused, you cannot start a withdrawal on that chain, and nothing is deducted from your balance. A withdrawal you instructed before the pause stays deducted and waits until the pause ends. A pause does not stop a transfer that has already been sent, and a pause does not stop a refund. The app tells you when a chain is paused.
Blockchain transactions may be irreversible. You are solely responsible for the accuracy of withdrawal details (destination address, amount, chain).
We are not responsible for losses due to user error, fraud or unauthorised transactions, technical or infrastructure failures, or changes in token value.

If a withdrawal cannot be sent. Sometimes the payment provider refuses to send the transfer. Sometimes we cannot establish whether the transfer was sent. Sometimes the transfer was sent and we cannot establish whether it arrived. In each of these cases the amount is held: the amount has not returned to your balance, and the amount has not arrived in your wallet. We do not return a held amount to your balance automatically, because returning an amount that was in fact sent would pay that amount out twice. A held amount is not lost. The Service records the withdrawal as one we have not completed, an alert is raised when a withdrawal is held, and we look into every held withdrawal. We resolve a held withdrawal by completing the transfer or by returning the amount to your balance — unless a transfer to your address is one that the payment provider or the law will not let us make. We cannot promise how long resolving a held withdrawal takes. The app tells you that a withdrawal is held only once the automatic attempts to send it have slowed down, which takes at least half an hour. Those attempts slow down rather than stop, and we go on trying to send that withdrawal. Until then, and in every other case, the app shows the withdrawal as one that is still being sent. If you have closed the app by then, there may be no message waiting for you, and we cannot reach you outside the Service, because we hold no contact address for you (Section 10.1 of the Privacy Policy). So if an amount has left your balance and has not arrived in your wallet, write to us (Section 17).

8.3 Wallet security

You are responsible for securing your account, verifying transaction details before confirming, and for any losses resulting from unauthorised access to your account.

8.4 How rewards are awarded

WDD reaches your balance as rewards. These are the rewards the Service awards today:

Party subsidies. Each test election has a subsidy pool. When the election closes, the pool is divided among the parties in proportion to the votes each party received, and each party's share is awarded to the Citizen who registered that party. Section 7 describes this.
Ambassador rewards. If someone creates an account through your referral link and registers a party, you are awarded a share of every subsidy that party earns. We set the rate of that share, and the app shows it.

How rewards are paid and changed:

A reward is awarded as a stream. The amount is released into your balance gradually over a period rather than all at once, and only the released part can be withdrawn. The app shows the rate of release and the amount released so far.
We decide the size of each election's pool, the reward rates, and the period over which a reward is released. We may change any of these at any time, and we may stop awarding rewards. A change applies to rewards awarded after the change.
We may correct, adjust or end a reward that was awarded in error, or that was obtained by breaking these Terms — for example, by manipulating voting or verification (Section 6.2).

8.5 What happens to your balance if your account ends

If you delete your account, your WDD balance is forfeited. Your reward streams are cancelled at the same time, including any part of a reward that has not been released yet. Nothing is paid out to you, and a forfeited balance cannot be restored afterwards.
The same applies if we terminate your account under Section 13.2, and if we close it because we have reason to believe you are under 18 (Section 4.1).
If you want to keep your balance, withdraw it before you delete your account. The minimum withdrawal amount in Section 8.2 applies, so an amount below the minimum cannot be withdrawn and is lost when the account is deleted.
After your account is deleted, no further reward is awarded to it. If a test election's subsidy pool is divided after your account is deleted, the share that would have gone to you is not awarded.
You do not have to delete your account to have your biometric data destroyed. Section 4.4 of the Privacy Policy describes that separate route, and using that route does not affect your WDD balance.

9. Open Source, Intellectual Property, and User Content

9.1 Open-source software

The World Republic application is free and open-source software, licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3 or later (AGPL-3.0-or-later). Your rights to use, study, modify, run, and redistribute the source code are governed by that licence itself — not by these Terms — and these Terms do not restrict any right granted to you under it. Consistent with the licence, the software is provided without warranty (see Section 10).

What we have published, and what we have not. We develop the application in a repository that is not public, and we publish the source as occasional snapshots at https://github.com/worldrepublicorg/worldrepublic.org. The published snapshot is not the version of the Service you are using, and it may be much older than that version. So the rights above are rights you can exercise over the snapshot we have published. The source of the version that is running today is not published, and until we publish it you cannot study, modify or run that version. Parts of the published source are under other licences. Where that is so, the licence is stated in that part's own licence files, and where no other licence is stated, AGPL-3.0-or-later applies.

9.2 Name and logo

We do not claim trademark or other proprietary rights in the "World Republic" name or logo — the logo is deliberately a plain black circle that is not eligible for trademark protection. You are free to use the name and logo, including when you run your own instance of the software. We only ask that you not use them to impersonate the official Service or to falsely suggest affiliation or endorsement (see Section 6.2).

