PQC Ready – Website Terms of Use, Account Terms and Quick Scan Terms
Version: 1.1 · Published 7 September 2026 · Effective for new acceptances from publication
Part A – About these terms
1. Who we are
1.1 The pqc-ready.com website (the "Website"), PQC Ready accounts and the PQC Ready Quick Scan are provided by SDTC Solutions Ltd, a company registered in Scotland (company number SC698550) with its registered office at Suite 2/3, 2nd Floor, 48 West George Street, Glasgow G2 1BP ("we", "us", "our"). We trade as PQC Ready.
1.2 You can contact us through the contact form on the Website.
2. Structure of these terms
2.1 These terms are in five parts:
- Part A – about these terms (applies to everyone)
- Part B – Website Terms of Use (applies to every visitor)
- Part C – Account Terms (applies if you register a PQC Ready account)
- Part D – Quick Scan and mini-report terms (applies if you use the Quick Scan)
- Part E – general legal terms (applies to everyone)
2.2 If there is any conflict between the parts, a more specific part prevails over a more general one for the matter it covers.
2.3 Our Privacy Policy and Cookie and Browser Storage Notice explain how we handle personal data and cookies. The Privacy Policy is information about processing, not a request for blanket consent. Optional consent, where needed, is requested separately.
2.4 Paid assessments are governed separately. The Deep Scan and any other PQC Ready assessment or consultancy service are provided under separate Deep Scan Terms & Conditions, including confidentiality provisions, which are presented to you before you commit to that purchase. Those documents prevail over these terms for the paid service they cover.
3. Acceptance
3.1 By using the Website you accept Part A, Part B and Part E. New account holders must expressly accept these terms before using account services beyond sign-in and essential account management. Before starting a new Quick Scan you must expressly agree to the Quick Scan terms. Account and Quick Scan acceptance cover Parts C and D respectively in addition to the general terms.
3.2 If you do not accept these terms, please do not use the Website, register an account, or use the Quick Scan.
3.3 Accounts already present when this transition is introduced retain their recorded eligibility under their existing arrangements. We do not record those users as having accepted this version without their affirmative acceptance. Existing separately signed NDAs, access grants, redeemed codes and assessment allowances are preserved; a retained agreement is not acceptance of new Deep Scan Terms.
4. Who these terms are for
4.1 The Website, accounts and Quick Scan are intended for use by, or on behalf of, organisations. They are business-to-business services and are not designed for consumers.
4.2 You confirm that you are at least 18 years old and, where you act for an organisation, that you have authority to do so.
Part B – Website Terms of Use
5. Use of the Website
5.1 We grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive licence to access and view the Website for the purpose of learning about PQC Ready, using the Quick Scan, and managing any account you hold.
5.2 You must not:
- use the Website in any way that is unlawful, fraudulent or harmful;
- attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the Website, our systems, other users' accounts or data;
- introduce malware, probe or scan for vulnerabilities, or interfere with the Website's operation or security;
- use automated tools, scrapers or bots to access the Website or submit forms other than through documented interfaces we make available;
- circumvent rate limits, human-verification challenges or other technical controls;
- reproduce, frame, mirror or republish any part of the Website without our written consent;
- use the Website to build or train a competing product or service.
5.3 We may monitor use of the Website for security and abuse-prevention purposes and may restrict or block access from any source we reasonably believe is misusing it.
6. Website content
6.1 The content of the Website, including the glossary, crash course, articles and other educational material, is provided for general information only. It is not legal, regulatory, technical or professional advice and must not be relied on as such.
6.2 We take reasonable care to keep content accurate and current, but the post-quantum cryptography landscape changes rapidly. Standards, regulatory timelines and guidance referred to on the Website may have changed since publication. We give no warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or currency of any content.
6.3 We may change, remove or suspend any content or part of the Website at any time without notice.
7. contact form and communications
7.1 You may contact us through the contact form. We use a human-verification challenge to protect the form from abuse and forward submissions to us through a third-party service described in our Privacy Policy.
7.2 Please do not submit confidential information, personal data about other people, passwords, keys or other secrets through the contact form.
