Terms of use

As of 3 November 2026, version 2026-11. This is the English version of the German text. If the two differ, the German text applies. You reach it through the language switch.

1. Scope

1.1 These terms of use govern the use of Annotator (annotator.ch). Annotator is a service of VectorAgency GmbH, Zürcherstrasse 57, 8102 Oberengstringen, Switzerland, UID CHE-249.195.851 ("we").

1.2 You agree to these terms when you sign in to annotator. When you buy credit, you agree on the payment page to the version that applies at the time of purchase.

1.3 You must be at least 18 years old to have an account.

1.4 If you use Annotator for a company, an organization or another professional activity, you confirm with your agreement that you can act for it. In that case, section 10 (processing on your behalf) also applies. The general terms of your company or organization do not apply.

1.5 The privacy policy describes how we process personal data about you.

2. The service

2.1 Annotator detects personal data, such as names, addresses and AHV numbers, in texts and files that you insert. It replaces the data with placeholders such as [PERSON_1]. You copy the text with placeholders yourself, for example into an AI chat. When you insert the answer into Annotator again, Annotator puts the original data back in your browser.

2.2 Annotator has no connection to an AI chat and sends nothing to an AI provider. You decide what you copy and where.

2.3 Our servers do not store or log your text, the text with placeholders, or the assignment of placeholders to the original data. The assignment stays in the storage of your browser tab. It is deleted when you close the tab. We cannot restore it.

2.4 We develop Annotator further. We can change, add or remove functions. Your right to a refund under section 8 stays.

2.5 We do not promise a specific availability. Maintenance, faults or high load can make Annotator slow or unavailable for a time, and Annotator can refuse a request. Annotator does not charge credit for a refused request.

3. Limits of detection

3.1 Annotator pseudonymizes: it replaces personal data with placeholders, and the content of the text stays. For this reason, the text with placeholders is not anonymous. The context, rare details, or data that Annotator does not detect can identify a person.

3.2 Detection is automatic. It does not find all personal data, and it sometimes replaces words that are not personal data. For French and Italian texts, it is less reliable than for German texts. If detection misses some personal data or replaces too much, this is not defective performance.

3.3 You must check the result before you pass it on, and correct it where necessary.

3.4 Annotator does not decide whether you are permitted to process or pass on a text. Using Annotator does not make passing on a text lawful or safe.

4. Your responsibility

4.1 You decide which texts you insert and where you send the result. You are responsible for this. In particular, you are responsible for making sure that data protection law, any professional secrecy and your contracts permit you to process and pass on the texts.

4.2 We do not check the content of your texts.

4.3 For an AI chat or any other service that you put a text into, the terms of its provider apply. We are not responsible for these services.

4.4 You sign in with your email address and a code that we send you. A person with access to your mailbox can sign in to your account. For this reason, you must protect the access to your mailbox. You must tell us immediately at support@annotator.ch if someone misuses your account.

4.5 Your use must not disturb the operation of Annotator or affect other users. In particular, you must not:

• use Annotator with scripts or other automated means, or go around the limits on requests
• attack the security of Annotator, or test it without our prior consent
• open more than one account to get the starting credit more than once.

5. Account and organizations

5.1 We open your account when you sign in for the first time. Each account has its own workspace with its own credit. Each organization also has a workspace. You always work in one workspace, which you select in annotator.

5.2 An organization starts from a voucher that we issue for one specific email address. Only that address can redeem it. The person who redeems it becomes the owner of the organization.

5.3 The owner invites members by email until all seats are taken. The owner withdraws invitations and removes members. Each member, each open invitation and the owner's own account take one seat. The owner is responsible for the persons that the owner invites.

5.4 All members use the credit of the organization. Only the owner buys credit for the organization. A member can leave the organization at any time.

5.5 To delete your account, write to support@annotator.ch from the address of your account. We delete the account within 30 days. Your credit expires when we delete the account. Before that, you can ask for a refund under section 8.4.

5.6 If we delete the account of an owner, we close the organizations of that owner. The members then lose access to the organization, and the credit of the organization expires.

5.7 We can block an account, an email address or a domain if a person breaks section 4.5, misuses Annotator, or if the law requires it. On request, we refund unused bought credit of a blocked account under section 8.1.

6. Credit

6.1 Annotator charges in tokens. For each run on a text or a file, Annotator deducts tokens from the credit of the workspace that you work in. The number of tokens depends on the length, the language and the format of the text.

