Terms of service

1. Parties and acceptance

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) form a binding agreement between Starlight Group SA (Pty) Ltd, a private company incorporated in the Republic of South Africa, trading as “Practiq” (“Practiq”, “we”, “us”, “our”), and the medical practice or healthcare organisation that creates an account on the Practiq platform (“Practice”, “you”, “your”).

By creating a Practiq tenant, accepting an invitation to a tenant, or using the Services in any way, the person doing so represents that they have authority to bind the Practice to these Terms and accepts them on the Practice's behalf. If you do not have that authority, you must not accept these Terms or use the Services.

2. Definitions

• Services, the Practiq software-as-a-service platform, including web application, APIs, mobile capture surfaces, patient-facing booking pages, AI scribe, AI clinical drafting, and all associated functionality made available to the Practice.
• Users, Practice staff (practitioners, reception, administrators) granted access to the Services by the Practice.
• Patients, natural persons whose personal and clinical information is processed by the Practice using the Services.
• Customer Data, all data, content, files, recordings, and personal information that the Practice or its Users upload to, or generate within, the Services.
• POPIA, the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 of the Republic of South Africa.
• HPCSA, the Health Professions Council of South Africa.
• Subscription, the plan selected by the Practice (Core, Plus, Premium, or Medical) entitling it to use the Services for a recurring fee.

3. Account and access

The Practice is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of all credentials used to access the Services and for every action taken under its account. The Practice must notify us immediately at support@starlightgroupsa.co.za on becoming aware of any unauthorised access. Each User must be a natural person; shared credentials are prohibited.

We may refuse to create, or terminate, an account where we reasonably believe it is being used to evade these Terms, to violate applicable law, or to harm Patients or other Users.

4. Trial, subscription, billing and renewal

New Practices receive a fourteen (14) day Plus trial at no charge and without a payment method on file. At the end of the trial, unless the Practice has activated a paid Subscription, the account is downgraded to a free Core plan with restricted functionality (read-only access beyond defined limits).

Paid Subscriptions are billed monthly in advance through our billing provider and auto-renew at the end of each period until cancelled. Fees are exclusive of VAT, which is added where applicable. The Practice authorises us to charge the payment method on file for each renewal.

The Practice may cancel at any time from the in-app billing settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period; no partial refunds are issued for unused time. We may change pricing on not less than thirty (30) days' written notice; changes apply at the next renewal.

5. Practice obligations and acceptable use

The Practice undertakes to use the Services lawfully and:

• to comply with POPIA, the HPCSA ethical rules, the National Health Act, and any other law applicable to the practice of medicine in South Africa;
• to obtain all required consents from Patients before recording consultations, sharing clinical information, or enabling AI processing of their data;
• to keep its appointed Information Officer details accurate and current in the practice settings;
• not to use the Services for fraudulent billing, fabrication of clinical records, processing of personal information of any person who is not a Patient or User, or any purpose unrelated to the lawful operation of a healthcare practice;
• not to attempt to reverse-engineer, decompile, scrape, or circumvent the technical limits of the Services, nor to use the Services to build a competing product;
• to make reasonable efforts to ensure each User is appropriately trained, qualified, and authorised to perform the activities they undertake on the platform.

6. Clinical responsibility and AI

The Services are tools that support clinical practice. They do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The treating practitioner is at all times solely responsible for clinical judgement, accuracy of records, prescribing decisions, the content of letters and certificates, and the safety of the Patient.

Outputs from AI features, including audio transcripts, draft SOAP notes, referral letters, sick notes, prescription suggestions, drug-drug interaction and allergy reviews, and “what was missed” checklists, are decision aids only. Every draft is marked as AI-generated; no draft is final until the responsible practitioner has reviewed, edited where appropriate, and signed it off. The Practice must not rely on an AI output as a substitute for professional judgement, and must independently verify any clinical claim, dosage, contraindication, or coding before acting on it.

We do not train any model on Customer Data. AI requests are passed to our AI subprocessors solely for the purpose of generating the requested output and are not retained by those subprocessors beyond the period necessary to deliver the result.

7. Customer Data and ownership

As between the parties, the Practice owns all Customer Data. The Practice grants us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to host, copy, transmit, display, and otherwise process Customer Data solely to provide and improve the Services, and only as instructed by the Practice or as required to perform our obligations under these Terms and the Data Processing Addendum at /popia.

On termination, the Practice may export all Customer Data through the in-app export tools and the patient data portability endpoints for thirty (30) days. After that period, we will delete or irreversibly anonymise Customer Data, retaining only what is required by law (notably HPCSA-mandated clinical record retention, which keeps de-identified clinical history).