7.3 We aim to respond to enquiries promptly but do not guarantee a response within any particular time.
8. Links to other websites
The Website may link to third-party websites, including standards bodies and regulators. We are not responsible for the content, accuracy or availability of any third-party site, and a link does not imply endorsement.
9. Intellectual property
9.1 The Website and everything on it, including text, graphics, logos, software, the Quick Scan, scoring methods, report designs and branding, are owned by or licensed to SDTC Solutions Ltd and are protected by copyright, trade mark and other intellectual property rights.
9.2 PQC Ready™ and PQCEMM™ are trade marks of SDTC Solutions Ltd. Quinn™ is the name of our assessment persona and is also our property.
9.3 Where we expressly publish PQCEMM framework definitions under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence, that licence covers only the framework text identified in that publication. It does not extend to the Quick Scan, our scoring engine, tooling, question sets, prompts, reports or methodology, which remain proprietary.
9.4 You may print or download extracts of Website content for your own internal reference, provided you keep all notices intact and do not use them commercially.
Part C – Account Terms
10. Registration
10.1 You may register a PQC Ready account by providing a valid email address and choosing a password, then confirming your email address through the link we send. An account is not active until the email address is confirmed.
10.2 You must provide accurate registration details and keep them up to date.
10.3 Each account is personal to the individual who registers it. You must not share your login details or allow anyone else to use your account. If you need several people from your organisation to have access, each must register their own account.
10.4 We may refuse, suspend or close a registration at our discretion, including where we believe an account is being used in breach of these terms or for an organisation the registrant is not authorised to represent.
11. What an account gives you
11.1 A newly registered account provides:
- the ability to save a Quick Scan result to your account (Part D);
- access to your account page, in-app mailbox and account settings;
- the option to request an optional mini-report where offered (Part D).
11.2 Access to paid assessments is not automatic. A new account does not itself give access to the Deep Scan, the Deep Scan Terms & Conditions workspace, purchase, or code redemption. We admit accounts to those services individually. Admission does not create any entitlement to a free assessment, credits or a particular price, and remains subject to the separate Deep Scan Terms & Conditions and payment requirements that apply to the service.
11.3 We may change which features are available to accounts, introduce new features, or withdraw features, at any time. Where a change materially affects data you have saved, we will give reasonable notice by email or in-app message.
12. Your responsibilities as an account holder
12.1 You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for all activity under your account. Choose a strong, unique password and do not reuse it elsewhere.
12.2 You must tell us immediately through the contact form on the Website if you believe your account has been accessed without authorisation.
12.3 You must not:
- register more than one account for the same person without our agreement;
- register or use an account on behalf of an organisation you are not authorised to represent;
- upload or enter unlawful, infringing, defamatory or malicious content, or personal data about other people beyond what a feature expressly requests;
- enter passwords, private keys, credentials or other secrets into any free-text field;
- attempt to access administrative or owner functions, other users' assessments, or internal data;
- use the in-app mailbox for unsolicited or abusive messages;
- transfer or sell your account.
12.4 If you leave the organisation on whose behalf you registered, you must either delete the account or transfer responsibility for it to an authorised colleague in a manner we agree.
13. Usage limits and fair use
13.1 To protect the service and control cost, we apply limits to certain features, including the number of requests, messages, mini-reports and AI-assisted operations an account may make in a given period. Current limits are shown in the relevant part of the Website or account page and may change.
13.2 Limits are applied automatically. We may temporarily restrict an account that exceeds them, and may permanently restrict an account that repeatedly or deliberately does so.
14. Communications and the in-app mailbox
14.1 We will use your account email address and the in-app mailbox for service messages, including confirmation emails, password resets, receipts, notices of changes to these terms, and messages about your account or assessments. These are not marketing messages and you cannot opt out of them while you hold an account.
14.2 We send marketing communications only where you have consented or where the law otherwise permits, and you may withdraw consent at any time.
15. Suspension and closure by us
15.1 We may suspend or close your account, in whole or in part, with or without notice, if:
- you breach these terms or any applicable service terms;
- we reasonably suspect fraud, abuse, unauthorised access, or a security risk;
- we are required to do so by law or a regulator;
- the account has been inactive for 24 months, in which case we will attempt to notify you in advance;
- we withdraw the service.
