The Agreement Between You and X-PEN ID.

1 Acceptance of Terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") form a binding legal agreement between you ("you" or "Contributor") and Xpertno Research Center ("XRC," "we," "us"), the operating entity of X-PEN ID, originally founded under Expert Novice Group Pvt Ltd in April 2025. By accessing, browsing, registering for, or using X-PEN ID in any way, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy.

If you are using the platform on behalf of an organization, you represent and warrant that you have the authority to bind that organization to these Terms. If you do not agree to any part of these Terms, you must not access or use the platform.

2 Definitions

• "Platform" — the X-PEN ID website at xpenid.com, associated subdomains, APIs, and connected services including XIJIR, SEIPID, PubLibra, X-NeuroVerification Engine (XNVE), and Prof. X.
• "X-PEN ID Code" — the unique persistent identifier issued to a contributor (e.g., NR-XPEN2025-0001).
• "Profile" — your public X-PEN ID profile page and the structured data graph it generates.
• "Content" — any text, data, images, documents, links, or material submitted by you to the Platform.
• "Verification" — the structured process by which XRC reviews and validates submitted credentials, claims, or affiliations.
• "Public Integrity Register" — the public list of accounts that have been suspended, restricted, or terminated for documented violations of these Terms.

3 Eligibility & Registration

X-PEN ID is intended for students, researchers, authors, educators, and professionals engaging in academic or professional activity. By registering for an account, you represent and warrant that:

• You are at least 13 years of age; users between 13 and 18 must have parental or institutional consent
• You have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract under the laws of your jurisdiction
• All information you provide during registration and on your Profile is accurate, complete, current, and truthful
• You are not registering on behalf of another person without their explicit authorization
• You are not currently suspended, banned, or otherwise restricted from using X-PEN ID under a previous account
• You are not prohibited from receiving the platform's services under applicable law or international sanctions

By completing registration, you also acknowledge and agree to the consents described in Section 4 of our Privacy Policy, including consent to public distribution of profile data and consent to verification through third-party contact.

4 Account Security & Responsibility

You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account. You agree to:

• Choose a strong, unique password and not share it with anyone
• Notify XRC immediately of any unauthorized account access or security breach
• Log out of shared devices after each session
• Be responsible for all actions, content, and submissions made through your account

5 Our Services

X-PEN ID provides the following services to contributors:

• Persistent contributor identifier (X-PEN ID code) issuance
• Public profile creation and Schema.org-compliant knowledge graph generation
• Multi-level verification of identity, credentials, education, employment, publications, and affiliations
• Indexing and discoverability across search engines and AI agents
• Publication and book record indexing
• Connection with the wider ecosystem (SEIPID, XIJIR, PubLibra, X-NeuroVerification, Prof. X)
• Search, networking, and discovery features (X-Feed)
• AI-assisted research support via Prof. X

We reserve the right to modify, add, suspend, or discontinue any feature, service, or part of the Platform at any time, with or without notice. Continued use of the platform after changes constitutes acceptance of those changes.

6 Verification & Authorization

Verification is central to the integrity of X-PEN ID. By submitting any credential, document, or claim for verification — whether automatically as part of registration, or manually as part of profile-building — you grant XRC explicit and ongoing authorization to:

• Take reasonable steps to verify the authenticity of submitted information
• Contact universities, registrars, employers, supervisors, issuing bodies, journals, publishers, co-authors, and government registries directly to confirm specific claims
• Cross-reference your data with public databases, persistent-identifier registries, and authoritative open sources (e.g., ORCID, Scopus, ISNI, Web of Science, Google Scholar)
• Hold and process verification documents privately for the limited periods described in our Privacy Policy
• Decline or revoke verification if information cannot be substantiated, appears altered, or is contradicted by authoritative sources

You remain fully responsible for the correctness, legality, and legitimacy of all information you submit, before and after a verification status is granted. Verification badges or "stones" may be downgraded, removed, or publicly revoked if subsequent evidence contradicts a previously verified claim.

7 Public Profiles, Indexing & AI Discovery

X-PEN ID is, by design, a public identity platform. By creating an account, you provide explicit consent for XRC to:

• Publish your profile content (as listed in Privacy Policy Section 3) on a publicly accessible profile page
• Allow your profile to be crawled, indexed, and cached by search engines including but not limited to Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex
• Make your profile readable by AI agents and assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini
• Emit Schema.org / JSON-LD representations of your profile for machine-readable discovery
• Display your profile in our public search results, X-Feed, and connected services
• Share structured representations with future ecosystem integrators (journals, indexers, institutions) under documented agreements

Once content has been published and indexed, XRC cannot guarantee its complete removal from third-party caches, AI training data, or external discovery systems. You may remove or edit content from your profile at any time, but historical traces in external systems may persist.

