Legal

Terms of use

These terms govern access to the VoLCA website, account area, hosted services and downloads provided by PRELAB.

1. Provider and scope

VoLCA is provided by PRELAB, a French simplified joint-stock company identified in the legal notice. These terms apply when you create an account or use a PRELAB-hosted VoLCA service. Open-source software and third-party datasets remain governed by their respective licences and terms. A paid order, quotation, statement of work, or specific agreement may add to or override these terms for the service it covers.

2. Professional use

The service is intended for professionals, researchers, public bodies and organisations. By creating an account on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you are authorised to do so. If PRELAB expressly agrees to provide a service to a consumer, applicable mandatory consumer law prevails over any conflicting provision.

3. Account registration and security

You must provide accurate information, keep credentials and access tokens confidential, and promptly notify PRELAB of suspected unauthorised access. Accounts and tokens are personal to the authorised user and must not be shared in a way that bypasses agreed access limits. You are responsible for activity carried out through credentials under your control, except where the activity results from PRELAB’s breach.

4. Service characteristics

VoLCA is under active development. Features, supported formats, public datasets, limits and interfaces may change. Free hosted instances may run on shared capacity, sleep after inactivity, be unavailable when capacity is occupied, and discard session data when stopped. Unless PRELAB has agreed otherwise in writing, the free service is an evaluation environment, not persistent storage or a production service. You must keep independent copies of important files, configurations and results.

5. Data, datasets and results

You retain rights in content and data you lawfully provide. You grant PRELAB the limited right to host, copy, process and transmit that material only as needed to provide, secure and support the requested service. You are responsible for ensuring that you have the rights and licences needed to upload and process datasets, including commercial LCA databases.

VoLCA does not sell or grant rights to third-party databases. Public, licensed and private datasets remain subject to their own licences. Calculation outputs depend on source data, methods, mappings, configuration and modelling choices. You must review whether an output is suitable for your intended scientific, regulatory, commercial or public-claim use.

6. Acceptable use

You must not use the service to break the law or third-party rights; gain unauthorised access; distribute malware; interfere with availability or security; evade technical limits; probe other users’ resources; resell shared account access without agreement; or upload data you are not entitled to use. Reasonable automated use through documented interfaces is permitted subject to service limits and third-party licences.

7. Intellectual property

PRELAB and its licensors retain their rights in the hosted service, website, branding and non-open components. No ownership is transferred by these terms. Open-source components are licensed only under the licence accompanying the relevant source or distribution. Feedback may be used by PRELAB to improve VoLCA without restriction, provided it does not disclose your confidential information.

8. Availability, maintenance and support

PRELAB may maintain, update, limit or suspend the service for security, legal, capacity or operational reasons. No service level or guaranteed support time applies unless agreed in writing. PRELAB will use reasonable care in operating the service and, where practicable, communicate material planned changes affecting paid services.

9. Paid services

A request to upgrade is not an online purchase. Scope, resources, price, taxes, billing, duration, termination and any service levels are agreed separately by quotation, order form or contract. Business terms and conditions of sale are available from contact@prelab.fr on request.

10. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the service at any time and may request account deletion. PRELAB may suspend or terminate access where necessary to address a security risk, unlawful or prohibited use, material breach, non-payment, or the discontinuation of a free service. Where reasonable, PRELAB will give notice and an opportunity to remedy the issue. Provisions that by nature should survive termination, including licences already granted, payment obligations, liability limits and dispute provisions, remain effective.

11. Warranties and liability

PRELAB provides the service with reasonable professional care. Except for mandatory legal warranties or an express written commitment, preview and free services are provided as available and without a guarantee that they will be uninterrupted, error-free, or suitable for a specific assessment. Nothing excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including liability for fraud, wilful misconduct, gross negligence, or personal injury where applicable.

For professional users, and to the extent permitted by law, PRELAB is not liable for indirect loss, lost profit, loss of opportunity, or loss of data that could reasonably have been avoided by maintaining backups. Any additional liability allocation or cap for a paid service is stated in its order or contract.

12. Privacy and third parties

Personal data is handled as described in the privacy policy and cookie information. Links and optional third-party services are subject to their providers’ terms and privacy notices.

13. Changes

PRELAB may update these terms to reflect legal, security or service changes. The current version and effective date are published here. Material changes affecting existing account holders will be communicated by reasonable means. Continuing to use the service after the effective date constitutes acceptance where permitted by law; if you do not agree, you must stop using the service and may request account closure.

14. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by French law. The parties should first attempt to resolve a dispute by contacting contact@prelab.fr. For disputes between PRELAB and a professional acting for business purposes, the competent courts within the jurisdiction of the Orléans Court of Appeal have exclusive jurisdiction, subject to mandatory rules.

Effective and last updated: 16 July 2026.