Press Kit
HumanTerms
Technology on human terms.
A signed compact to end the era of human-as-inventory before the AI era repeats it.
For two decades, "Terms of Service" were written by software companies for humans to accept. HumanTerms inverts the document. Eleven commitments (four on data, three on relationships, three on AI, one on verification) set the conditions under which signatories will permit technology to operate. Founders, researchers, designers, investors, and policymakers sign the public record at humanterms.org.
The Eleven Commitments
01
Our personal network and data are ours. Portable, deletable, never sold, never used against us.
02
Local by default. What we store about people stays on our devices until we consent otherwise.
03
Sharing is an act, not a setting. Every share is explicit, scoped, revocable. No re-broadcast or auto-forward.
04
Use is not surveillance. Aggregate product telemetry, yes. Individual profiling, no.
05
Memory is not material. Personal details are not training data, ad signals, or behavioral input.
06
Our devices are ours. Microphone, camera, location, clipboard: off by default. Permissions revocable in one place.
07
Software serves the relationship. No dark patterns, no infinite scroll, no engagement as the primary metric.
08
AI is our agent, not yours. The AI works for us. Not profiled, sold, or monetized back to the platform.
09
We choose the model. Pick the AI provider, or use none. The product works without AI.
10
No action without authorization. AI assists. It does not represent. Agency stays with the person.
11
Show your work. Public, plain-English compliance page. Verifiable against actual practice.
The Purpose Test
The test is purpose: any use that serves us is permitted; any use that serves anyone else at our expense is not.
Surveillance capitalism wrote the last twenty years of Terms of Service. We're writing the next twenty. AI does not get to repeat the social era's mistakes, and the people who build, fund, and regulate it do not get to pretend they did not see this coming.
Peter Oram, Founder, HumanTerms
About the founder
Peter Oram is an engineering leader working on privacy, security and digital human rights. He has spent more than twenty-five years in technology, fifteen of them in cybersecurity, across startups, non-profits, enterprise organisations and Big Tech, including CrowdStrike and AWS. He holds an MS in Cybersecurity Management from Purdue and a graduate certificate in Strategic Management from Harvard. HumanTerms is written and funded independently of his employment and represents his own views.
Press contact
Peter Oram
peter@humanterms.org
The full Pledge text is available as plain text and may be reproduced, translated and shared without permission. The public record of signatories opens once the founding signatories are in place. Signatures are being gathered now, and the press contact above can say where that stands.
This Pledge is a public commitment to those who use the products it covers. It is not a contract or warranty. Enforcement is reputational, regulatory, and through the public record of who has signed.