8 Your Content & License Grant

You retain ownership of all original content you submit to X-PEN ID. However, by submitting content, you grant XRC a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, irrevocable license for the duration of your account (and reasonably afterwards for archival and operational purposes) to:

• Host, store, reproduce, modify (only for technical formatting), distribute, publish, and display the content on the Platform
• Index your content for search and discovery
• Generate Schema.org / JSON-LD representations of your content
• Promote the platform using anonymized or aggregated content statistics
• Enable third-party search engines and AI agents to access your public content for discovery purposes

You represent and warrant that you own the content you submit, or have the necessary rights to grant this license, and that your content does not infringe the rights of any third party.

9 Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Submit false, fabricated, forged, or misleading credentials, publications, or affiliations
• Impersonate another person or claim achievements you did not earn
• Create multiple or duplicate accounts for the same individual
• Manipulate the verification system through fraud, bribery, or collusion
• Submit content that is illegal, defamatory, hateful, harassing, threatening, obscene, or violates the rights of others
• Upload viruses, malware, or any code designed to disrupt or damage the platform
• Attempt to scrape, copy, or harvest data beyond what our public API or interface permits
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or otherwise attempt to extract source code or internal logic
• Interfere with or disrupt the platform, our servers, or any user's experience
• Use the platform to spam, phish, or solicit other users without consent
• Misuse Prof. X (the AI assistant) to generate or distribute harmful, illegal, or deceptive content
• Violate any applicable local, national, or international law or regulation
• Encourage or assist any third party in doing any of the above

Violations of this section are grounds for immediate suspension, termination, and inclusion on the Public Integrity Register described in Section 10.

10 Suspension, Termination & Public Disclosure

To preserve the integrity of the platform, XRC reserves the absolute right to suspend, restrict, ban, or terminate any account, with or without prior notice, where we determine — in our reasonable discretion — that the account or its holder:

• Has violated these Terms or the Privacy Policy
• Has submitted false, forged, or misrepresented information
• Has failed verification or refuses reasonable cooperation with the verification process
• Is engaged in fraudulent, abusive, harassing, or harmful behavior
• Has compromised the security of the platform or other users
• Has violated applicable law, sanctions, or regulations
• Is reasonably believed to threaten the integrity of the platform or its ecosystem

Public Integrity Register

Where an account is restricted, banned, or terminated for documented platform-integrity reasons, XRC may publish the following on the Public Integrity Register:

• The X-PEN ID code (e.g., XX-XPEN2025-0000)
• The public name associated with the account
• The general category of violation (e.g., "fraudulent credentials," "duplicate identity," "verification abuse," "policy violation")
• The date of the action
• A clear notice on the affected profile

Detailed personal accusations, private documents, and verification materials will not be published. Disclosure is limited to information necessary to protect the broader scholarly community.

Effects of termination

Upon suspension or termination of your account:

• Your right to access and use the Platform immediately ceases
• Your X-PEN ID code is retired and not reassigned
• Public profile content may be removed, redacted, or replaced with a notice — at XRC's discretion
• Verified scholarly records (publications, citations) may be retained for academic integrity purposes, marked as inactive
• Surviving provisions of these Terms (including those in this section, Sections 12–18) remain in effect

11 Payments & Fees

Individual contributor accounts and basic profile features are, and will remain, free. To sustain platform operations and fund continued development, XRC may, at its discretion, introduce optional paid services. These may include:

Refund policy

Where any paid service, subscription, or verification fee is purchased, all payments are strictly non-refundable, except where required by applicable law. By making any payment on the platform, you acknowledge and accept this non-refundable policy.

Pricing changes

XRC reserves the right to introduce, modify, or discontinue paid features at any time. Where pricing changes affect an active subscription, we will provide at least 30 days' notice by email or in-platform notification. Continued use of the paid feature after the notice period constitutes acceptance of the new pricing.

Important pricing principles

• Verification cannot be purchased. Paid premium verification only refers to expedited processing of standard checks — it does not lower the threshold or guarantee a result.
• Verification badges are earned, not bought. Payment never grants higher verification levels.
• Free tier is permanent. Existing free contributor features will remain free for individual contributors.

12 Intellectual Property

All intellectual property rights in the X-PEN ID platform — including its software, design, brand, logos ("X-PEN ID," "Prof. X," "XIJIR," "SEIPID," "PubLibra," "X-NeuroVerification"), and all content excluding user-submitted Content — are owned by or licensed to XRC and Expert Novice Group Pvt Ltd.

