Terms of Service

Effective date: March 17, 2026
Last updated: March 17, 2026

These Terms of Service govern your use of the Fish Certification Authority website, services, submission system, user account area, certificate verification pages, and related features operated under the Fish Certification Authority brand, referred to below as FCA, we, us, or our.

By using this website, creating an account, submitting a catch, or checking the boxes that accept these Terms and our Privacy Policy, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the site.

1. What FCA does

FCA provides a platform where anglers can create an account, submit fish catches for review, and, if approved, receive a digital certificate with a unique certificate ID and a public verification page.

FCA is a private certification platform. It is not a government agency, wildlife authority, tournament organizer, or law enforcement body.

2. Eligibility and accounts

You must provide accurate information when you create an account or use the site. You are responsible for your account credentials and for activity that happens under your account.

You must complete any required account verification steps before you can submit a catch.

We may suspend, restrict, or remove accounts that contain false information, abuse the platform, or violate these Terms.

3. Submission rules

When you submit a catch, you agree that:

• the information you provide is accurate to the best of your knowledge
• the photos you upload are yours to use or you have permission to use them
• the catch data you submit is not misleading, fabricated, manipulated, or impersonated
• the submission complies with FCA rules, minimum size requirements, and any published program requirements

Submitting a catch does not guarantee approval, certification, publication, or permanent listing.

4. Review, approval, rejection, and revocation

FCA reviews submissions manually. We may approve, reject, request resubmission, or revoke a previously approved record.

We may correct minor spelling or formatting errors before approval. If a submission contains material factual errors, missing evidence, inconsistent data, suspected fraud, or rule violations, we may reject it or require a new submission.

A certificate may later be marked rejected, revoked, or otherwise no longer valid if FCA determines that the submission was inaccurate, misleading, non-compliant, or improperly approved.

Public status may change to reflect the current record status.

5. Public pages, certificate IDs, and publication consent

Some approved records are published publicly. Public content may include:

• angler name
• species
• catch length
• catch date
• body of water or location
• certificate ID
• certificate status
• photos you authorized FCA to publish

Certificate verification pages, Hall of Fame entries, and certificate IDs are intended to be publicly accessible so third parties can verify an approved record.

By submitting a catch with publication consent enabled, you grant FCA a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, and publish the submitted photos and catch metadata for certification, verification, archive, promotional, editorial, and historical purposes related to FCA.

6. User content

You keep ownership of content you submit, subject to the rights you grant to FCA in these Terms.

You must not upload content that is unlawful, infringing, defamatory, abusive, deceptive, malicious, or invasive of another person’s privacy.

We may remove or disable access to content at any time if we reasonably believe it violates these Terms, applicable law, or the integrity of the FCA platform.

7. Acceptable use

You must not:

• attempt to bypass account, verification, or security controls
• scrape, copy, mirror, or bulk-extract site data in an abusive manner
• submit false, manipulated, or fraudulent records
• interfere with site operation or other users
• use the site to distribute malware, spam, or harmful code
• impersonate another person or misrepresent your affiliation

We may block access, suspend accounts, preserve records, and take other reasonable action to protect the platform.

8. Availability and changes

We may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of the site, features, submission rules, or certification workflow at any time.

We do not guarantee uninterrupted availability, permanent storage, or that the site will always be free from bugs, delays, or outages.

9. Intellectual property

The FCA name, branding, site design, certificate formats, verification system, and platform materials are owned by FCA or used with permission, unless otherwise stated.

You may not copy, resell, reverse engineer, or exploit FCA materials or platform content except as allowed by law or with written permission.

10. No warranties

The site and services are provided on an as is and as available basis.

FCA does not guarantee that:

• every submission will be approved
• every certificate will remain valid permanently
• every page or email will be available without interruption
• the site will be error-free, secure, or suitable for every purpose

11. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, FCA and its operators, staff, contractors, and affiliates are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, reputation, business, opportunities, or expected benefits arising from or related to use of the site or services.

If the law does not allow certain exclusions, liability is limited to the minimum extent allowed by law.

12. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless FCA and its operators, staff, contractors, and affiliates from claims, losses, liabilities, and expenses arising from your submissions, your content, your misuse of the platform, or your violation of these Terms.

13. Privacy

Your use of the site is also governed by the FCA Privacy Policy.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The updated version becomes effective when posted on this page, unless a later date is stated.

Your continued use of the site after changes are posted means you accept the revised Terms.

15. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of Manitoba, Canada, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

16. Contact

Fish Certification Authority
Email: info@fishcertificationauthority.com
Contact page: https://fishcertificationauthority.com/contact/