Terms
Terms of service.
Plain language: SENTINEL is informational. It's not a substitute for official emergency advice. Use it sensibly. We try hard to be accurate, but we don't accept liability for decisions made on the basis of information shown here.
The service
SENTINEL ("the Service") is a free, publicly accessible website that aggregates publicly available emergency management data, curated historical event records, and modelled risk maps. We provide it free of charge and without any guarantee of fitness for any particular purpose.
Not official advice
SENTINEL is not an official source. In an emergency, call 000. For warnings and action statements, follow the relevant state emergency management agency (RFS, SES, EMV, QFES, DFES, CFS, TFS) and the Bureau of Meteorology. Nothing on this site overrides or substitutes for official advice.
If there is a conflict between SENTINEL and an official source, follow the official source.
Use of the Service
You may use SENTINEL for personal, journalistic, educational, research, and operational purposes provided that:
- You don't represent SENTINEL information as official advice
- You don't scrape the site in ways that bypass rate limits or impose unreasonable load (programmatic access — talk to us about an API arrangement)
- You don't reverse-engineer underlying agency feeds to circumvent their licence terms
- You comply with the licence terms of each data source we surface (see sources page)
Accuracy
We strive for accuracy. Every page lists its data sources, vintage, and known limitations. Despite our care, errors and gaps will occur. We don't guarantee:
- That historical event records are complete
- That live agency feed data is current to the last minute (we display the latest snapshot we have, with timestamps)
- That modelled risk overlays reflect the latest available modelling
- That geocoded address coordinates are precise to a specific property
If you find an error, please tell us. We log every report.
Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by Australian law, we exclude liability for any loss, damage, or cost arising from your use of SENTINEL or any reliance you place on information shown here. The Australian Consumer Law provides certain non-excludable guarantees; nothing in these terms limits those.
Service availability
We aim for SENTINEL to be available continuously but make no guarantee. Planned and unplanned outages happen. During severe events, traffic spikes can cause performance issues.
User content
If account features launch and you upload data (shapefiles, GeoJSON, custom layers), you warrant that you have the right to upload it. We won't claim ownership of your content. We may store it on our infrastructure to provide the service, and we'll delete it when you ask us to or when you close your account.
Advertising and partner content
SENTINEL is supported by sponsorship and modest display advertising. See our sponsorship page for what we will and won't accept. Sponsored placements are labelled "Sponsored." We don't accept undisclosed sponsorship.
Privacy
See our privacy policy.
Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. Material changes will be posted on this page with a revised "last updated" date. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.
Jurisdiction
These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. Any disputes will be resolved in the courts of NSW.