Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy 

This Privacy Policy describes how Opensooq.com Limited, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands having company number 1735746 with its address being Craigmuir Chambers, Road Town, Tortola, VG1110, British Virgin Islands, its affiliates and its subsidiaries (collectively "OpenSooq") collect, use, transfer, disclose and retain your personal information through the Platform.

OpenSooq is the largest mobile-first classifieds marketplace in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with over 2 billion monthly pageviews coming from over 120 million unique visitors and over 800 million user visits each year. Every 15 seconds an item is sold on OpenSooq, with the value of goods sold on our platform estimated to be in excess of USD 30 billion per year. You can contact us using the below contact details.

Contact Details

Involved Department:

Legal Department

E-mail:

[email protected]

Company Registration Number:

1735746

Date of Last Update

The Privacy Policy was last updated on 20^th October 2024. 

1. Definitions

In this Privacy Policy the capitalised words and expressions shall have the same meanings assigned to them in the Terms of Use. 

2. Acceptance of personal data processing

By using the Platform and related Services, you give explicit consent to OpenSooq for the collection, use, transfer, disclosure and retention of your personal information by us, as described in this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use.

3. What personal data is collected? How is it collected and what is the purpose of collection?

We collect and process the following personal data:
Identity and contact data: When you register to use our Services, we may collect the following information about you depending on how you register on our Platform, that can include:

● Name (mandatory for registration completion) 

● Phone number (mandatory for user verification)

● Email (optional) 

● Date of birth (optional)

● Gender (optional)

We collect such information from you upon registration for verifying your identity, for personalising the Services and promotional offers we may send you from time to time and to carry out our obligations arising from any contract entered into between you and another third party using the Platform or between you and us. We may also collect such data in order to prevent and detect fraud and abuse and for the purposes of protecting the security of Buyers and Sellers. 

Technical data: When you interact with our Platform or use our Services, we automatically collect various information, which may include but is not limited to, device information, location information, log data, click stream data, cookies and similar technologies.  We collect such information in order to provide you with location-based services such as listings in your geographic location, advertising, search results and other personalised content. You may amend your browser settings at any time to prevent the collection of such data. 

Data from third parties: We may receive personal data about you from various third parties and public sources; we will endeavour to notify you within 30 days from collecting such data.  We may collect such personal data for the purposes of fulfilling a contract between you and any third party using the Platform. 

4. How do we use your personal data?

We may use personal data collected, directly or indirectly, as follows:

Contractual obligations: We will need your personal data to enter into a contract with you and/or to fulfil a contract with you. We might not be able to offer you the Services or enter into a contract with you if you do not provide your personal data. 

Legal obligations: we may process your personal data in order to comply with any applicable laws.

Legitimate interests: we may process your personal data in order to protect our legitimate interests and the interests of the Platform’s users for the purposes of improving the Services, to prevent and detect fraud and abuse and to protect the security of Buyers and Sellers.

Marketing and awareness communications: we may use your personal data to provide you with marketing and awareness information about goods and services which you may be interested in. We may contact you via various channels, including but not limited to, emails, push notifications, telephone, and in-app and web notifications. You may opt-out of receiving such communications at any time by changing your app/web settings or by corresponding with us on the details provided in this Privacy Policy. 

5. How do we disclose your personal data?

We may share and/or transfer your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. You agree that we may transfer your personal data to third parties inside and outside of your country.  

In order to improve our Services, we will sometimes share your non-identifiable information with analytics providers that help us analyse how people are using our Platform/Service. We share your information with them in a non-identifiable form for monitoring and reporting the effectiveness of the campaign delivery to our business partners and for internal business analysis. We seek to improve our products and advertising by using third party providers like Microsoft Clarity to see how users use our Platform. By using the Platform, you agree that we and third-party service providers can collect and use this data.

We may disclose your personal data to law enforcement authorities, regulators, governmental or public bodies and other relevant third parties to comply with any legal or regulatory requirements.

We may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this Privacy Policy.

When you post an item for sale using our Services, or by uploading your CV to the Platform you may choose to make certain personal information visible to other Platform users. This may include (but not limited to) your name, your email address, job history, your location, your contact number, and your picture. Please note, any information you provide to other users can always be shared by them with others so please exercise discretion in this respect.

6. Legal basis for collecting and processing your personal data

The legal on which we rely on in processing your personal data is:

Consent: You give us your consent to process your data as mentioned in this Privacy Policy. You can withdraw your consent at any time without affecting processing operations carried out based on other legal bases. You can withdraw any consent you have previously given us through your account’s settings and/or by contacting us on the contact details provided in this Privacy Policy.

To enforce/execute a contractual obligation: We may need to process your personal data in order to enforce/execute a contractual obligation entered into between yourself and us or yourself and a third party on the Platform. We may not be able to carry out our obligations without processing your personal data. 

In compliance with a statutory obligation: Depending on your jurisdiction, we may have a legal obligation to process your personal data.

Maintaining vital interests:  We may process your personal data in certain circumstances where we deem it necessary for the protection of your life or the life of others.

Achieving public interest: As the Platform facilitates transactions between members of the public, we may process the personal data of Buyers and Sellers in order to protect our users’ safety and for the prevention of fraud or crime. 

Achieving legitimate interests: We may deem it necessary to process your personal data for achieving our legitimate interests. Such interests could include decreasing and preventing misuse of the Platform by users (e.g. fraud) and/or to improve your user experience by offering you tailored Services that match your needs and requirements and thus to increase our sales of such Services.  