8. Confidentiality

Each party agrees to keep confidential any non-public information disclosed by the other in connection with the Services, to use it only for the purposes of these Terms, and to protect it with at least the same degree of care it uses to protect its own confidential information of similar sensitivity. This obligation does not apply to information that is public through no fault of the receiving party, was already known, is independently developed, or must be disclosed by law.

9. Intellectual property

We own all intellectual property rights in the Services, including software, documentation, designs, trade marks, the Practiq name and logo, and all derivative works. These Terms grant the Practice a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Services for its internal business operations during the Subscription term. Nothing in these Terms transfers any other right to the Practice.

The Practice may submit suggestions, feedback, or feature requests. We may use such feedback without restriction or compensation; no confidentiality applies unless we have agreed otherwise in writing.

10. Third-party services and subprocessors

The Services rely on third-party subprocessors to deliver infrastructure, transcription, AI inference, communications, and payments. The current list and a description of each role is maintained at /security. By using the Services, the Practice consents to our use of these subprocessors on the terms described in our Data Processing Addendum at /popia.

11. Suspension

We may suspend the Practice's access to the Services, in whole or in part, on reasonable notice (or immediately where the breach is material and incapable of cure) if we believe the Practice has breached these Terms, is endangering Patients, is making excessive use that threatens platform stability, or has failed to pay undisputed fees when due. We will restore access promptly once the underlying cause is resolved.

12. Termination

Either party may terminate these Terms for material breach by the other if the breach is not cured within thirty (30) days of written notice. We may terminate on shorter notice where required by law, where the Practice is the subject of insolvency proceedings, or where suspension under clause 11 has been in place for sixty (60) days or more without resolution.

On termination: (a) the Practice's right to access the Services ends; (b) any unpaid fees become immediately due; (c) data handling proceeds in line with clause 7.

13. Warranties and disclaimers

We warrant that we will provide the Services with reasonable skill and care, in line with the security and operational measures described at /security. Except for this warranty, the Services are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all other warranties, whether express, implied, statutory, or otherwise, including any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy of AI output, or non-infringement.

14. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, or fraudulent misrepresentation.

Subject to the paragraph above, neither party will be liable to the other for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, goodwill, business opportunity, or anticipated savings, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our aggregate liability under these Terms for any and all claims arising in any twelve (12) month period is limited to the fees actually paid by the Practice to us for the Services in that period.

15. Indemnification

The Practice will indemnify and hold us harmless from any third-party claim arising out of: (a) the Practice's breach of these Terms; (b) the Practice's breach of POPIA or any other applicable law; (c) any clinical decision made by a Practice practitioner, including any decision informed by AI output; (d) Customer Data that infringes the rights of a third party or that the Practice was not entitled to upload.

We will indemnify the Practice from any third-party claim that the Services, as delivered by us, infringe a third party's intellectual property rights, provided the Practice notifies us promptly and allows us to control the defence and settlement of the claim.

16. Force majeure

Neither party will be liable for any delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including nation-wide power outages, internet infrastructure failures, natural disasters, civil unrest, acts of government, pandemics, or the failure of a subprocessor of comparable reliability, provided the affected party takes reasonable steps to mitigate the impact and resume performance.

17. Changes to the Services and these Terms

We may modify the Services from time to time. Material reductions in functionality will be announced in the in-app changelog and by email to the account owner not less than thirty (30) days before taking effect. We may amend these Terms on not less than thirty (30) days' notice. Continued use of the Services after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the amended Terms.

18. Notices

Notices to the Practice may be sent by email to the address on the account or posted in the Services. Notices to us must be sent to support@starlightgroupsa.co.za and are deemed received the next business day.

19. General

• Assignment. The Practice may not assign or transfer these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms to a successor entity in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of substantially all of our assets.
• Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid, the remainder remains in effect, and the invalid provision will be replaced with a valid one that most nearly reflects the original intent.
• No waiver. A failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of the right to enforce it later.
• Independent contractors. The parties are independent contractors; nothing in these Terms creates an agency, partnership, or joint venture.
• Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and the Data Processing Addendum, are the entire agreement between the parties on this subject matter and supersede any prior communications.

20. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the Republic of South Africa. The parties submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court of South Africa, save that we may bring proceedings to recover undisputed fees in any court of competent jurisdiction.

21. Contact

Starlight Group SA (Pty) Ltd, trading as Practiq.
All enquiries, sales, support, legal, privacy, security: support@starlightgroupsa.co.za.