Legal

Terms of Service

Effective October 6, 2026

The short version

Sentinel lets you watch and manage your own cameras. It is not a monitored alarm and will not call for help. Don't rely on it for your safety.
You are responsible for pointing your cameras lawfully: notices, consent, and not recording places where people expect privacy.
Recordings stay on your CameraNode. We relay live video and keep only what the Service needs, as set out in the Privacy Policy.
Sentinel AI is off until an admin turns it on. Its findings can be wrong; check them before acting.
Paid plans renew until you cancel. Hitting a plan limit pauses that feature; we never bill overages.
This summary is for convenience. The full Terms below are what apply.

1.This agreement

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between you and SourceBox LLC ("SourceBox", "we", "us"). They apply when you create an account, use the Sentinel Command Center at app.sentinel-command.com, or buy a licence key for a self-hosted install.

If you use the Service for a company or other organization, you agree to these Terms on its behalf and confirm that you have authority to do so. "You" then means both you and that organization.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information and forms part of these Terms. Business customers can also ask for our Data Processing Agreement; once signed, it governs our processing of personal data on your behalf.

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service. If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service.

2.The Service

Sentinel by SourceBox is a security-camera system with two parts:

CameraNode: free, open-source software you install on your own computer. It records your cameras to an encrypted database on that computer, detects motion locally, and sends live video to Command Center.
Command Center: our hosted dashboard and API. It relays live video to the members of your organization, sends notifications, and provides incidents, the optional Sentinel AI agent, the Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, and the Home Assistant integration.

"Service" in these Terms means Command Center as we host it, together with the licence and cloud-sync services we run for self-hosted installs. Software you download is governed by its own open-source licence (see section 13). These Terms add to that licence and do not take away any right it grants.

3.Not an alarm system

Sentinel is a tool for viewing and managing your cameras. It is not a professional security, alarm, or monitoring service. Nobody at SourceBox watches your cameras. The Service does not contact the police, fire services, or anyone else, and it is not designed for emergencies.

Your cameras depend on your hardware, power, local network, and internet connection, none of which we control. Notifications can be late, filtered, or missed. Motion detection and Sentinel AI miss things and raise false alarms. We do not promise that any event will be detected, recorded, kept, or reported. You remain responsible for your own safety and security arrangements.

4.Accounts and organizations

Everything in the Service belongs to an organization. The person who creates an organization becomes its admin. Admins can invite members, change roles, connect CameraNodes, manage billing, create keys, export the organization's data, and delete it. Members can watch live video and read most of the dashboard.

Admins can see activity within their organization, including which members watched which camera, when, and from which IP address. The admin is responsible for telling members about this and about any other use the organization makes of the Service.

You must give accurate account information and keep your sign-in details secure. You are responsible for activity under your account and your organization's keys. If you think an account or key has been misused, revoke the key from the dashboard and email us at security@sentinel-command.com.

5.Your cameras and the law

Laws on video surveillance and recording differ between countries, states, and cities. You are solely responsible for making sure your cameras and your use of the Service are lawful. That includes, where they apply:

putting up notices or signs, and getting consent before recording;
not recording places where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as bathrooms, bedrooms of others, or changing areas;
the rules on recording employees, tenants, neighbours, or public areas;
data-protection laws, such as the GDPR, the UK GDPR, or US state privacy laws, which may make you the "controller" of the footage and of personal data about the people it shows;
answering requests from people who appear in your footage.

We do not give legal advice. If you are unsure, ask a lawyer before you install a camera.

6.Sentinel AI

Sentinel AI is an optional agent on paid plans and on self-hosted installs with a licence key. It is off until an admin of your organization turns it on. While it is on, it can be started by motion, by a new incident, or by hand. It looks at your cameras, can save snapshots and short clips as evidence, and writes incident reports.

To do this, Sentinel AI sends camera images, camera names, and incident text to a third-party AI model provider. The current provider is named in the Privacy Policy, and we will give notice before changing it. By turning Sentinel AI on, you instruct us to send that data on your behalf, and you confirm that doing so is lawful for your cameras.

AI output can be wrong. Sentinel AI can misidentify people, objects, and events, and can miss them entirely. Treat its reports as suggestions to check, not as facts. Do not use them as the only basis for decisions that affect someone's rights, such as accusing, reporting, disciplining, or excluding a person.

Each plan includes a monthly number of Sentinel AI runs. When it is used up, new runs pause until the next month; nothing else is affected.

