Terms and Conditions

1. Introduction

STAR-LINK is a community-driven collaboration hub designed to complement and enrich e-STAR.ph, operated in support of the DOST-SEI STEM Teachers Action Research program. By accessing and using this platform, you agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions in full.

2. User Responsibilities

As a registered user of STAR-LINK, you agree to:

• Provide accurate and truthful information during registration and in all subsequent interactions
• Maintain the confidentiality of your account credentials and notify administrators of any suspected unauthorised access
• Use the platform only for legitimate educational and professional purposes aligned with the STAR program
• Respect the intellectual property rights of all content contributors
• Refrain from posting harmful, offensive, discriminatory, or misleading content

3. Content Sharing and Licensing

When you upload or share content on STAR-LINK, you grant the platform and other registered educators a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, reproduce, and distribute your work for educational purposes within the Philippines. You retain ownership of all original content you create.

All uploaded documents are subject to moderation review prior to public availability. STAR-LINK reserves the right to reject or remove content that does not meet community or legal standards.

4. Privacy and Data Protection

Your personal information is collected, stored, and processed in accordance with the Philippine Data Privacy Act of 2012 (Republic Act No. 10173) and its implementing rules and regulations. Data is used exclusively for account management, community facilitation, and programme analytics.

Data Retention: Your profile data is retained for 5 years from the date of registration. After this period, your data is automatically anonymized. Session tokens expire after 30 days. Audit and consent logs are retained for 7 years for compliance purposes.

Account Deletion: You may request deletion of your account at any time from your profile page. A 30-day grace period applies, during which you may cancel the request. After the grace period, your profile will be permanently anonymized — personal identifiers will be replaced with redacted values, and forum content will be replaced with a redaction notice.

Data Portability: You may export all data associated with your account as a machine-readable JSON file from your profile page at any time.

You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data at any time by contacting the platform administrator. Profile data marked for anonymisation will be de-identified in all analytics outputs. For full details, see our Privacy Policy.

5. Moderation and Enforcement

STAR-LINK operates a content moderation system. All forum posts and uploaded resources are reviewed by designated administrators before public publication. Users found to violate these Terms may have their content removed and their accounts suspended or permanently revoked without prior notice.

6. Limitation of Liability

STAR-LINK and its operators are not liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the platform or reliance on content shared by other users. The platform is provided “as is” without warranties of any kind, express or implied.

7. Changes to These Terms

STAR-LINK reserves the right to modify these Terms and Conditions at any time. Registered users will be notified of material changes and will be required to re-accept the updated terms upon their next login. Continued use after notification constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

8. Contact

For questions, data access requests, or concerns regarding these Terms and Conditions, please contact the STAR-LINK platform administrator:

Please use the contact information provided by your regional STAR programme coordinator.