6.2 Annotator also shows credit in pages. One page is 750 tokens. As a guide, this is about one A4 page with 500 words. We charge in tokens.

6.3 Inserting the original data into an answer is free of charge.

6.4 Credit is valid as follows:

• Bought credit: until the end of the same calendar day, 24 months after the payment.
• Starting credit: each new account gets 10 pages, once per mailbox. After an account deletion, the same mailbox does not get them again. They are valid until the end of the same calendar day, 12 months after we add them.
• Voucher credit: until the end of the day on which the voucher expires. A voucher expires 90 days after we issue it.
• Survey credit, which an organization gets for taking part in a survey: until its voucher credit expires, but for at least 30 days after we add it.
• Credit from Annotator: no expiry.

Zurich time applies. The “Credit” page of your account shows which credit is valid until when.

6.5 Annotator always uses the credit that expires first. Credit with no expiry comes last.

6.6 After expiry, credit has no value. We do not pay it out and we do not refund it. 30 days before bought credit expires, we send a reminder by email to the owner of the workspace.

6.7 Starting credit, voucher credit, survey credit and credit from Annotator have no cash value. We do not pay them out. Credit belongs to the workspace that received it. You cannot transfer it.

7. Buying credit

7.1 You buy credit in packs. The packs and prices that Annotator shows at the time of purchase apply. Prices are in Swiss francs and include 8.1% Swiss VAT.

7.2 We sell credit in Switzerland only. We do not accept payment cards issued outside Switzerland.

7.3 Only the owner of a workspace buys credit for it. Before the purchase, Annotator shows which workspace receives the credit.

7.4 You select a pack and go to the payment page of our payment provider Stripe. There you check your details, agree to these terms and pay by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or TWINT. The purchase is complete when Stripe confirms the payment to us. We then add the credit, and Stripe sends you a confirmation by email. You get an invoice with VAT for each purchase.

7.5 For online purchases, Swiss law gives no right to cancel the purchase. But we refund unused bought credit under section 8.

7.6 If we change prices or packs, the change applies only to later purchases. Bought credit keeps its tokens and its validity.

8. Refunds

8.1 Unused bought credit. Until its expiry date, we refund the unused part of a bought pack on request. We refund an unused pack in full and a partly used pack pro rata: in the proportion of the unused credit to the credit of the pack. The basis is the amount that you paid and the credit on the day that your request reaches us. The person who bought the pack asks for the refund by email to support@annotator.ch, from the address of the account. We deduct no fee, and there is no minimum amount. With the refund, the remaining credit of that pack expires.

8.2 No refund. We do not refund credit that is used or expired. We pay no money for starting credit, voucher credit, survey credit or credit from Annotator, because you paid nothing for it.

8.3 Errors by annotator. If Annotator charges credit for a run and you get no usable result because of an error by Annotator, we give the charged credit back. The same applies if Annotator charges the same text twice, for example for the new check after a correction. We give the credit back if you report the case to us within 30 days, with the reference of the booking from your history. If Annotator misses some personal data, this is not an error in this sense (section 3.2). We add the credit back as credit from annotator. It does not expire.

8.4 Account deletion. Before we delete your account, we refund the unused part of bought packs on request, as section 8.1 describes. Ask for the refund in the email in which you ask for the deletion, or before. We do not offer the refund on our own. If you do not ask for it, the credit expires with the deletion.

8.5 End of the service. If we end Annotator, we tell you by email at least 30 days in advance. We then refund the unused part of bought packs pro rata. You do not need to ask for it.

8.6 How we refund. We refund to the payment method that you used. If this is no longer possible, for example with TWINT after 180 days, we transfer the amount to a bank account that you name. We do not deduct the fees of the payment provider.

8.7 Mandatory law. Mandatory statutory claims remain reserved.

9. Rights in texts and in Annotator

9.1 We get no rights in your texts or in the results. We process them only to provide the service. We do not use them to train models.

9.2 Annotator, its software, its name and its sign belong to us. You get a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use Annotator under these terms.

10. Processing on your behalf for companies and organizations

10.1 Scope. This section applies if you use Annotator for a company, an organization or another professional activity, and your texts contain personal data that you are responsible for. In this section, "you" also means the company or organization that you act for. You stay the controller of this personal data under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP). We process it on your behalf (Art. 9 FADP). Where the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) applies, this section is the contract under Art. 28 GDPR. You conclude this agreement when you agree to these terms. We do not sign individual processing agreements.