7.Your keys and integrations

The Service issues keys that let software act on your organization: CameraNode keys, MCP keys for AI assistants, Sentinel agent keys, and Home Assistant integration keys. Each key is shown in full once. We store only a fingerprint (a SHA-256 hash) of it, so we cannot recover a lost key.

Anyone holding a key can do whatever that key allows. Keep keys secret and revoke any you no longer need.

If you connect a third-party tool (for example, an AI assistant through MCP, or Home Assistant), that tool receives the data you let it read, including live camera images. That tool's provider handles the data under its own terms, not ours, and we are not responsible for it.

8.Plans, limits and billing

The Service has a Free plan and paid plans (currently Pro and Pro Plus). Current prices and limits are on the Pricing page.

Payment. Paid plans are billed in advance, monthly or annually, through our billing provider Clerk, with card payments processed by Stripe. Prices exclude taxes unless shown otherwise; you pay any taxes that apply.
Renewal. A paid plan renews automatically at the end of each billing period until you cancel it.
Changing plans. Upgrades take effect immediately. Downgrades take effect at the end of the current billing period.
Limits. Each plan limits cameras, CameraNodes, members, monthly hours of live viewing, Sentinel AI runs, and MCP requests. We never charge overages. When you reach a limit, the metered feature pauses: for example, live playback stops until the 1st of the next month (UTC), while your CameraNodes keep recording locally.
More cameras than your plan allows. After a downgrade or cancellation, we keep your oldest cameras streaming up to the new limit and suspend the rest. Suspended cameras keep their settings and resume when you upgrade. Nothing is deleted.
Failed payments. If a payment fails, you have a 7-day grace period while the payment is retried. During it, your paid plan stays active, but you cannot add CameraNodes or create MCP or Sentinel agent keys. If payment has not succeeded after 7 days, Free plan limits apply until it does.
Price changes. We may change prices. We will give you at least 30 days' notice by email, and the change applies from your next renewal after the notice period. If you don't agree, cancel before then.

9.Cancelling and refunds

You can cancel a paid plan at any time from the billing settings in the dashboard. Cancelling stops future renewals. Your paid features continue until the end of the period you have paid for, and your organization then moves to the Free plan.

Fees are non-refundable, and we do not give refunds or credits for unused time after you cancel or downgrade, except:

where the law requires a refund, including any right of withdrawal you have as a consumer in the EU, the UK, or elsewhere;
a pro-rated refund of prepaid fees if you end the Service because you reasonably object to a new sub-processor, as our Data Processing Agreement provides;
any refund we choose to give, for example after a long outage.

To ask for a refund or to dispute a charge, email support@sentinel-command.com before contacting your bank, so we can sort it out directly.

10.Self-hosted licences and cloud sync

You can run Command Center yourself for free under its open-source licence. A licence key from us unlocks Sentinel AI on a self-hosted install and, if your licence includes it, cloud sync.

A licence key is for your own installs. Do not share or resell it.
Your install checks the key with our licence service at start-up and every 15 minutes. If our service cannot be reached, the last confirmation stays valid for 72 hours. If a key is revoked, expires, or is refused, Sentinel AI stops on that install.
Cloud sync keeps a copy of part of your install's data on our servers, so you can restore it after a loss. The Privacy Policy lists what is copied and what is not. Cloud sync is a recovery aid, not a guaranteed backup. Keep your own backups.
Any order form or quote we agree with you for a licence prevails over these Terms where the two conflict.

On a self-hosted install, you run the software on your own infrastructure and are responsible for it, including its security and backups. Apart from the licence and cloud-sync services, we do not operate it and cannot see its data.

11.Acceptable use

You must not:

use the Service for anything unlawful, or to watch, track, harass, or stalk anyone;
record people in places where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, or record without consent where the law requires it;
use the Service to make or share sexual images of anyone without their consent, or any image of a child that is sexual or abusive;
try to access another organization's data, or any part of the Service you are not allowed to use;
probe, scan, or test the Service's security, except as our security policy allows;
interfere with the Service, overload it, or get around its rate limits or plan limits;
upload malicious code;
resell or sublicense access to the hosted Service without our written agreement.

We may remove content or suspend access that breaks these rules (see section 15). We may report suspected child sexual abuse material and other serious crimes to the authorities.

12.Your data

You own your data, including your video, snapshots, clips, incidents, and settings. You give us permission to host, copy, process, and transmit it only as needed to run the Service for you, as these Terms and the Privacy Policy describe. That permission ends when the data is deleted from the Service, apart from backup copies, which expire on the schedule in the Privacy Policy.

We do not sell your data, use it for advertising, or use your video or images to train AI models.

Admins can download the organization's data at any time (Settings → Privacy & Data) and delete it (Settings → Danger Zone → Full Organization Reset). A Full Organization Reset deletes the organization's data from Command Center and also instructs each connected CameraNode to wipe its local recordings. It cannot be undone.

If you send us suggestions or feedback, we may use them without any obligation to you.

13.Open source and our names

Command Center is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3. CameraNode is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3. The Home Assistant integration is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. Your rights in that software come from those licences.

The names Sentinel, Sentinel by SourceBox, and SourceBox, and our logos, are not covered by those licences. If you run a modified copy, give it a different name, and don't suggest that we provide or endorse it.

14.Changes to the Service

We improve the Service continually and may add, change, or remove features. If we remove a paid feature that matters to your use of the Service, we will tell you in advance where we reasonably can. Features marked beta or preview may change or disappear without notice.

We aim to keep the Service available but do not promise any particular uptime. Maintenance, outages at our providers, and events outside our control can interrupt it.

15.Suspension and termination

You can stop using the Service at any time. To remove your data, run a Full Organization Reset or delete the organization; see the Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or end your access if you seriously or repeatedly break these Terms, if you don't pay, if the law requires us to, or if your use creates a risk to the Service, to other customers, or to anyone else. Where it is reasonable and lawful, we will tell you first and give you a chance to fix the problem.

If we end the Service for you for a reason other than your breach, we will give you at least 30 days' notice to export your data and refund any prepaid fees for the unused period.

Sections 3, 5, 9, 12, and 15 to 21 continue after these Terms end.

16.Disclaimer of warranties

To the extent the law allows, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied. This includes warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, that cameras will stay connected, that video will be captured or kept, that notifications will arrive, or that Sentinel AI's output will be accurate.

Some jurisdictions do not allow these exclusions. If yours doesn't, they apply only as far as the law permits, and you keep any rights you cannot lawfully waive.

17.Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows, SourceBox and its owners, employees, and suppliers are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data, or goodwill, however caused.

This includes losses from cameras or nodes failing to capture, send, or store video; theft, damage, or injury that a camera did not record or prevent; incorrect or missed findings by Sentinel AI; outages; and the acts of third-party providers.

Our total liability for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, and US$50.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, such as liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

18.Indemnity

If you use the Service for an organization or a business, you will defend and compensate SourceBox against third-party claims, and the related losses and reasonable legal costs, that arise from your footage, your camera placement, your breach of these Terms, or your breach of the law, including surveillance and data-protection law. We will tell you promptly about any such claim and let you control its defence, and you will not settle it in a way that admits fault for us without our consent.

19.Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The state and federal courts located in Washington have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes relating to these Terms or the Service, and you and we consent to their jurisdiction. Either of us may instead bring an eligible claim in small-claims court.

If you are a consumer living in the EU, the UK, or another country whose law gives you the right to sue in your own courts or under your own laws, nothing in this section takes that right away.

Before starting a formal dispute, please email us at support@sentinel-command.com. Most problems can be fixed quickly that way.

20.Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For a material change, we will email the admins of each organization, or show a notice in the dashboard, at least 30 days before it takes effect, unless the change is required sooner by law or to address abuse. The date at the top of this page shows when the Terms last changed. If you keep using the Service after a change takes effect, the new Terms apply. If you don't agree, stop using the Service and cancel any paid plan before then.

21.General

Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any Data Processing Agreement or order form we sign with you are the whole agreement about the Service.
Severability. If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, the rest stays in force.
No waiver. If we don't enforce a provision, we have not given up the right to enforce it later.
Assignment. You may not transfer these Terms without our written consent. We may transfer them as part of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, and will tell you if we do.
Events outside our control. Neither of us is responsible for delays or failures caused by events beyond reasonable control, such as power or internet failures, natural disasters, or government action. This does not excuse paying fees that are due.
Notices. We send notices to the email address on your account. Send notices to us at support@sentinel-command.com.
Export rules. You must follow US and other export-control and sanctions laws that apply to your use of the Service.

22.Contact

SourceBox LLC
Questions about these Terms, billing, or refunds: support@sentinel-command.com
Security issues: security@sentinel-command.com