15.2 Suspension or closure does not affect any rights or obligations that arose before it, and does not affect the terms of any paid service already contracted, which continue under their own terms.
16. Deleting your account
16.1 You may delete your account at any time from your account settings. Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone by us.
16.2 On deletion we remove your account, saved Quick Scan results and other data associated with the account, except that we retain:
- a minimal deletion record and audit trail, with identifiers hashed, as required for security and accountability;
- records we must keep by law, including transaction and accounting records;
- records relating to any executed non-disclosure agreement or paid assessment, which are governed by the retention terms of those agreements;
- anonymised or aggregated data that no longer identifies you.
16.3 We will send a deletion receipt to your registered email address. Retention periods are set out in our Privacy Policy.
16.4 If you hold an in-progress or completed paid assessment, deleting your account may make its outputs inaccessible to you. Download anything you need before deleting.
17. Administrator and owner roles
Certain accounts are designated by us as administrator or owner accounts for operating and supporting the service. Those designations are made by us alone, are recorded on our servers, and cannot be requested, claimed or altered by users.
Part D – Quick Scan and mini-report terms
18. What the Quick Scan is – and is not
18.1 The Quick Scan is a short, free self-assessment. It asks seven multiple-choice questions about your organisation's information, systems and preparedness, together with optional sector and size questions, and returns an indicative exposure snapshot based solely on the answers you select.
18.2 The Quick Scan is a rapid exposure snapshot. It is not a formal maturity assessment, an audit, a security test, an independent verification, legal or regulatory advice, or a certification of any kind.
18.3 The result is generated automatically from your answers using a fixed, rule-based method. We do not verify your answers, inspect your systems, or review any documents. The result can only be as accurate as the answers given.
18.4 The result is not a PQCEMM maturity rating. A PQCEMM rating is produced only through a full PQC Ready assessment.
18.5 The Quick Scan is a general awareness tool. It is not tailored to your legal, regulatory, contractual or technical circumstances and must not be used as the basis for any decision without further professional advice.
19. Using the Quick Scan
19.1 You must answer honestly and to the best of your knowledge.
19.2 The questions are multiple-choice and do not require confidential information. Do not attempt to supply any. Where offered, a signed-in user may expressly submit text for Quinn to interpret online. That action sends the submitted text to our server and AI provider; it is not anonymous browser-only processing. Do not enter secrets or unnecessary personal information. This optional request does not itself save the completed Quick Scan to your account.
19.3 You must not use the Quick Scan to assess an organisation without authority, to reverse-engineer our scoring method, or to submit responses in bulk.
20. How answers and results are stored
20.1 Anonymous use. If you complete the Quick Scan without signing in, your answers and result are stored only in your own web browser (local storage) on the device you use. They are not sent to our servers at that stage. The local result expires after 30 days; the Website checks expiry and removes it when next opened. A closed browser does not run our deletion code. You can clear them at any time using your browser controls or the clear-data option we provide.
20.2 Saving to an account. If you register or sign in while a Quick Scan result is held in your browser, we will offer to save that result to your account. If you accept, the answers are sent to our servers, re-validated, and the result recalculated by us; we do not rely on the score shown in your browser. Once saved, a result belongs to that account only and cannot be transferred to or claimed by another account.
20.3 Later use of a saved result. If you later start a full PQC Ready assessment, you may choose to use your saved Quick Scan as background context or to start from scratch. A saved Quick Scan is used for context only; it does not create evidence, contribute to scoring, or affect any maturity result in a full assessment.
20.4 Personal data collected at registration and how we use it are described in our Privacy Policy.
21. Optional mini-report
21.1 Signed-in users with a saved Quick Scan result may be offered a short PDF mini-report that expands on the result.
21.2 The mini-report is prepared with the assistance of a large language model operated by a third-party provider on our behalf, working from your saved answers and our published guidance. The PDF itself is assembled by our own software. No hidden model output is stored or shown to you.