7. How do we store your personal data and for how long?

Your personal data is stored securely either at our headquarters or at a cloud computing service provider. We use third party service providers to help us deliver certain aspects of our Services; for example, cloud storage facilities such as Amazon Web Services or others in, among others, Europe, Africa and/or the Middle East.

We will keep your personal data for as long as you are registered on the Platform and when you use the Platform. Following deactivation of your registration on the Platform, we shall retain your personal data for a period of 10 years or such longer period as required by law and/or to protect our legal and legitimate interests. Your personal data will not be retained by us for longer than strictly necessary and when we no longer need such information, we will securely destroy it by deleting all electronic copies and by destroying any physical copies or we may anonymise such personal data. 

8. Your rights regarding processing of your personal data

You may have the following legal rights regarding your personal data depending on the country you are in or how we interact with you:
Right to Be Informed: You are entitled to be informed how we collect your personal data, legal basis for collection and processing, how such data is processed, stored, destroyed, and to whom it will be disclosed. You can access all details through this Privacy Policy or contact us using the contact information in this Privacy Policy.
Right of Access to Your Personal Data: You are entitled to request access to your personal data.
Right to Request Access to Your Personal Data: You are entitled to request access to your personal data held by us in a readable and clear format if technically feasible.
Right to Request Correction of Your Personal Data: You are entitled to request correction of your personal data that you believe is inaccurate, incorrect or incomplete. Such data will be reviewed and updated as soon as reasonably possible, and in any case, within the time limits set by law.
Right to Request Destruction of Your Personal Data: You are entitled to request destruction of your personal data in certain circumstances, unless we are required to retain your personal data by law, for the prevention of crime and/or to protect the safety and vital interests of our members.
Right to Withdraw Your Consent for Processing Your Personal Data: You are entitled to withdraw your consent for processing your personal data at any time unless there are legal bases that require otherwise.

To exercise your rights or to get more information regarding the processing of your personal data, you can contact us in writing on the email address provided in this Privacy Policy.

9. Communication and marketing

We may communicate with you by email, SMS or in web/app notification in connection with our Services/Platform to confirm your registration, to inform you in case your listing has become live/expired and for other transactional messages in relation to our Services. As it is imperative for us to provide you such transactional messages you may not be able to opt-out of such messages. When you register on the Platform or on one of its affiliated platforms or one of its affiliates, or you provide your data when registering for any of the Services offered on the Platform or one of its affiliated platforms or one of its affiliates, you agree to receive direct marketing, awareness and/or marketing materials and/or communications which might include calls, messages or otherwise. You can opt out of receiving such communications by changing your web/app settings or by contacting us. 

10. Technical and organizational measures and processing security

All the information we receive about you are stored on secure servers and we have basic measures that are suitable to protect your personal data. OpenSooq continually evaluates the security of its network and adequacy of its internal information security program which is designed to (a) help secure your data against accidental or unlawful loss, access or disclosure, (b) identify reasonably foreseeable risks to the security of the OpenSooq network, and (c) minimize security risks, including through risk assessment and regular testing. In addition, we ensure that all payment data are encrypted using SSL technology.

Please note, despite the measures we have implemented to protect your data, the transfer of data through the Internet or other open networks is never completely secure and there is a risk that your personal data may be accessed by unauthorized third parties.

11. Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of text sent to your browser and stored on your computer by a website you visit. Cookies assist us in various purposes such as allowing us to identify registered members, remember our members’ preferences and settings, where users came to the Platform originally, track new users/visitors, to know the efficiency of our marketing campaigns and to generally improve the quality of the Services and the Platform to ensure that you receive the best experience while using the Services and the Platform. 

We automatically collect certain information when you access the Platform in order to protect the Platform by preventing misuse and fraud, analyse usage and improve user experience while using the Platform and Services. The type of information we collect may include IP address and browner type; device information such as Unique Device Identifier; pages visited; and information or text entered. 

The Platform also uses cookies which may be placed and read by third party providers/analytics such as Google Analytics and Google Ad Services. Third party analytics may store information on how visitors use the Platform and create an analytics report on the Platform’s performance. Some of the data collected include the user’s behaviour on the Platform, the number of visitors to the Platform, and the Platform’s usage. We also allow third party advertisers to place advertisements on the Platform. Such third party advertisers may place cookies on our users’ browsers, which will allow third party advertisers to personalise advertisements. Third party analytics and advertisers have their own privacy and cookie policies available on their websites. You may change your cookie preferences at any time through your browser’s settings.

 

12. Acceptance of this Privacy Policy and changes to it

You acknowledge you have read this Privacy Policy and agree to all its terms and conditions. By accessing and using the Platform and Services you agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use. 

We may update, upgrade, modify (partially and/or fully) this Privacy Policy from time to time to keep it up to date with legal requirements and the way we operate our business(es). Your continued use of the Platform and/or the Services following an amendment indicates your or your guardian's acceptance (as the case may be) of any changes. 

We advise you to check this page regularly for any changes. Any amended Privacy Policy will be effective immediately after it is posted on the Platform. 

 

13.   Complaint or objection filing method

If you have any concerns, or if we do not comply with the applicable personal data protection law in your jurisdiction, you can file a complaint to us using the contact details in this Privacy Policy.

If you are not satisfied with how we process your complaint, or if we fail to respond within 30 days, you can file a complaint to the competent authority in your jurisdiction.