# Usage Policy

> Developers must outline and get approval for their use case to access the Cohere API, understanding the models and limitations. They should refer to model cards for detailed information and document potential harms of their application. Certain use cases, such as violence, hate speech, fraud, and privacy violations, are strictly prohibited.

(This document was updated on 11/21/2024)

Our Usage Policy applies to all Cohere products and services, including Cohere models, software, applications, and application programming interface (collectively *“Cohere Services”*).

The Usage Policy sets out universal requirements that apply to all users of the Cohere Services, and specific additional requirements that apply to users who create customer applications that integrate Cohere Services (each, a *“Customer Application”*).

We may update this Usage Policy from time to time by posting an updated version on our website.

If we learn that you have violated this Usage Policy or are otherwise misusing or abusing Cohere Services, we are entitled to restrict, suspend, or terminate your access to the Cohere Services. If you become aware of a violation of this Usage Policy, including by any Outputs, please notify us immediately at [safety@cohere.com](mailto:safety@cohere.com). If you are using the Cohere Services in our SaaS Platform, you can also report issues by using the thumbs down button on an Output.  “Outputs” means any information, text, image, audio or video content artificially created by Cohere Services.

## Universal Requirements

You must not use the Cohere Services to engage in, facilitate, or promote any of the following prohibited activities. Descriptions of prohibited activities are illustrative, not exhaustive.

* **Child Sexual Exploitation and Sexually Explicit Content Involving Minors**. Any activity that exploits, abuses, or endangers children, or otherwise compromises the safety of children; or any generation, creation, sharing, or facilitation of sexually explicit content involving minors, including pornographic content or content intended for sexual arousal or gratification. We will report child sexual abuse material that we become aware of to competent authorities and other organizations as appropriate.
* **Incitement of Violence or Harm.** Any use of the Cohere Services that (1) incites violence, threats, extremism, or terrorism; (2) glorifies or facilitates self-harm; (3) is sexually exploitative or abusive; (4) constitutes hate speech; or (5) promotes or glorifies racism, discrimination, hatred, or abuse, against any group or individual based on protected characteristics like race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity.
* **Illegal Activities.** Any illegal activity, or other violation of applicable law, including providing instructions on how to commit crimes, facilitating illegal activities or intentionally generating Outputs that may infringe, violate, or misappropriate the intellectual property rights of a third party.
* **Weapons and Controlled Substances.** Any activities that relate to the production, sale, trafficking, or marketing of weapons or controlled substances.
* **Compromising Privacy or Identity.** Violation of a person’s privacy rights or applicable privacy regulations, including unlawful access to or tracking of a person’s physical location; unlawful social scoring; real-time identification of a person or inference of emotions or protected characteristics of a person such as race or political opinions based on biometric data (including facial recognition);  or other unauthorized access to personal information.
* **Compromising Security.** Use of the Cohere Services to (1) compromise security or attempt to gain unauthorized access to computer systems or networks; (2) generate or propagate spam or carry out phishing or social engineering campaigns; (3) create or process any viruses or other computer programming routines that may damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept, or expropriate any system or data; or (4) otherwise violate the integrity, availability, or confidentiality of a user, network, computing device, communications system, or software application.
* **Surveillance and Predictive Policing.** Any activities involving illegal profiling or surveillance, including spyware or communications surveillance, untargeted scraping of facial images to create or expand a facial recognition database, or predictive policing, i.e., assessing or predicting the risks of a person committing a criminal offence.
* **Fraudulent, Abusive, Misleading, or Deceptive Practices.** Use of the Cohere Services to (1) generate inauthentic content representing real persons, places, entities, events, or objects that could falsely appear as authentic or truthful (so-called “deep fakes”) or as having been created by a human (e.g., fake reviews) in a manner that is misleading, deceiving or harmful to persons, groups, or entities; (2) engage in academic dishonesty; (3) deploy subliminal or purposefully deceptive techniques to distort behaviour or impair decision-making in a manner that is reasonably likely to cause significant harm; or (4) engage in deceptive or abusive practices that exploit vulnerabilities such as age, socio-economic status, or disability (e.g. misleading advertising, exploitative lending or debt collection practices, or high-pressure sales tactics).
* **Misinformation and Political Campaigning/Lobbying.** Creation or promotion of harmful misinformation and disinformation, including defamatory or libelous content and political propaganda; attempting to manipulate public opinion on issues such as health, safety, government policies, laws, or political campaigns or politicians; or deterring people from participating in or otherwise attempting to disrupt democratic processes, including misrepresenting voting processes or qualifications and discouraging voting.
* **Abusing Cohere Services.** Any activities that aim to (1) circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security, safety or technical features or protocols; (2) exploit a vulnerability; or (3) otherwise intentionally bypass restrictions of the Cohere Services, including through jailbreaking, prompt injection attacks, or automation to circumvent bans or usage limitations.
* **High Risk Activities.** Activities (1) where the use or failure of the Cohere Services could reasonably be expected to result in death, harm to psychological or physical health or safety, or severe environmental or property damage; or (2) that use the Cohere Services for automated determinations about individuals in domains that affect their rights, safety, or access to essential services and benefits (e.g., employment, education, healthcare, migration, housing, law enforcement, legal advice/decisions, or financial or insurance products or services). For the avoidance of doubt, backoffice uses (e.g., document summarization, transcription, internal knowledge agents, etc.) are not considered High Risk Activities under this Usage Policy.

## Customer Application Requirements

You must ensure your Customer Application complies with the Universal Requirements of this Usage Policy and that users of your Customer Application understand and are required to comply with substantially similar requirements.

If your Customer Application is public-facing and interacts with human users (including consumers), like chatbots and interactive AI agents, you must: (1) disclose to the users that they are interacting with an AI system rather than a human; and (2) if the Customer Application interacts with minors, comply with any specific child safety regulations and implement appropriate additional safety controls such as age verification and content moderation.

## Research Exceptions

Cohere encourages responsible security and safety research. Limited exceptions to our Usage Policy are possible for research purposes if specifically authorized by us or permitted in accordance with our Responsible Disclosure Policy applicable to security research. For safety-related research that falls outside the scope of our [Responsible Disclosure Policy](https://trustcenter.cohere.com/) or to report a model safety issue, please contact [safety@cohere.com](mailto:safety@cohere.com).