Last revised: 09.20.2022

Referred to as Tertius (the “Site”), the D.C. Department of Buildings (“DOB”) operates and maintains the website www.tertius.dcra.dc.gov. This document describes the Terms and Conditions of Use (also referred to as “Agreement”) that govern your use of the Site. Please review it carefully. Your access to and use of the Site is subject to the following Terms and Conditions of Use without limitation or qualification, as well as all applicable laws. Your access to the Site is in consideration for your agreement to these Terms and Conditions of Use, whether or not you are a registered user. By accessing, browsing, and using the Site, you accept, without limitation or qualification, these Terms and Conditions of Use and you warrant that you have the legal capacity to enter into the agreement stated herein. DOB reserves the right at any time and in its sole discretion to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Site (or any portion thereof) with or without notice. If you do not agree to be bound by this agreement, please exit the site now and refrain from using any material that you may have downloaded from the site.

1. Modification of the Agreement

2. Conduct

3. Permitted Users

4. Registration

5. Collection and Protection of Your PII

6. Collection and Use of Non-PII

7. Secure Transmissions

8. Privacy Policy

9. Termination of Use

10. Other Site Links

11. Policy on Spamming

12. Content Monitoring

13. Property Rights

14. Copyright

15. Certain Data

16. Trademarks

17. Submissions

18. Indemnity

19. Disclaimer of Warranty

20. Limitation of Liability

21. Governing Law

22. Miscellaneous

23. Definitions

Modification of the Agreement

You agree to access and use the Site only for lawful purposes. You are solely responsible for the knowledge of and adherence to any and all laws, statutes, rules and regulations pertaining to your use of the Site. By accessing the Site, you agree that you will not:

Conduct

1. Use the Site to commit a criminal offense, engage in any conduct that gives rise to civil liability, or encourage others to engage in any conduct that would constitute a criminal offense or give rise to civil liability;

2. Post or transmit any discriminatory, libelous, harassing, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, or otherwise unlawful content;

3. Use the Site to impersonate other parties or entities;

4. Use the Site to upload any content that contains a software virus, “Trojan Horse” or any other computer code, files, or programs that may alter, damage, or interrupt the functionality of the Site or the hardware or software of any other person who accesses the Site;

5. Upload, post, e-mail, or otherwise transmit any materials that you do not have a right to transmit under applicable law or under a contractual relationship;

6. Alter, damage, or delete any content posted on the site;

7. Disrupt the normal flow of communication in any way;

8. Claim a relationship with or represent any business, association, or other organization with which you are not authorized to claim such a relationship or represent;

9. Post or transmit any unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, or other forms of solicitation;

10. Post any material that infringes upon or violates the intellectual property rights of another;

11. Unlawfully collect, transmit, or store personal information about others; or

12. Access the Site via automated devices, bots, agents, scraping, scripts, intelligent search or any similar means of access to the content or any other materials or information available from the Site; or

13. Access, or attempt to access, this website by any means other than through the interface that is provided by DOB, unless you have been specifically allowed to do so in a separate, written agreement with DOB; or

14. Use for commercial purposes or resell any of the data derived from this website unless you have been specifically allowed to do so in a separate, written agreement with DOB.

Permitted Users

You must be at least 18 years old to become a registered user or to request support or services online. If you are not at least 18 years of age, you will be removed from the registered area(s) and/or denied support or services.

Registration

In order to visit certain areas of this Site, or to use certain services, you may be asked to provide personal information, such as your name, address, or phone number. If you decline to provide requested information, our ability to serve you may be limited. But you will still be able to visit the Site and take advantage of the wealth of information it offers.

Certain portions of the Site are limited to registered users and/or allow a user to request support or services online by entering personal information. To access some areas of the Site, you may have to apply for and be approved as a registered user (“Registered User”) of the Site. Your approval as a Registered User is at the sole discretion of DOB. At the time you register for online account access, you may be required to create a username and password to be used in conjunction with your account (“Account”). You agree to keep your Account information and password confidential.

In connection with your application to become a Registered User, you will be asked to submit certain information about yourself (“Registration Information”). You agree that any information provided to DOB in these areas will be true, current, complete, and accurate, that you will not register under the name of, nor attempt to enter the Site under the name of, another person, and that you will not adopt a user name that DOB or the District of Columbia (“District”), in their sole discretion, deems offensive. Failure to comply with the foregoing shall constitute a breach of this Agreement, which may result in immediate termination of your user Account.

You are fully responsible for all uses of your password and all transactions or activities that are conducted with your account, whether by you or others. You agree to (a) log out of your account at the end of each session; (b) keep your password confidential and not share it with anyone else; and (c) immediately notify DOB of any actual or suspected unauthorized use of your password or Account or any other breach of security.

Collection and Protection of Your Personally Identifiable Information

We use the term “Personally Identifiable Information,” or “PII,” to mean any information that could reasonably be used to identify you, including your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, bank account information, credit card information, or any combination of information that could be used to identify you.

You may provide us with PII in connection with your use of this Site, such as through e-mails that you send to us. Your PII collected via this Site will not be shared, sold, or transferred to any third party for the third party’s direct marketing purposes without your prior consent, unless it is required by law. Your PII may otherwise be used by us as required or permitted by law (e.g., as necessary to carry out authorized functions of DOB).

For example, information collected through this Site will be available to District web development employees for the purpose of maintaining the web portal and improving the site visitor experience. Also, where appropriate, we may provide the information submitted by you to the person or company that is the subject of your inquiry, or to a government agency responsible for matters referred to in your communication.

Collection and Use of Non-Personally Identifiable Information

When you visit our Site, certain data, such as your computer’s unique Internet protocol IP address, will be automatically collected and sent to the servers that support our website system to help us provide better service and a more effective website. We use your IP address to assess the frequency of visits to this Site and the popularity of its various pages and functions. We also may collect information about the type of operating system you use (e.g., Microsoft Windows or Mac OS), the type of browser you use (e.g., Firefox or Internet Explorer), the domain name of the Internet service provider, your activities while visiting our Site, and the content you access. We will not attempt to match any Personally Identifiable Information that you provide to us with your IP address or the other information that does not identify you as an individual, unless there are reasonable grounds to believe that doing so would provide information that is relevant and material to exercising our legal rights or fulfilling our legal obligations.

In addition, as part of these efforts, sections of this Site may place a small text file (typically only a few bytes) on your hard drive to allow us to identify your computer. We will not attempt to read any additional information on your hard drive, and we do not combine collected information with other personal information to determine your identity or your e-mail address. Our Site uses temporary “session cookies” to allow visitors to interact with DOB and to use online applications. “Session cookies” do not allow us to personally identify a visitor. These cookies are stored only in memory and are deleted when the user's browser is shut down. This Site does not use permanent “cookies.”

This Site will capture the inspector's geographical location, including latitude and longitude, for purposes of quality control and assurance. In order to conduct an inspection, the inspector must enable the geolocation function by changing the privacy settings in their mobile device prior to logging into the Site to "check in" for an inspection. For DOB’s Third-Party Program, if the inspector fails to do so, the inspection will be rejected, and the inspector and the employing Third-Party Agency will each be liable for a Class 1 Violation under the DOB Third-Party Program Procedure Manual (last revised 10/1/22) and subject to discipline up to and including suspension or expulsion from the DOB Third-Party Program and the Tertius marketplace.

Secure Transmissions

DOB has taken several steps to safeguard the integrity of Personally Identifiable Information that you provide us. This Site is equipped with security measures intended to protect such information. We encrypt data that must remain secure to meet legal requirements.

Privacy Policy

The DC Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, disclose, and maintain your personal information and is incorporated in this Agreement by reference. By accessing, browsing, and using this Site, you accept, without limitation or qualification, the DC Privacy Policy. You may view the DC Privacy Policy at https://dc.gov/node/298592.

Termination of Use

DOB may, in its sole discretion, terminate or suspend your access to and use of this Site without notice and for any reason, including for violation of these Terms and Conditions of Use or for other conduct that DOB, in its sole discretion, believes is unlawful or harmful to others. In the event of termination, you will no longer be authorized to access the Site, and DOB will use any means possible to enforce this termination. Upon any termination of this agreement, all rights granted to you under this agreement will cease and you must promptly discontinue all access to any part of the Site and the use of any content downloaded or otherwise obtained from the Site.

Other Site Links

Some links on the Site lead to websites that are not operated by DOB. DOB does not control these websites or review or control their content. DOB provides these links to users for convenience. These links are not an endorsement of products, services, or information, and do not imply an association between DOB and/or the District, on the one hand, and the operators of the linked website, on the other. When you select a link to an outside website, you are subject to the terms and conditions of the owner/sponsors of that outside website. DOB welcomes links to our Site, provided that the link does not state or imply any sponsorship or endorsement of your site by DOB.

Policy on Spamming

You specifically agree that you will not utilize e-mail addresses obtained by using the Site to transmit the same or substantially similar unsolicited message to 10 or more recipients in a single day, or 20 or more e-mails in a single week (consecutive 7-day period), unless doing so is necessary for legitimate business purposes. DOB, in its sole discretion, will determine violations of the limitations on e-mail usage set forth in these Terms and Conditions of Use. Violations may result in your removal from registered areas, denial of support or services, or other consequences.

Content Monitoring

DOB reserves the right to monitor any content that you provide but shall not be obligated to do so. Although DOB cannot monitor all postings on the Site, we reserve the right (but assume no obligation) to delete, move, or edit any postings that violate these terms and conditions.

Property Rights

You acknowledge and agree that, as between DOB and/or the District, on the one hand, and you, on the other hand, all right, title, and interest in and to the Site and the content, including without limitation any patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, inventions, know-how, and all other intellectual property rights, are owned exclusively by DOB, the District or their licensors and are protected by United States intellectual property and other applicable laws.

Copyright

United States and foreign copyright laws and international conventions protect the contents of the Site. You agree to abide by all copyright notices posted on the Site. Pursuant to federal law, federal government-produced materials appearing on this site or elsewhere are not copyright protected. The United States Government may receive and hold copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise. This does not apply to District or state produced material.

Except for third party content that is copyright protected or for content otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Visitors to the Site agree to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to the rest of the world for their submissions to the Site under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

All content included in the Site, such as text, graphics, logos, icons, images, media, data, audio, animation, software and other information and materials, is the copyright and property of DOB, the District or their content suppliers and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Permission is granted to electronically copy and print hard copy portions of the Site only for legitimate business, educational or personal purposes in order to facilitate use of the Site. Any other use, including the reproduction, modification, distribution, transmission, republication, display or performance, of the content of the Site is strictly prohibited.

Certain Data

Certain data is not subject to these terms and conditions of use. The data located on the District’s Scout consolidated data platform has its own terms and conditions. Data from that application is public domain and made available with a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal dedication.

Trademarks

The trademarks, service marks, logos, slogans, trade names and trade dress used on the Site are proprietary to DOB. Without limiting the foregoing, Tertius is a trademark of DOB. Unauthorized use of any trademark of DOB may be a violation of trademark laws. Any third-party names or trademarks referenced in the Site are the property of their respective owners and do not constitute or imply affiliation, endorsement or recommendation of the third parties by DOB or the District.

Submissions

You are solely responsible for the content that you post or otherwise make publicly available via the Site (“Submission”). By making a Submission, you represent and warrant that your Submission is true, your own original work, and does not infringe any other person’s or entity’s rights, and that you and any other person mentioned or shown in your Submission release any and all claims concerning use, modification or distribution of the Submission or any part thereof. You must own all rights, including copyright, to your Submission, and must hold all necessary releases concerning the contents of your Submission.

By making a Submission, you grant DOB and its designees an irrevocable, assignable, fully sub-licensable, perpetual, world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license, in their sole discretion, to use or share for Tertius operations your Submission (in whole or in part), along with your name or any part thereof and place of residency, in their discretion, on the Site or elsewhere, and to use or incorporate all or any part of your Submission into other advertising, promotion, research, analysis or other materials in any format or medium now known or later developed. You hereby waive any claims for such use of your Submission.

Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless DOB and the District and all of their employees, directors, officers, agents, affiliates, contractors, assigns, licensees, and successors in interest (“Indemnified Parties”) from any and all claims, actions, suits, losses, liabilities, damages, fees, expenses, and costs (including attorneys’ fees and costs) incurred in connection with any claim or allegation against any Indemnified Party, any breach by you of these Terms and Conditions of Use, or your inappropriate or unlawful use of this Site. DOB and/or the District will provide you with notice of any such claim or allegation, and you agree to cooperate fully in the defense of any such claim. DOB and the District reserve the right to assume, at their own expense, the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you. You agree not to settle any matter without the written consent of DOB and/or the District, as relevant.

Disclaimer of Warranty

You expressly understand and agree that your use of the Site, or any material available through this Site, is at your own risk. Neither DOB nor the District warrant that the Site will be uninterrupted, problem-free, free of omissions, or error-free; nor do they make any warranty as to the results that may be obtained from the use of the Site. The content and function of the Site are provided to you “as is,” without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or use, or currency.

No transmission of data over the Internet or via mobile device is guaranteed to be completely secure. It may be possible for third parties not under the control of DOB or the District to intercept or access transmissions or private communications unlawfully. While we have implemented operational, technical, administrative and physical safeguards that are consistent with applicable laws to protect PII against any reasonably anticipated threats or hazards to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of such information, we cannot, despite our reasonable efforts, ensure or warrant the security of any information transmitted over the Internet or via mobile device or shared electronically.

Limitation of Liability

In no event will DOB or the District, nor their employees, be liable for any incidental, indirect, special, punitive, exemplary, or consequential damages, arising out of your use of or inability to use the Site, including without limitation, damages from delay, loss of revenue or anticipated profits, loss of goodwill, loss of business, loss of data, computer failure or malfunction, or any other damages, whether based on warranty, contract, tort, or any other legal theory.

Governing Law

These policies shall be governed by, and will be construed under, the laws of the District of Columbia, without regard to choice of law principles.

Miscellaneous

These Terms and Conditions of Use set forth the entire understanding and agreement between you and DOB with respect to the subject matter hereof. If any provision of these Terms and Conditions of Use is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties’ intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Terms and Conditions of Use shall remain in full force and effect. Section headings are for reference only. DOB’s failure to act with respect to any failure by you or others to comply with these Terms and Conditions of Use does not waive its right to act with respect to subsequent or similar failures. You may not assign or transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms and Conditions of Use without the prior written consent of DOB, and any assignment or transfer in violation of this provision shall be null and void. There are no third-party beneficiaries to these Terms and Conditions of Use.

Definitions