9.3 User Content

You retain ownership of User Content you create.
By creating User Content, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, and display it in connection with the Service.
You represent that you have all necessary rights to grant this licence.
Party registrations are reviewed automatically before they are listed by default — a check for advertising, impersonation, paying for votes, incitement to violence and obscenity, never for political views. How it works, what it reads and who runs it are set out in Section 5.1 of the Privacy Policy.
A party that fails that review is not removed. It stays at its own address, can be shown by choosing to show all parties, and can be voted for; it is left out of the default lists, search and the election's list of parties until an edit passes the review. The leader is told the outcome and the ground on the party's page, and can ask a person to review it through the Help Community linked there, or by writing to privacy@worldrepublic.org. Section 5.1 of the Privacy Policy sets out that route.
We may remove or refuse any User Content that violates these Terms.

10. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

11. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WORLD REPUBLIC AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, MEMBERS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes a liability that mandatory law does not allow to be limited or excluded. That applies to our liability to you and to your liability to us. Whatever the first paragraph of this Section says, we remain liable for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for our own intent or gross negligence, and for fraud. Your right to compensation for damage caused by an infringement of data-protection law is also unaffected, including damage that is a loss of your data and damage that is not financial. Where the mandatory law of the country where you live gives you more than this Section gives you, that law applies.

12. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless World Republic and its officers, members, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) that arise from your violation of these Terms, from your violation of any law, from your User Content, or from your violation of any third-party right.

This Section reaches only what is your fault, and only the part of the loss that your own act or omission caused. It does not reach a loss we caused ourselves. Using the Service is not on its own a ground for a claim under this Section. If you are a Consumer, this Section applies only so far as the mandatory law that protects you allows, and where that law does not allow it you owe us nothing under this Section.

13. Account Termination

13.1 By you

You may delete your account at any time in the Service. Deleting your account forfeits your WDD balance and cancels your reward streams — Section 8.5 sets out what happens to your balance, and how to keep it. Section 9 of the Privacy Policy sets out what deletion does to your data.

13.2 By us

We may suspend or terminate your account, without prior notice, if you violate these Terms, engage in fraudulent or illegal activity, or where required by law, or if we reasonably determine it is necessary to protect the Service or other users.

13.3 Effect of termination

Upon termination your right to use the Service ceases, and your WDD balance is forfeited as described in Section 8.5. Where we terminate your account, we close that account ourselves, by hand. We destroy your biometric data. Section 9 of the Privacy Policy describes what a deletion you make yourself does to your data, and a closure we make is intended to reach the same records — but nothing in the Service starts it, so it may take longer to begin. Section 2 of the Biometric Retention and Destruction Policy describes what then happens to your biometric data, and which part of that we do by hand. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination will remain in effect.

14. Changes to Terms

We may change these Terms, and we do so only for one of these reasons:

To reflect a change in the Service — something we add, change or withdraw.
To keep these Terms accurate about what the Service actually does.
To comply with the law, with a court or a regulator, or with a requirement of a provider the Service depends on.
To protect the Service, the people who use it, or ourselves against fraud, abuse or a security risk.
To correct an error, or to make a clause clearer without changing what it means.

We publish every change on this page and revise the "Last updated" date above. A material change takes effect no sooner than 30 days after we publish it, so that you can read it and decide before it applies to you. A change we have to make sooner — to comply with the law, or to address a security risk — takes effect when we publish it, and we will say so on this page.

We cannot send you a notice. We hold no email address, no telephone number and no postal address for you, because the Service deliberately collects none; Section 3.1 of the Privacy Policy explains why. The Service has no channel for announcing a change to you either. So this page is the notice: the current text is always here, and the date above is the date on which we last changed these Terms. Please read it again from time to time.

If you use the Service after a change has taken effect, that change applies to you. If you do not agree with a change, stop using the Service. You may delete your account at any time (Section 13.1).

15. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of Switzerland, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If the law of the country where you live gives you protection that you cannot be made to give up, you keep that protection, and nothing in these Terms takes it away. If you are a Consumer, you may bring a claim against us in the courts of the country where you live, and we will bring any claim against you in those same courts. For every other User, the courts of Zug, Switzerland have jurisdiction. If you have a dispute with us, we would rather settle that dispute by talking about it, and we will try to do that. That is an offer and not a condition. You do not have to write to us first, and you do not have to go to mediation first, before you go to a court. There is no arbitration agreement between you and us.

16. Miscellaneous

Severability: if any provision is unenforceable, the remainder stays in effect.
Entire agreement: these Terms, the Privacy Policy and the Biometric Retention and Destruction Policy are the entire agreement between you and World Republic regarding the Service.
Waiver: failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
Assignment: you may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them without restriction.
Language: these Terms are written in English, and we publish them in other languages. The version that applies to you is the version in the language the Service showed you. Where that version and the English text differ, the meaning that is better for you applies.

17. Contact

Legal: legal@worldrepublic.org
Contact in the European Union: Balázs Kónya, board member, 3626 Hangony, Dózsa György út 5., Hungary (legal@worldrepublic.org)
Website: https://www.worldrepublic.org