Terms of Service

Qiao - digital guide for international students in China

Effective date: 23 October 2026 · Version 1.2

1. Who we are and what this is

These Terms are an agreement between you and Duor Digital OÜ, a company registered in Estonia under registry code 17631584, registered office Tartu mnt 67/1-13b, 10115 Tallinn ("Qiao", "we", "us").

They govern your use of the Qiao mobile application, the website myqiao.app and all related services (the "Service").

By creating an account or using the Service you accept these Terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the Service.

Our Privacy Policy at myqiao.app/privacy explains how we handle your personal data and forms part of this agreement.

2. Who may use the Service

You must be at least 16 years old. By using the Service you confirm that you are.

To be shown in a cohort, see its list of people or exchange contacts there, you must be at least 18 (section 11).

You must also be able to enter into a binding contract and not be barred from using the Service under the laws that apply to you.

3. Your account

• Give accurate information and keep it up to date. Your plan, checklist and deadlines are calculated from what you tell us - wrong information produces wrong deadlines.
• Keep your password and device secure. You are responsible for what happens under your account.
• Do not share your account or let anyone else use it.
• Tell us at support@qiaoguide.com if you think your account has been compromised.

You may delete your account at any time from Profile → Delete account. Deletion is permanent - see section 19.

4. What Qiao is, and what it is not

Qiao gives you: a personalised arrival plan; a checklist; reminders for deadlines you choose to track; a folder for your documents with form pre-filling; reading of your admission letter or JW202 form to fill in your profile; an AI assistant; a Chinese phrasebook with cards you can show to Chinese speakers; a map of useful places; an SOS screen; a public knowledge base; where available, explanations of photos in the assistant chat, a scholarship-chances test, a cohort of students going to your university, the Meet airport service and a page where your parents can follow your arrival; and, where you use an agency code, a chat with that agency.

Qiao is an information and organisation tool. It is not:

• legal or immigration advice. We are not lawyers or immigration agents. Nothing in the Service is advice on your individual case;
• medical advice. Nothing in the Service replaces a doctor;
• financial or tax advice;
• an official source. Immigration rules, fees, opening hours, office addresses and university procedures change frequently and differ between cities and even between offices in the same city;
• an emergency service. The SOS screen helps you call 110, 120 or 119, your embassy or your university; we do not respond to emergencies ourselves;
• a guarantee of any outcome - not of a visa, a residence permit, admission, a scholarship, a bank account, or anything else decided by an authority or institution. The scholarship-chances result is an estimate based on the requirements universities publish, not a guarantee.

You are responsible for your own deadlines, applications and compliance with Chinese law. Always confirm anything important with the official source, your university's international office, or the relevant authority.

5. The AI assistant

The assistant produces answers automatically using a large language model, supported by a knowledge base we maintain.

• It can be wrong. It can be out of date, incomplete, or confidently mistaken. Where an answer cites a source and a date, that means our knowledge base contained that item on that date - not that it is still true today.
• Answers are informational and general, even when they read as specific to you.
• Do not rely on the assistant for anything with a legal, financial, medical or immigration consequence without verifying it independently.
• There is a limit on how many questions you can ask in a day on the free tier. We may change that limit.
• Where this feature is available, you can attach a photo: the text on it is read on your phone, and only that text is sent. Recognition can misread text, and on the free tier photo questions have their own daily limit.
• We may decline to answer, or limit use, where a question is abusive, unlawful, or attempts to manipulate the assistant.

Your messages are sent to our AI provider to generate an answer, as described in the Privacy Policy. Do not send information you would not want processed that way, including other people's personal data.

6. Reminders and notifications

You can ask Qiao to remind you about deadlines - for example police registration, a residence permit, a visa expiry or an insurance renewal.

We make reasonable efforts to deliver these reminders. We do not guarantee that a reminder will be created, calculated correctly, delivered, or delivered on time, and we are not liable for a missed deadline, fine, penalty or any other consequence.

Delivery depends on matters outside our control, including:

• the dates and details you entered;
• whether you granted notification permission and kept it on;
• your device's power-saving and background-activity settings - on many Android devices sold in China, the system stops background apps and silently cancels scheduled notifications unless you allow the app to run;
• network availability and any filtering or blocking on your network;
• the availability of Apple's and our Android push provider's services.

