Terms of Service

Effective 13 September 2026.

1. Who these terms are with

The BMR Data Room is provided by the Bureau of Market Research (Pty) Ltd ("BMR"), a research company of the University of South Africa. These terms govern your use of bmrdataroom.co.za and the application behind it.

Where BMR and a subscriber have signed a separate written agreement, that agreement takes precedence over these terms wherever the two differ.

2. Accounts

Access is by account only. BMR creates accounts for the individuals named in a subscription agreement.

• An account belongs to one named person. Credentials may not be shared, and an account may not be used by more than one person.
• You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for activity under your account.
• Tell BMR promptly if you believe an account has been compromised or if a named user leaves your organisation.

Accounts are monitored for signs of sharing or automated use. BMR may suspend an account where the pattern of use indicates either.

3. What you may do with the data

Subject to payment and to any signed agreement, BMR grants the subscriber a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use the datasets they are licensed for, for their own internal business, planning or research purposes.

You may include figures from the Data Room in your own internal reports, analyses and presentations, provided the Bureau of Market Research is credited as the source.

4. What you may not do

• Redistribute, resell, sublicense or publish the datasets, in whole or in substantial part, to anyone outside your organisation.
• Extract data by automated means, including scraping, scripted downloading or bulk harvesting through the interface or the API.
• Use the Data Room to build, train or improve a competing product or dataset.
• Reverse engineer the application, or attempt to reach data or accounts you are not licensed for.
• Remove or obscure any attribution, disclaimer or copyright notice.

5. MIA, the assistant

MIA answers questions about the datasets using an AI language model. It is a convenience, not an authority.

• MIA can be wrong. It can misread a question, describe a figure imprecisely, or state something the data does not support. Any figure that matters must be checked against the dataset itself before it is relied on or repeated.
• MIA's answers are not professional, financial, investment or legal advice.
• Questions and answers are recorded. Please do not type personal information about other people into MIA. How those records are handled is set out in the Privacy Policy.
• MIA is provided through Anthropic's Claude API. Questions and the statistical context needed to answer them are sent to Anthropic for processing.

6. The nature of the estimates

The figures in the Data Room are statistical estimates, produced by BMR using nationally benchmarked models and official data sources. They are not a census and they are not counts.

• Estimates carry uncertainty, and that uncertainty is larger for smaller places and finer breakdowns.
• Estimates are revised as new source data, new benchmarks or improved methods become available. A figure downloaded today may differ from the same figure after a revision.
• Every dataset carries a methodology note. Figures should be read together with it, and quoted with the edition or release they came from.
• Where BMR identifies a material error, it will correct the affected figures and record the correction in the methodology note.

7. Availability

BMR aims to keep the Data Room available and current, but does not warrant uninterrupted or error-free service. Access may be interrupted for maintenance, for updates, or by a failure at a third-party provider.

8. Fees

Fees are those set out in the subscription agreement or quotation. Prices shown on the public pages are indicative, exclude VAT, and do not constitute an offer. A firm quotation is issued by BMR client services.

9. Suspension and termination

BMR may suspend or terminate access where these terms are breached, where fees are unpaid, or where an account shows evidence of sharing, automated extraction or other misuse. Where the circumstances allow, BMR will raise the problem with the subscriber before suspending.

On termination the licence in section 3 ends. Figures already incorporated into internal work produced during the subscription may be retained.

10. Intellectual property

The datasets, the models behind them, the application, its design and its documentation remain the property of BMR. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership of anything.

11. Liability

The Data Room is provided for information and planning. Decisions taken on the basis of an estimate remain the subscriber's own.

To the extent permitted by law, BMR is not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, or loss arising from a decision taken in reliance on an estimate. BMR's total liability arising from the service is limited to the fees paid by the subscriber in the twelve months before the claim arose.

Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including liability for fraud, or a consumer's rights under the Consumer Protection Act where that Act applies.

12. Privacy

Personal information is handled as described in the Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa, and the parties submit to the jurisdiction of the South African courts.

14. Changes to these terms

BMR may update these terms. The effective date above changes and subscribers are told of any material change. Continued use after a change means the updated terms are accepted.

15. Contact

Bureau of Market Research (Pty) Ltd, zjanz@bmr.co.za.