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Agreement: user_aup_2022

Terms of Use

Tag / Version user_aup_2022

Canada’s national advanced research computing (ARC) platform is delivered through the Federation, which is a partnership of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance), regional Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI)-serving organizations (BC DRI Group, Prairie DRI Group, Compute Ontario, Calcul Québec and ACENET) and academic institutions across Canada. Together, the Federation partners provide computing infrastructure and services to a wide variety of academic disciplines from virology to astrophysics and literary analysis.

Definitions

  • Account Holder: an individual who has a CCDB account.

  • The Federation: a partnership of the Alliance, regional DRI-serving organizations (BC DRI Group, Prairie DRI Group, Compute Ontario, Calcul Québec, and ACENET), and academic institutions across Canada.

1. Access to Resources

1.1 You will never access or attempt to access any Federation resources (or any other user’s data on the Federation resources) other than those resources or data to which you have been granted access

1.2 You will always abide by any policies, protocols, or requirements that are in effect at institutions with which you are affiliated, such as an Acceptable Use Policy. In a situation in which a conflict exists between the Federation Terms of Use and the policies at institution(s) with which you are affiliated, you must notify1 the Federation staff and comply with any requirements identified by the Federation staff.

1.3 You will not allow any other individual to use your account to access Federation resources. If others require access as part of your research, these individuals must apply for their own account.

1.4 Any Federation account credentials and information used for authentication are confidential and you are responsible for keeping them secure.

1.5 You will provide and keep up-to-date user information in the Compute Canada Database (CCDB). [Updates can be made by logging into your account at https://ccdb.computecanada.ca/security/login.]

2. Conduct Requirements

2.1 You are responsible for the activities associated with your account and for the use of resources assigned to you.

2.2 You are responsible for understanding and meeting any privacy, confidentiality and acceptable use policies, requirements, laws or regulations that apply to your research and data. This includes, for instance, any provincial privacy laws or ethics board requirements affecting any data that you store on Federation systems.

2.3 In the event, your account is compromised, or suspicious activity is detected related to resources assigned to you, you agree to work with Federation staff and any institution with which you are affiliated to resolve the issue.

2.4 At no time will you use Federation resources for any activity that contravenes any applicable laws or regulations. You are responsible for identifying all applicable laws and regulations that may apply.

2.5 You agree that should you ever be investigated or found liable for any contravention of Canadian law, or any other applicable laws, the Federation is in no way responsible or liable for such contraventions or for any penalties associated with it. If anyone attempts to make the Federation liable for anything related to your research or your use of Federation resources, you agree to work with Federation staff to address the issue.

2.6 You must immediately notify2 the Federation if you become aware of any unauthorized access or use of Federation resources or data or of any event that might affect Federation information security or privacy.

2.7 You will complete an annual account renewal process to retain access to resources assigned to you.

2.8 The Federation reserves the right to define abuse of resources and take appropriate action where and if necessary. For example, it has the right to monitor use of its systems, deactivate an account, or block access to Federation resources.

3. Use of Resources

3.1 You will not use the Federation resources in any situation in which failure or fault of the use of the resources could lead to death or serious injury of any person or animal, or serious physical or environmental damage.

3.2 You will not introduce software into the Federation environment that may damage, interfere with, or capture any system, program, or data outside of your own assigned resources. The Federation reserves the right to identify, quarantine or delete any such software, as well as any related data.

3.3 You will not attempt to probe, scan, penetrate or test any Federation services or systems for vulnerability nor to probe, scan, penetrate or test any external services or systems.

3.4 You will not try to access or intercept data not intended for yourself or for the resources that are assigned to you.

3.5 You will not send or assist with unsolicited bulk communications.

3.6 You will not use applications without valid and appropriate licensing.

3.7 You will not use software services that would override Federation authentication or policy enforcement.

3.8 You will not use software or services that provide unprotected access to shared Federation resources.

3.9 You will not knowingly use Federation resources in a manner that impedes or denies the ability of others to use the resources to which they have been granted access.

3.10 You are expected to use Federation resources efficiently.

4. Acknowledgement and Reporting

4.1 In any publication or communication related to your use of Federation resources, you agree, where possible and appropriate, to acknowledge the Federation’s contribution as prescribed in the Federation Acknowledgement Policy.

5. Termination

5.1 Failure to abide by these Terms of Use may result in the revocation of access privileges as well as legal action against you or your institution.

5.2 If access is revoked or expired, the Federation will archive or retain your data for a one- year period. Temporary data3 will not be preserved and may be deleted at any time. After a year, if no action has been taken to reactivate the account, the Federation reserves the right to permanently delete all of your data.

6. Provision of Service

6.1 The Federation reserves the right to move data that is stored in the Federation systems and has been inactive for at least one year to manage and improve overall system performance.

6.2 The Federation reserves the right to request documentation that demonstrates that proper authorization is in place for the use of Federation resources.

6.3 The Federation reserves the right to audit and monitor the usage of, performance, and security posture of its systems to manage service stability, integrity, accessibility, and confidentiality.

6.4 To maintain overall system performance, the Federation reserves the right to manage system load. This may include deactivating logins or deleting jobs without notice.


  1. Contact by email at support@computecanada.ca or contact your local Federation representative. 

  2. Contact by email at security@computecanada.ca or contact your local Federation representative. 

  3. Temporary data includes any information stored on a device not intended for data preservation (e.g. scratch storage, temporary disk allocation, caches, etc.)