Terms of use
Plain language, on purpose. Last updated Nov 3, 2026.
Last updated: October 31, 2026. Working draft for review by counsel before launch.
The short version
This site is free. It gives you information and tools about governing AI, security, and privacy in your organization. It is not legal advice, compliance advice, or professional advice of any kind. We work hard to keep it accurate, but laws change, standards change, and we make mistakes, so you must check anything you rely on against the original source and your own advisors. We are not responsible for what you do with it. If you want someone to be accountable for advice about your situation, hire a professional. Justin Ryan may provide consulting under a separate written agreement; nothing on this site creates that relationship.
1. Who we are and what this covers
AI Governance Commons ("the Commons", "we", "us") is operated by Synthetic Labs and was built by Justin Ryan. These terms cover everything on syntheticlabs.ai: the Crosswalk, the Wire, the tools, the Workspace, the Ledger, the community features, the API and feeds, and every page that links here. By using any of it you agree to these terms. If you use the Workspace on behalf of a company, you confirm you may bind that company.
2. The site is free
Reading, searching, downloading, republishing under the stated licences, running the tools, and using the Workspace are free. We do not sell your data and we do not show advertising. Organizations may support the Commons through supporter tiers and a Pro Workspace tier, which are described on their own pages. The only other paid service connected to this site is consulting by Justin Ryan, which is covered by section 10, not by these terms.
3. Not advice
Nothing on this site is legal, regulatory, compliance, security, insurance, financial, or other professional advice, and nothing here is a substitute for it. The Crosswalk describes laws and standards in plain language as we understand them. The tools score your answers against checklists we wrote. The Wire reports and comments on news. None of this is tailored to your facts, none of it is reviewed by a lawyer for your situation, and none of it creates an attorney-client, consultant-client, or any other professional relationship. Whether a law applies to you, what it requires, and whether you meet it are questions only a qualified professional who knows your facts can answer.
4. You must do your own research
We publish the dates we last verified each Crosswalk entry, we link to primary sources, and we log our corrections in public. Even so, information here can be incomplete, out of date, or wrong, and laws and standards change without notice to us. Before you rely on anything on this site, you must check it against the original law, regulation, standard, or vendor policy and confirm it is current and correct for your jurisdiction and your facts. If you find an error, tell us through the correction form and we will fix it; that does not change your responsibility to verify.
5. No warranty
The site, the content, the tools, the Workspace, the API, and everything else here are provided "as is" and "as available", without any warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any warranty of accuracy, completeness, fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, non-infringement, or uninterrupted or error-free operation. We may change, pause, or stop any part of the site at any time.
6. No liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, Synthetic Labs, Justin Ryan, and anyone who contributes to or works on the Commons are not liable to you or anyone else for any loss or damage of any kind arising from your use of, or reliance on, this site or anything on it. This includes direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, and punitive damages; lost profits, revenue, data, or goodwill; regulatory fines and penalties; the cost of substitute services; and claims by third parties, whether in contract, tort, negligence, or otherwise, even if we were told such damages were possible. Where the law does not allow us to exclude liability entirely, our total liability for all claims together is limited to one hundred US dollars or the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, whichever is greater. Some jurisdictions do not allow some of these limits, so some may not apply to you.
7. Tools, scores, and reports
The wizard, the Posture Review, the Security Essentials check, the Deployer Baseline self-assessment, the domain check, the CMMC Level 1 self-check, the Tool Register, the Incident Desk, and every other tool produce informational output based on what you enter and on checklists we wrote. A score, a report, or a "pass" is not a certification, an audit, an assurance opinion, or a statement that you comply with any law or standard. Safe harbors such as Texas SB 2610 and TRAIGA are defined by statute and applied by courts and regulators; using our tools does not mean you qualify for one. The domain check reads only public records about a domain you enter and never tests systems; you may only check domains you own or are authorized to check.
8. The Workspace and your data
You and your organization own the data you put into the Workspace. We process it only to provide the service, as the privacy policy describes. You can export it at any time and delete it on request. The free tier has limits stated on the Workspace page. We may change the Workspace, its limits, or its features, and we will give at least 30 days notice before removing a feature or ending the service, with your data available for export during that time.
9. Attestations, trust pages, and things you publish
An attestation, a trust page, a directory profile, a job listing, a comment, or an article you publish through the Commons is your statement under your name. You are responsible for its accuracy. By publishing you confirm you are authorized to speak for the organization named, you grant us a licence to display it until you withdraw it, and you agree we may remove anything we reasonably believe is false, misleading, unlawful, or against the acceptable use rules, with notice where practical. We do not audit attestations and say so wherever they appear.
10. Consulting is separate
Justin Ryan may take consulting engagements through Synthetic Labs. Any such work is governed by a separate written agreement between you and Synthetic Labs, not by these terms. Sending a message through the contact form, asking a question in the community, or reading anything on this site does not make you a client, and we may decline any engagement.
11. Licences for our content and data
Unless a page says otherwise: text on the Wire and in playbooks is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0); analysis and opinion pieces under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-ND 4.0); Crosswalk data under the Open Database License (ODbL); the Deployer Baseline and the Security Essentials checklist under CC BY 4.0. Images and third-party material may carry their own rights, stated in their credits. Our names and logos are not covered by these licences. Use of the API and feeds is also governed by the API and data terms.
12. Accounts and acceptable use
You must give accurate information and keep your credentials safe. The acceptable use rules apply to the Workspace, the community features, and the API. We may suspend or close accounts that break them. You can delete your account at any time.
13. Links to other sites
We link to laws, regulators, standards bodies, vendors, books, and other sites. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content, accuracy, or practices, and a link is not an endorsement.
14. Your responsibility to us
You agree to be responsible for, and to defend us against, claims that arise from content you publish through the Commons, from your use of the site in breach of these terms, or from decisions you make in reliance on the site.
15. Changes
We may change these terms. Material changes are announced on the site and in the Brief at least 14 days before they take effect, and the change log on this page shows what changed. Using the site after a change means you accept it.
16. Governing law and disputes
Texas law governs these terms, and any dispute will be heard in the state or federal courts in Bexar County, Texas, unless the law where you live requires otherwise. Before starting any formal claim, both of us agree to try to resolve the matter by email within 30 days.
17. Contact
Use the contact form, or the addresses listed on the contact page.
Change log
October 31, 2026: first draft.
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Use the contact form. These pages were drafted for review by counsel; the date above shows when they last changed.