You may use the platform for personal, non-commercial purposes consistent with these Terms. Any other use — including commercial reproduction, redistribution, scraping, training of AI models on platform content beyond fair use, or unauthorized API integration — requires our prior written consent.

13 Disclaimers

XRC does not warrant that:

• The platform will be free of errors, bugs, or interruptions
• Verification will result in any specific opportunity, recognition, or outcome
• Search engines, AI agents, or third parties will index or display your profile in a particular way
• Information from third-party verifications will always be timely or available
• The platform will meet your specific expectations or requirements

No guarantee of acceptance or recognition

X-PEN ID does not guarantee acceptance, recognition, employment, academic admission, scholarship or funding, publication approval, professional promotion, or institutional validation through use of the platform or its verification services. The platform provides discoverability and trust signals — outcomes depend entirely on third-party decisions.

14 Limitation of Liability

• Your use of, or inability to use, the platform
• Your profile visibility, indexing, or third-party caching
• Verification outcomes, delays, or denials
• Public representation of your data or its interpretation by third parties
• Academic, professional, employment, legal, or institutional consequences related to your profile
• Errors or misrepresentations in content you submitted
• Unauthorized access, hacking, data breach, or any security incident
• Misuse of public profile data by third parties (employers, journals, AI agents, etc.)
• Loss of data, profile content, or service interruption
• Decisions made by external institutions, journals, employers, or systems based on your X-PEN ID profile

You agree that the entire risk arising out of your use of X-PEN ID rests solely with you. To the extent any liability cannot legally be excluded, XRC's total aggregate liability to you in connection with the platform shall not exceed the amount you paid (if any) to XRC in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or USD 100, whichever is greater.

15 Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless XRC, Expert Novice Group Pvt Ltd, and their respective officers, directors, employees, contractors, and affiliates from and against any and all claims, demands, damages, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to:

• Content you submit, publish, or display on the platform
• Your violation of these Terms or any applicable law
• Your violation of the rights of any third party (including intellectual property, privacy, or publicity rights)
• False or misleading information you provide
• Your misuse of the platform or any of its features
• Any dispute between you and any third party arising from your use of the platform

16 Prof. X (AI Assistant) Disclaimer

Prof. X is an AI-powered informational assistant. All responses generated by Prof. X are for guidance, suggestion, and educational purposes only. Prof. X may produce incorrect, incomplete, or outdated information.

XRC makes no legal, medical, professional, institutional, or official guarantees regarding AI-generated content. Users must independently verify any advice or information generated by Prof. X before acting on it. Prof. X must not be used as a substitute for qualified professional advice (legal, medical, financial, or otherwise).

17 Force Majeure

XRC shall not be liable for any failure or delay in performance of its obligations under these Terms when such failure or delay is caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to:

• Acts of God, natural disasters, pandemics, or extreme weather
• War, civil unrest, terrorism, or government action
• Internet, hosting, or third-party infrastructure outages
• Cyber-attacks, hacking, or denial-of-service attacks beyond reasonable defenses
• Strikes, labor disputes, or personnel emergencies
• Changes in law that prevent platform operation

18 General Provisions

Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.

No waiver

XRC's failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms shall not be considered a waiver of that right or provision.

Entire agreement

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and XRC regarding the platform and supersede all prior agreements or understandings, whether written or oral.

Assignment

You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your account without XRC's prior written consent. XRC may assign these Terms in connection with a corporate restructuring, merger, or transfer of operations.

Notices

Notices to you may be sent by email to your registered address, by in-platform notification, or by posting on the platform. Notices to XRC must be sent to legal@xpenid.com.

19 Governing Law & Dispute Resolution

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, without regard to its conflict-of-law provisions. For users located in jurisdictions with mandatory consumer protection laws (such as the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom), additional local-law protections may apply where they cannot be waived by contract.

Any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or related to these Terms or the platform shall first be addressed through good-faith negotiation by contacting legal@xpenid.com.

If the dispute is not resolved within 60 days, it shall be finally settled through binding arbitration in accordance with the rules of an established arbitration body recognized in Pakistan. The seat of arbitration shall be Pakistan, the language of arbitration shall be English, and judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

20 Changes to These Terms

XRC reserves the right to modify these Terms at any time. When material changes are made, we will:

• Update the "Effective" date at the top of this document
• Increment the version number
• Notify registered contributors by email or in-platform notice
• For significant changes, provide reasonable advance notice before they take effect

Your continued use of the platform after the effective date of an updated Terms document constitutes acceptance of the changes. If you do not agree to the updated Terms, you must stop using the platform.

21 Contact

For questions about these Terms or platform governance, contact: