Terms of use

Effective date: August 2026

Aide is a decision-support service for New Zealand local councillors. It analyses publicly available council documents using artificial intelligence and produces concise, page-cited briefs to help elected members prepare for meetings and votes. Briefs are provided for informational support only and are not legal, financial, or professional advice.

By using Aide, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, you should not use the Service.

Key principle: Aide is an analyst, not a decider. It never tells you how to vote, does not give legal advice, and holds no political agenda. Your judgment, your community knowledge, and your vote remain entirely yours. You remain accountable to your community for every decision you make.

1. About this service

Aide ("the Service", "we", "us") is operated by PARALLAX. It reads agenda packs, committee reports, long-term plans, annual plans, and other documents published by New Zealand local councils, processes them using AI models, and presents structured analytical briefs intended to help elected members identify what is on track, what is at risk, what is unmeasured, what to ask, and what they are endorsing by accepting a recommendation.

The Service is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated in partnership with any local council, government authority, or regulatory body. Council names used are for identification purposes only.

2. Information only — not advice

The content presented through the Service, including all briefs, summaries, citations, and associated material, is provided for general information purposes only. It does not constitute and must not be relied upon as:

Legal advice
Financial advice
Investment advice
Regulatory or compliance advice
Any other form of professional advice

If you need advice about how a council decision or regulatory change affects your specific situation, you should consult a qualified legal or financial professional.

3. Accuracy and completeness

Briefs are generated using AI language models and are subject to error. While each brief cites specific page references to source documents, we cannot guarantee that any summary is accurate, complete, current, or free from error. In particular:

Briefs may omit context that changes the meaning of a recommendation
Dollar figures, dates, and percentages may be incorrectly extracted or presented
A recommendation described as final may subsequently be amended, deferred, or reversed
Not all decisions made by a council will appear in the Service
Page citations may reference the wrong page in rare cases — always verify against the source document

You should always verify information directly with the original source document or the relevant council before taking any action or casting a vote.

4. Your role and responsibilities

As an elected member, you are accountable to your community for your decisions. Aide is a tool to help you prepare — it does not replace your judgment, your duty of care, or your legal obligations as a councillor. Specifically:

You are responsible for your own votes. A brief is a starting point, not a voting recommendation.
You must disclose interests in accordance with the Local Authorities (Members' Interests) Act 1968 and your council's code of conduct, regardless of what a brief says.
You must comply with LGOIMA (the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987) in all your official dealings, including when handling information from or about council documents.
You must not share confidential or public-excluded information through the Service. If a document is publicly available, it may be analysed. If it is not, do not upload it.

5. Acceptable use

You agree to use the Service only for its intended purpose — preparing for council meetings and governance decisions. You agree not to:

Upload documents that are not publicly available, including those marked as public-excluded, confidential, or commercially sensitive
Use the Service to generate political messaging, campaign material, or content intended to influence an election outcome
Use briefs to harass, defame, or target council staff, officers, or other elected members
Attempt to access, reverse-engineer, or extract the underlying AI models or system internals
Share your account credentials with others or allow non-subscribers to access the Service through your account

6. How we handle documents and data

Aide processes publicly available council documents. When you submit a document URL or upload a PDF, the Service extracts its text, analyses it using AI models accessed through a secure gateway, and generates a brief. Key data handling practices:

No personally identifiable information is sent to public AI services. Documents are processed through a privacy-preserving pipeline that scrubs PII before analysis.
Processed documents are not retained beyond what is needed to generate and store your brief. The AI gateway operates on a process-and-purge basis.
Your briefs are stored against your account so you can access them later. You can request deletion of your briefs at any time.
Product usage logging is used to operate, support, bill, and secure the Service, and is an essential part of the Service you agree to by creating an account — see our privacy & cookies policy for full detail, including where data is processed.

If you have questions about how your data is handled, please see our privacy & cookies policy or use the contact page.

7. No warranty

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranty of any kind, express or implied. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or that any particular document will be included or processed correctly.

8. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, we exclude all liability for any loss or damage arising from your use of, or reliance on, the Service or its content. This includes but is not limited to:

Financial loss resulting from reliance on a brief
Misunderstanding a recommendation due to an inaccurate or incomplete summary
Missing a deadline, compliance requirement, or regulatory consequence
Loss of opportunity or reputational damage
Any indirect, incidental, or consequential loss

This exclusion applies even if we have been advised of the possibility of such loss.

9. Subscriptions and billing

Aide is offered as a subscription service. Pricing, plans, and trial periods are displayed on the Service at the time of signup. Subscription fees are billed in New Zealand dollars (NZD). You may cancel your subscription at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period.

We may change pricing or plan features with reasonable notice. Existing subscribers will be notified before any price change takes effect.

10. Intellectual property

The briefs, software, design, and branding of the Service are our intellectual property. Council and government documents referenced or linked through the Service remain the property of the relevant authority. We reproduce extracts of original text for the sole purpose of informational quotation and page citation.

11. Third-party links and sources

Briefs cite and link to original council documents. We are not responsible for the content, accuracy, or availability of those external documents or websites. A citation does not imply endorsement of the source document's conclusions.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. The effective date above will be updated when changes are made. Continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated terms. Material changes will be communicated to active subscribers by email.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand. Any dispute arising from your use of the Service will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New Zealand.

14. Contact

If you have questions about these terms, please use the contact page or email us directly.