Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy (the “AUP”) forms part of our Terms of Service (the “Terms”). Words with capital letters have the meaning given in the Terms. The AUP applies to everyone who uses the Service and to all of Your Content, whether or not you have an Account.

The Service is operated by Smile Mask Technology FZE from the United Arab Emirates. UAE law therefore applies to all content we host, in addition to the law where you are. Something can be prohibited here even if it is lawful where you live.

Version: 2026-11-10. We change this policy under section 14 of the Terms.

1. Content you must not publish

You must not upload, host, link to or distribute content that falls into any of the following categories. The list follows the categories of prohibited content used by UAE authorities and the types of illegal content that other laws that apply to us address. If an exact category is missing, the general rule in the last bullet still applies.

• Child sexual abuse material and any sexualisation of minors. We report it to the competent authorities.
• Intimate images published without consent, including images created or altered digitally.
• Pornography, nudity and vice. This includes sexually explicit content and content that offends public morals under UAE law.
• Terrorism and violent extremism: content that promotes, glorifies, finances, recruits for or gives instructions for terrorism, terrorist organisations or violent extremism.
• Incitement, hatred and discrimination: content that incites violence or hatred, or that discriminates against people because of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, disability or similar characteristics, or shows contempt of religion, including insulting religions, beliefs or their symbols.
• Harassment, threats and doxxing, and invasion of privacy: content that harasses or threatens a person; content that publishes another person’s personal data, including medical records, identity documents, home address or location, without a lawful basis; and tools that secretly track or record people.
• Defamation, slander and insult of any person, including content that insults a person in a way UAE law treats as an offence.
• Impersonation, fraud and phishing: pages that impersonate a person, an organisation or an authority; scams; and pages that harvest credentials or payment details.
• Viruses, malware and malicious programs: malware, ransomware, spyware, exploit code used to attack others, and any file or page that delivers or controls them.
• Infringement of intellectual property: copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other rights of others, and counterfeit goods.
• Drugs: illegal drugs and controlled substances, and offers to sell, promote or supply them.
• Unlicensed medical and pharmaceutical practices or products: offers of medical treatment, medicines or medical products without the licence the law requires.
• Gambling: betting, casinos, lotteries and similar services that are not licensed, and promotion of them.
• Prohibited or restricted commodities and services: weapons and ammunition, explosives, counterfeit money, stolen goods, and any other commodity or service that is prohibited or restricted for sale in the UAE or where you operate; and the unlicensed promotion of licensed activities, including financial services, investments, cryptocurrency, fundraising and medical services.
• Content that supports criminal acts and skills: instructions, tools or offers that help others to commit a crime.
• Content that offends public order or national security, public morals or the United Arab Emirates, its rulers, institutions or symbols, as UAE law defines those offences, and rumours or false information published in breach of UAE law.
• Content that bypasses blocking: tools, instructions, configurations or lists whose purpose is to bypass content blocks or filtering.
• Any other illegal activity, and any content that a court or another competent authority has ordered to be removed or blocked.

2. Activities you must not carry out

• Bypassing blocks. Do not use the Service to offer or run a VPN, proxy or anonymiser service to users in the United Arab Emirates, or any other means to bypass blocking or filtering of content.
• Unlicensed communication services. Do not use the Service to provide a voice-over-internet (VoIP) or other telecommunication service that needs a licence you do not hold.
• Misuse of UAE-assigned IP address space. Do not use the Service to attack, scan, probe or otherwise misuse IP addresses assigned in the United Arab Emirates, or to test or access UAE-restricted platforms from outside the country.
• Prohibited top-level domains. Do not connect or buy a custom domain under a top-level domain that is prohibited in the United Arab Emirates.
• Attacks and abuse. Do not attack, disrupt or gain unauthorised access to the Service or to other systems; reverse engineer it; or circumvent its limits or security measures. Do not send spam, mine cryptocurrency, or run relay or command-and-control infrastructure.
• Use as a content delivery network. Do not use the Service to serve large files that are not part of a Published Page, or to serve disproportionate volumes of large files. Our infrastructure providers restrict this.
• Scraping and overloading. Do not scrape the Service, or send traffic that overloads it, other than through the API within its rate limits.
• AI and automated processing. Do not use the Service to train or run artificial-intelligence systems on other people’s content without the rights to do so.
• Sanctions evasion and restricted territories. Do not use the Service in breach of sanctions, from a territory listed on our Restricted Territories page, or by disguising your location. See section 3.3 of the Terms.
• Resale. Do not resell, sublicense or commercially redistribute the Service, or access to it, without a platform agreement with us.
• Circumventing our decisions. Do not create a new Account or Published Page to get round a measure we have taken under the Terms.

3. Media content

If you publish news or advertising through the Service, you are responsible for obtaining any media licence or permit that UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 55 of 2023 on Media Regulation, or the law where you operate, requires. We do not hold such a licence for your content.

4. Why we apply these rules

Our infrastructure providers prohibit unlawful content, phishing and child sexual abuse material on their services, and impose restrictions that reach the content we host for you. UAE rules for hosting providers, including guidelines of the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA), expect us to publish this policy, to give users and authorities a way to report misuse, and to act on reports. Breaking these rules can also lead to the whole Service being blocked in the UAE for everyone.

5. What we do when the rules are broken

We may remove content or disable access to it; restrict access to it in a country; refuse an upload; limit a feature; suspend or terminate an Account; preserve content and records; and report to competent authorities, including UAE authorities. Section 8 of the Terms describes the tools we use, how we tell you, and how you can appeal. Section 15 of the Terms describes suspension and termination.

Violations may lead to immediate suspension of service and reporting to competent UAE authorities.

6. Reporting a breach

Anyone can report content or activity that breaks this policy, without an Account, on our report form or by email to abuse@uploadthefile.com. Section 9 of the Terms says what a report should contain. Authorities should read our authorities page.

7. Language and contact

We may publish this document in Arabic. If we do, and you are a consumer in the United Arab Emirates, the Arabic version prevails over the English version to the extent of any inconsistency; in every other case the English version prevails.

Questions about this policy: contact@uploadthefile.com.