Reminders are a convenience, not a safety net. Keeping your own deadlines is your responsibility.

7. Your documents

You can store copies of documents in the Service.

• Documents remain yours. You grant us only the limited right to store, display and process them to provide the features you use.
• Qiao is not a system of record. Keep your originals and carry them as the law requires. We are not the custodian of your official documents.
• Do not upload documents belonging to another person unless you have their permission and the legal right to do so.
• We are not liable for loss, corruption or unavailability of stored documents. Keep your own copies.
• Information read from a document, an admission letter or a JW202 form is used to pre-fill forms, your profile and your deadlines. Check every pre-filled field before you use or submit it. Recognition can misread a character.

8. Paid services

8.1 What we sell

What is included in each is described at the point of purchase. Not every product is available everywhere or at all times. We may change what a product includes for future purchases; changes do not reduce what you already bought for the period you bought it.

8.2 Price, payment and currency

Prices are shown before you buy and include VAT where it applies. Payment is taken through the app store you installed from, or through our payment provider on our website. We never see your full card number.

Meet is paid on our website, not through an app store, because it is a service in the physical world. The payment page shows the amount and lets you pay with Alipay, processed by Stripe, where available, or by following its instructions for other ways to pay with a reference; we confirm the booking when the payment reaches us. You, or anyone you share the payment link with, can pay.

8.3 Renewal

If a subscription is sold as auto-renewing, that is stated clearly at purchase, and you manage and cancel it in your app-store account. If it is sold as a fixed term, it simply ends and nothing is charged again.

8.4 Wallet and credits

Wallet credits are a prepaid balance for use inside the Service. They are not electronic money, cannot be exchanged for cash, cannot be transferred to another person, and have no value outside the Service. Promotional credits we grant may carry an expiry date, which we will state when we grant them.

8.5 Your right to withdraw (EU consumers)

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

Because our digital content is available immediately, we ask you at purchase to expressly consent to us starting performance at once and to acknowledge that you thereby lose your right of withdrawal once performance has begun, as Article 16(m) of Directive 2011/83/EU permits.

If you did not give that consent, or if we have not begun performance, you may withdraw within 14 days by writing to support@qiaoguide.com, and we will refund you within 14 days using the same payment method.

8.6 Refunds

Beyond the withdrawal right above:

• purchases made through the App Store or Google Play are refunded by Apple or Google under their policies - we cannot refund those directly;
• purchases made on our website are refunded at our discretion, and always where the law requires;
• Meet can be cancelled for a full refund up to 72 hours before your arrival, unless the offer states a different deadline, or at any time while no arrival date is set. Until the booking is paid, you can cancel it in the app; once it is paid, you cancel it by writing to Qiao support, or in the app where the app offers this. After that deadline the booking cannot be cancelled for a refund, unless we fail to provide the service or the law requires otherwise. We refund the person who paid, by the same method where possible. When Meet is refunded, the Qiao Pass time that came with it is removed; Pass time you bought separately stays;
• we refund in full if we fail to deliver something you paid for.

Your statutory rights as a consumer are not affected by anything in this section.

8.7 Beta

Where the Service or a feature is offered as a beta or preview, it is provided free unless we say otherwise, may change or be withdrawn, and may be less reliable. We will tell you clearly when something is a beta.

9. Third-party services and partners

Some things you can buy or use through Qiao are provided by someone else - mobile operators, insurers, banks, universities, and partner agencies.

• They are the supplier, not us. Their own terms and privacy policies govern their service. We will identify the provider before you buy.
• We act as an introducer or facilitator, and may receive a commission. This does not change your price.
• We do not guarantee approval, acceptance or any particular result - no insurer must insure you, no bank must open an account, no university must admit you.
• Complaints about a third-party service go to that provider first. We will help you reach them.

Admission assistance specifically: when you send a request for admission help, it gets a code (for example QIAO-7K2M9Q) and we pass it to a partner agency, which contacts you. Admission is decided solely by the university and, where relevant, the scholarship authority. We do not guarantee admission, a scholarship, or a visa. Your contract for the agency's services, including what they include and what they cost, is with the agency.

10. Partner agency chat

If you enter an agency code, you connect to an agency you have chosen.

• The agency is an independent business. We are not responsible for its advice, services, fees or conduct.
• Messages and files you send in that chat are visible to that agency's staff. Send only what you are comfortable sharing.
• Your contract for the agency's services is with the agency, not with us.
• You can stop using the chat at any time; tell us and we will disconnect your account from the agency.

