Exam terms and conditions

Exams on this platform are provided by IONOS Cloud GmbH, Elgendorfer Straße 57, 56410 Montabaur, Germany (“we”, “us”). Full provider details are in our imprint.

These terms govern the certification service only. They are separate from the IONOS Cloud general terms and conditions, which cover cloud products and do not apply to sitting an exam. Where the two differ, these terms apply to your exam.

You need an account to book an exam. You must give accurate details and keep them up to date — the name on your account is the name that appears on any credential you earn, and we cannot reissue a credential in a different name to work around an inaccurate one.

Your account is personal to you. You may not let anyone else use it, and you may not sit an exam on behalf of anyone else. You are responsible for keeping your password and any two-factor device secure.

A booking is made when you confirm it and we show you a confirmation. Prices are shown before you confirm, in euro. Where you are a consumer, the price shown is the total payable including any applicable VAT.

Some exams are currently offered at a reduced price or at no charge under an introductory offer. Where that applies, the discount is shown in the order summary before you confirm. An introductory offer can be withdrawn for future bookings at any time; it does not affect a booking you have already confirmed.

If you are a consumer in the EU or UK, you normally have 14 days to withdraw from a contract concluded at a distance, without giving a reason.

This matters for exams booked at short notice. If you ask us to start providing the service before the 14 days are up — which includes sitting an exam booked less than 14 days ahead — you are asking us to begin performance early. Once you have sat the exam, the service is fully performed and your right of withdrawal is exhausted. You will be asked to acknowledge this at the point of booking where it applies.

To withdraw before you have sat the exam, tell us at cloud@ionos.de. Refund handling is set out in clause 5.

You can reschedule or cancel a booking up to [PENDING LEGAL REVIEW] before the scheduled start time. Live-proctored exams are booked into staffed windows, so the notice period is longer than for exams you can start on demand.

Refunds where you cancel in time: [PENDING LEGAL REVIEW]. Refunds where you do not attend, or arrive after your session has expired: [PENDING LEGAL REVIEW].

If we cancel or cannot run your exam — including a technical failure on our side that prevents you completing it — you can choose a rescheduled sitting at no extra charge or a full refund.

You must sit the exam yourself, unaided. During a sitting you must not:

• use notes, another device, or any material not expressly permitted;
• get help from another person, or let anyone else see the exam content;
• copy, photograph, record, or reproduce any question or answer;
• use a virtual machine, remote-access tool, or additional display to conceal activity;
• attempt to interfere with the exam software, the proctoring measures, or the scoring.

Exam content is confidential and remains our intellectual property. Sharing it — including posting questions to forums, chat groups, or “dumps” sites — is a breach of these terms regardless of whether you passed.

Proctored exams are monitored. Depending on the exam you book, that can include a live recording of your webcam video and audio, a short scan of your workspace, sharing your entire screen with periodic snapshots taken from it, and automated checks on the camera feed. Which of these apply is shown to you before you book and again before the exam starts, and each one asks for your agreement at the point it is switched on.

Your browser is also monitored for tab switches, leaving fullscreen, copy and paste, screenshot keypresses, and additional displays. Some of these end the exam automatically.

Recordings and screen captures are kept for 30 days and then deleted. A person reviews them only where an integrity signal has been raised, or where you dispute a result. What we collect, why, and on what legal basis is set out in our Privacy Policy.

If you withdraw agreement to monitoring during a proctored exam, the sitting ends and cannot be scored. Clause 5 governs whether that is refundable.

Exams are scored automatically against the answer key and the weighting published for that exam. Automated proctoring signals may flag a sitting for review. Where a flag is upheld, a result can be withheld or invalidated.

You can always ask for a person to look at it. A result is never withheld or invalidated on the basis of an automated decision alone without a route to human review. If you dispute a result or a flag, contact us at cloud@ionos.de and a reviewer who was not part of the automated process will examine the sitting, including any recording. The outcome is either that your result stands, that it is corrected, or that you are offered a re-sit at no charge.

Retake entitlement after a fail, including any waiting period and whether a further attempt is chargeable: [PENDING LEGAL REVIEW].

We keep your individual answers for 90 days and your marks for 12 months. After that a result can still be verified as issued, but the underlying answers no longer exist — so raise a dispute promptly.

If you pass, we issue a credential — a digital badge and certificate that can be verified by anyone you share it with. Some credentials expire; where yours does, the validity period is shown on the credential itself.

We can revoke an issued credential where:

• it was obtained in breach of clause 6;
• it was issued in error, for example because of a scoring or configuration fault;
• the identity of the person who sat the exam cannot be established.

We will tell you before we revoke, and you can ask for human review under clause 8. A revoked credential shows as revoked when verified.

You control what appears publicly. By default your name is not published on a verifiable badge; you can choose to publish it in your account settings.

You are responsible for your own equipment and connection: a supported browser, a working webcam and microphone for proctored exams, and a stable internet connection. We publish the requirements before you book.

We aim to keep the platform available but do not guarantee uninterrupted service. If our platform fails during your sitting, clause 5 applies.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law — including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or under mandatory consumer protection law.

Subject to that, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for a consequence of failing an exam — including a job offer, promotion, or partner status that depended on it. [PENDING LEGAL REVIEW] (cap on liability, to be confirmed by Legal.)

We may change these terms. The version that applies to your exam is the one you accepted when you booked it, identified by the version number at the top of this page. If we change them materially we will tell registered users and ask for acceptance of the new version before the next booking.

These terms are governed by German law. If you are a consumer resident elsewhere in the EU or in the UK, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory consumer law of the country where you live, and you can bring proceedings there.

Complaints: cloud@ionos.de or +49 30 57700 840. For anything about your personal data, see the contacts in our Privacy Policy.