21.3 The mini-report is subject to the same limitations as the Quick Scan result (section 18). It may contain errors or omissions and is provided for general information only.
21.4 The mini-report is provided free of charge at our discretion. We may limit the number of mini-reports available to an account.
21.5 Generation may occasionally fail for technical reasons. If it does, we will tell you, we will not retry automatically.
22. Changes to the Quick Scan
22.1 We may change the Quick Scan questions, scoring method or result presentation at any time. Results produced under an earlier version remain labelled as such and are not converted to the new method.
22.2 We may suspend or withdraw the Quick Scan or the mini-report at any time without notice.
23. Licence to use Quick Scan outputs
You may use your Quick Scan result and any mini-report internally within the organisation assessed. You may not publish, resell or commercially exploit them, present them as a certification or independent verification, or remove PQC Ready branding or notices.
Part E – General legal terms
24. Availability
24.1 The Website, accounts and Quick Scan are provided "as is" and "as available". We do not promise that they will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure or available at any particular time.
24.2 We may carry out maintenance, updates or migrations that temporarily affect availability. Where practicable we will give notice of planned maintenance affecting account holders.
25. Security
25.1 We apply reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect the Website and account data, as described in our Privacy Policy. No internet service can be guaranteed secure, and you use the Website at your own risk.
25.2 If you discover a security vulnerability, please report it responsibly through the contact form on the Website and do not exploit it, disclose it publicly, or access data beyond what is necessary to demonstrate it.
26. Third-party services
The Website, accounts and Quick Scan rely on third-party providers for hosting, authentication, database, email, payment processing, human verification, rate limiting and (for the mini-report) AI inference. Our use of those providers, and where they process data, is described in our Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for their acts or omissions beyond what the law requires.
27. Liability
27.1 Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded.
27.2 Subject to 27.1, because the Website, accounts and Quick Scan are provided free of charge and the Quick Scan depends entirely on the answers you give, we exclude all liability for any loss or damage arising from your use of, or reliance on, the Website, an account, the Quick Scan or its results, including loss of profit, business, revenue, data or goodwill, and any indirect or consequential loss.
27.3 The optional mini-report described in Part D is free; the limitations in this section apply subject to 27.1.
27.4 The Quick Scan is not a substitute for a proper assessment of your organisation's cryptographic estate, and we accept no responsibility for any security incident, regulatory finding or commercial loss that a Quick Scan result did not predict or prevent.
27.5 Liability in connection with any paid assessment is governed by the service terms for that assessment, not by this section.
28. Indemnity
You will compensate us for any loss, cost or claim we suffer as a result of your breach of these terms, your misuse of the Website or an account, or content you submit that infringes another person's rights or is unlawful.
29. Changes to these terms
29.1 We may update these terms from time to time. The current version, with its effective date, is always published at the Terms page.
29.2 For account holders, we will notify material changes by email or in-app message at least fourteen (14) days before they take effect, unless the change is required by law or is needed urgently for security. Where a new contractual acceptance is required, we will ask for it expressly and keep the acceptance record. Merely retaining existing access is not recorded as a new acceptance. If you do not accept a material change you may close your account, subject to rights and obligations already accrued.
30. Governing law and jurisdiction
30.1 These terms, and any dispute or claim arising out of them (including non-contractual disputes), are governed by the law of Scotland.
30.2 The Scottish courts have exclusive jurisdiction, except that if you are established in another part of the United Kingdom or in the European Union, you may bring proceedings in the courts of that place where mandatory law so permits.
31. General
31.1 If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest remains in force.
31.2 A failure by us to enforce any right is not a waiver of that right.
31.3 These terms are between you and SDTC Solutions Ltd. No other person has any right to enforce them.
31.4 We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another entity within our group or to a successor business, provided your rights are not reduced. You may not transfer yours without our written consent.
31.5 These terms are written in English. Any translation is for convenience only and the English version prevails.
31.6 These terms, together with the documents they refer to, govern the Website, accounts and Quick Scan for people to whom this version applies. They do not cancel existing separately executed agreements or the retained eligibility described in section 3.3.
*Questions about these terms – let us know through the contact form on the Website.*