11. The cohort

Your cohort is the students on Qiao going to the same university in the same intake.

• To be shown in the list of people you must be 18 or older, agree to be shown and add a contact. To see the list, you must also have scanned your own admission letter in the app. Otherwise you see only the numbers.
• Contacts are exchanged only when both people agree: one sends an introduction request, the other accepts it. There is a daily limit on introduction requests.
• We do not verify members. The "✓ letter" label only means that the person scanned a letter in the app; it is not a check by us or by the university. Take care when you deal with people you know only online.
• You can stop being shown, block or report anyone at any time. We may hide profiles to keep the cohort safe; a profile reported by three different people within 30 days is hidden until we review it.
• Other members are not our staff, and we are not responsible for what they say or do. If something goes wrong, report it and we will look into it.
• How your data is used in the cohort is described in the Privacy Policy.

12. Meet

Meet is our airport meeting service. Where it is offered, a student of your university meets you in the arrivals hall and helps you with your first steps in the city over the days shown on the offer.

• Availability. Meet is offered only for some universities and depends on helpers being free on your dates.
• Helpers are students of your university. Before they start, we check their student card and identity document and interview them. They are not officials, lawyers or doctors, and cannot guarantee the outcome of any registration, application or appointment.
• What is included - the days, the steps and the Qiao Pass period that comes with Meet - and the price are shown on the offer before you book.
• Your booking. You can add or change your arrival date and flight until the service starts. A booking that is not paid within 7 days is cancelled.
• Payment is made on our website, not through an app store (section 8.2). You, or anyone you share the payment link with, for example a parent, can pay. A booking paid by someone else is still yours.
• Meeting. Your helper meets you only in the arrivals hall and confirms the meeting by entering the code shown in your app. Give the code only to your helper, in person. Your helper's WeChat appears in the app 24 hours before your arrival.
• Steps. Your helper marks each step when it is done, which also closes the matching task in your checklist. If a step was not done, you can dispute it in the app.
• Problems. You can complain in the app. After a serious complaint we suspend the helper until we have looked into it. The Qiao support contacts are on the SOS screen.
• Afterwards you can rate your helper. Where a tip for your helper is offered, it is optional and is paid the same way as the booking.
• Cancellation and refunds are covered in section 8.6.
• What your helper can see about you, and when, is described in the Privacy Policy.

13. The parent link

• You decide whether to create the link and whom to send it to. Anyone who has the link can open the page without signing in; the Privacy Policy lists what it shows. Send it only to people you trust.
• The link works for 180 days, and you can revoke it at any time in the app.
• A parent who pays for your Meet through the page pays on your behalf: the booking stays yours, and a refund goes back to the person who paid, where possible.
• Parents who subscribe to email updates can unsubscribe from any email.

14. Acceptable use

Do not:

• break any law, or use the Service to help anyone break the law;
• upload documents or data belonging to someone else without their permission;
• forge, alter or falsify a document, or use the Service to prepare anything intended to deceive an authority;
• scan or submit an admission letter that is not yours, give false details in the cohort, or confirm an age you have not reached;
• try to make the assistant produce unlawful content, or manipulate it by injecting instructions into your messages;
• use the cohort to advertise, sell, recruit or send requests in bulk, or pass on other members' contacts without their permission;
• open or try to open a parent page, payment page, booking or cohort profile that is not meant for you, or try to guess links, codes or tokens;
• scrape, copy or republish our content, knowledge base or map data in bulk;
• reverse-engineer, decompile or attempt to extract our source code, except to the extent the law expressly permits;
• probe, attack, overload or interfere with the Service or its infrastructure;
• resell or commercially redistribute the Service without our written agreement;
• impersonate anyone, or create accounts by automated means;
• harass, threaten or abuse our staff, helpers, curators or other users.

We may investigate suspected breaches and take the steps in section 18.

15. Your content

You keep ownership of everything you put into the Service - documents, tasks, notes and messages.

You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt and display your content solely to operate and provide the Service to you, including showing it to the people you choose, such as your cohort or the people you send the parent link to. This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies already in backups, which roll off on the schedule in the Privacy Policy.

You confirm you have the right to give us that licence for everything you upload.