10.2 Subject. We detect the personal data in your texts and files and replace it with placeholders. For this, we also process the placeholders and original values of earlier texts that your browser sends with each new text. The data subjects are the persons named in your texts. The data is any personal data that your texts contain, sensitive personal data included. Each processing lasts as long as the single request. After it, we keep neither the text, nor the result, nor the assignment.

10.3 Purpose and instructions. We process this personal data only to provide the service under these terms, and for no purpose of our own. Your use of Annotator is your instruction. If we think that an instruction is unlawful, we tell you.

10.4 Confidentiality. All persons who have access to the servers of Annotator for us are bound to confidentiality.

10.5 Data security. In particular, we protect the processing as follows:

• TLS encrypts the connection between your browser and annotator.
• Our servers do not store or log the text, the result or the assignment.
• The servers are in Switzerland.
• Only authorized staff have access to the servers and to the administration tool. The administration tool requires a second factor at sign-in.

10.6 Sub-processors. You permit us to use sub-processors. Today this is Infomaniak Network SA, Geneva, Switzerland, which operates the servers. We bind each sub-processor to data protection by contract. A new sub-processor is a change to these terms. We announce it under section 13.1, and you can act under section 13.2.

10.7 Location. We process your texts in Switzerland only. We do not disclose them abroad.

10.8 Support. We do not store your texts. For this reason, we cannot give information about their content, correct it or delete it. You answer requests from data subjects about your texts yourself. The information that you need for your own duties, for example for a data protection impact assessment, is in these terms and in the privacy policy. We do not offer further support.

10.9 Data security breach. If we learn of a breach of data security that affects personal data in your texts, we report it to the address of your account as soon as possible.

10.10 Evidence. On request, we describe by email how we meet the duties of this section. We permit an audit at our premises only if the applicable law makes it mandatory. You announce the audit at least 30 days in advance and you pay its costs.

10.11 End. When your use ends, we have nothing to return or delete, because we do not store your texts.

10.12 Professional secrecy. If professional secrecy applies to you, you decide yourself whether you can use Annotator for that work. We keep your texts secret.

10.13 Our own responsibility. We are the controller for the data about your account, your credit and your purchases, and for the logs. The privacy policy applies to this data.

11. Liability

11.1 We are liable without limit for damage that we cause with intent or gross negligence.

11.2 For slight negligence, we are liable only for direct damage, and only up to the amount that you paid us for credit in the 12 months before the event that caused the damage, but at least up to CHF 100. For slight negligence, we are not liable for lost profit or consequential damage.

11.3 We are not liable for third-party services that you choose yourself, for example your AI chat.

11.4 We are not liable for personal data that detection misses (section 3.2), nor for what happens to a text after you pass it on. Section 11.1 remains reserved.

11.5 These limits also apply to our staff and auxiliaries. Mandatory statutory liability remains reserved.

12. Third-party claims

If a third party makes a claim against us because you inserted or passed on texts without authorization, or because you broke these terms in another way, you indemnify us, to the extent that you are at fault.

13. Changes

13.1 We can change these terms. We announce each change that affects your rights or duties by email to the address of your account, at least 30 days before it takes effect.

13.2 If you do not agree with a change, you can stop using Annotator, have your account deleted, and ask for a refund under section 8.1. If you continue to use Annotator after the change takes effect, the new version applies.

13.3 For bought credit, the validity and the refund rules of the version that applied at the time of purchase apply, unless the new version is better for you.

14. Duration and termination

14.1 The contract has no fixed end. You can stop using Annotator at any time and ask us to delete your account (section 5.5).

14.2 We can end the contract by email with 30 days' notice, or at once for good cause, for example after a block under section 5.7. In both cases, we refund unused bought credit under section 8.

15. Notices

We write to the email address of your account. You can contact us at support@annotator.ch.

16. Applicable law and place of jurisdiction

16.1 Swiss law applies. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

16.2 The place of jurisdiction is the registered office of VectorAgency GmbH. If you are a consumer, you can also sue at your place of residence, and we sue you at your place of residence (Art. 32 Swiss Civil Procedure Code).

16.3 Mandatory consumer protection rules remain reserved.

17. Final provisions

17.1 If one provision is invalid, the other provisions stay valid.

17.2 We can transfer this contract to a company that continues annotator. We tell you in advance by email, and you can act under section 13.2.

17.3 These terms exist in German and in English. If the two differ, the German text applies.