If you send us feedback or a suggestion, we may use it freely, without obligation to you.

16. Our content

The Service, its software, design, text, knowledge base, phrasebook, map data compilation and brand are owned by us or licensed to us, and protected by intellectual-property law.

We grant you a personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive, revocable licence to use the Service for your own, non-commercial purposes while these Terms are in force. Everything not expressly granted is reserved.

Some components are licensed from third parties, including open-source components under their own licences. Attributions are available in the app.

17. Availability and changes

We aim to keep the Service available but do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. We may suspend it for maintenance, security or technical reasons, normally with notice.

Access from mainland China depends on network conditions we do not control and cannot guarantee.

We may add, change or remove features. If a change materially reduces a paid feature during a period you have paid for, we will either restore equivalent functionality or refund the unused part of what you paid.

We may change these Terms. We will publish the new version with a new date and, for material changes, notify you in the app or by email at least 14 days before they take effect. If you do not accept a change, stop using the Service and delete your account before the effective date; for a paid period already bought, the previous Terms continue to apply to that period.

18. Suspension and termination by us

We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially breach these Terms, if we must do so by law, or if your use creates a genuine risk to the Service or other users.

Except where the law or the seriousness of the breach requires immediate action, we will tell you first and give you a chance to fix it. If we terminate an account with an active paid period and the cause was not your breach, we refund the unused part.

19. Ending the agreement

• You may stop at any time by deleting your account in the app.
• Deletion is permanent. Your documents, plan, checklist, chats and history are removed as described in the Privacy Policy. We cannot restore them.
• Deleting your account removes you from your cohort and switches off your parent link. It does not cancel or refund a Meet booking by itself - cancel it first under section 8.6.
• Deleting your account does not automatically cancel a subscription bought through an app store - cancel that in your app-store account.
• Sections that by their nature should survive - intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, governing law - continue after termination.

20. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent the law allows, and except as expressly stated in these Terms, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the Service will meet your requirements, that content is accurate, complete or current, or that reminders will be delivered.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits your statutory rights as a consumer under mandatory EU or national law. In particular, nothing here excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything that cannot lawfully be excluded.

21. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows:

• we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, opportunity, data or goodwill;
• we are not liable for fines, penalties, visa refusals, refused admissions, missed deadlines, deportation or any decision by an authority or institution, whether or not a reminder reached you;
• we are not liable for the acts or omissions of third-party providers or partner agencies;
• our total aggregate liability for all claims in any twelve-month period is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in that period, or EUR 100.

Where you are a consumer and mandatory law gives you rights that these limits would reduce, those rights prevail.

22. Indemnity

If you use the Service in breach of these Terms or unlawfully and a third party brings a claim against us as a result, you will indemnify us against that claim and the reasonable costs of defending it. This does not apply where the loss was caused by our own breach or negligence, and it does not apply to consumers to any greater extent than mandatory law permits.

23. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Estonia, excluding its conflict-of-law rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the country where you habitually reside, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of that country.

Otherwise, the courts of Harju County Court, Tallinn, Estonia have jurisdiction.

Please contact us first at support@qiaoguide.com. Most problems are solved faster that way. If we cannot settle it, a consumer may turn to the Consumer Disputes Committee (Tarbijavaidluste komisjon) at the Estonian Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA), www.ttja.ee, and to the consumer protection bodies of their own country; for a dispute across EU borders, also to the European Consumer Centre in their country.

24. General

• Whole agreement. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between us about the Service.
• Severability. If a provision is held invalid, the rest stands, and the invalid provision is replaced by the valid one closest to its intended effect.
• No waiver. If we do not enforce a right immediately, we do not give it up.
• Assignment. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms. We may transfer ours to a group company or to a buyer of our business, provided your rights are not reduced.
• No third-party rights. No one other than you and us may enforce these Terms.
• Language. These Terms are published in English, Russian and Simplified Chinese. If the versions differ, the English version prevails, except where mandatory local consumer law requires otherwise.
• Force majeure. We are not liable for failure caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including network blocking or filtering, acts of government, natural disaster or failure of an upstream provider.

25. Contact

Duor Digital OÜ Tartu mnt 67/1-13b, 10115 Tallinn, Estonia Registry code 17631584

• Support: support@qiaoguide.com
• Privacy: support@qiaoguide.com