Privacy policy

The personal information that we may collect about you falls into the following categories:

Information you provide to masdary

If you are a representative of any Buyer or Seller:

• you will be asked to provide certain contact information that is necessary to register your account, including name, address, phone number and email address;
• you will be asked to provide certain information necessary to verify your business or personal identity, such as: state-issued ID (for example, Emirates ID) or passport information page, Trade License/Commercial Register, VAT Registration (if applicable), Power of Attorney (if applicable) and any related information about your business, such as your company name, business type and industry;
• if you are a Seller, we will ask you to provide details about the products that you intend to sell, as well as your transactions on masdary;
• if you are a Seller, we will collect bank account details in order to transfer sales proceeds;
• if you are a Buyer and use the payment gateway, bank transfer or our escrow services to pay for a transaction, we will collect certain payment information, such the bank account number, credit/debit card numbers, expiration dates and security code;
• if you choose to use our Credit Offerings, we will collect certain Business and Financial information such as Passport/Visa/EID of the Manager(s)/Owner(s), Trade License, Memorandum of Association, Bank Statements, Financial Statements, VAT Registration and Returns. Additionally, we will access 3rd Party Credit Reference Data Providers, such as, but not limited to, Al Etihad Credit Bureau, selectively sharing your Business and Financial Information in the process, after obtaining your consent to do so;
• for both Buyer and Seller, we will ask you to provide information on each transaction, including the products purchased and transaction price;
• information provided to us in connection with disputes or to support complaints regarding products purchased on masdary;
• information you submit to masdary for publication (for example, Seller reviews) will be made publicly available.

Information that masdary collects

• We will collect details of user activities and interactions on masdary, delivery information, dispute and complaint records, communications between users and any information disclosed in any discussion forum.
• We may collect information about the existing and prospective users, during or in connection with trade shows and other industry events, including representative contact name, company name, address, phone number, fax number and email address.
• If you visit masdary, we will automatically collect certain personal information from your device. This information may include IP addresses, device type, unique device identification numbers, browser type, broad geographic location (country or city-level), browsing patterns and details of how you have interacted with masdary and the products and services available on it. In addition, we gather statistical information about masdary and visitors to masdary including, browser software, operating system, software and hardware attributes, pages viewed, number of sessions and unique visitors. Collecting this information enables us to better understand the visitors to masdary, where they come from and what content is of interest to them. We use this information for our internal purposes, to improve the quality of masdary. Some of this information may be collected using cookies.

We collect and use your personal information for the following purposes:

• verifying your identity and conducting security, KYC (know your customer) and anti-money laundering due diligence and background checks in order to set up user accounts;
• verifying your eligibility to register as a masdary user under our General User Terms and Conditions;
• setting up user accounts;
• providing users with customer service support;
• facilitating communication between Buyers and Sellers, processing transactions and settlement between Buyers and Sellers, completing fund withdrawal requests from Sellers;
• providing logistics, delivery and warehousing services (including customs clearance);
• assessing and monitoring account security and transaction risks;
• sharing data with our partners and third parties in order to facilitate any applicable service;
• personalizing marketing and communications with you based on your browsing records and order history;
• sending masdary promotions via SMS, where applicable;
• performing research or statistical analysis in order to improve the content and layout of masdary;
• identifying and developing marketing and advertising products and services that will add value to you;
• if you are a Buyer, we may share details of the last viewed products on the Platform to enable Sellers to contact you with details of products and/or services that might interest you.

We may also use your personal information for other purposes that are permitted within the applicable privacy laws.

Information about our customers is an important part of our business. We share your Information only as described below and with businesses that follow practices at least as protective as those described in this Privacy Policy:

We may disclose (or provide access to) personal information to the following:

• masdary’s professional advisers, government and regulatory agencies, police and insurers, when necessary to comply with applicable laws or investigations, or to exercise, establish or defend masdary’s legal rights;
• An actual or potential buyer (and its agents and advisers) in connection with any actual or proposed purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business;

• Other masdary users where necessary in connection with the facilitation of purchases and communications made between you and the other users;
• Third-party business partners, service providers or affiliates engaged by or working with masdary assist us to provide services to you or who otherwise process personal information for purposes described in this Privacy Policy. These partners or service providers include:

• our payment gateway provider;
• our banks in which bank transfers or escrow payments are being held;
• our finance partners;
• logistics partners for providing delivery, return and warehousing services for Buyers and Sellers;

• custom agents for customs clearances purposes;
• cloud computing service providers to provide cloud storage services;
• customer service providers to provide after-sale services;
• our business partners (for example, for them to provide you with discounts or offers that may interest you);

• marketing and advertising platforms, such as but not limited to Google, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and providers of analytics services relating to users’ behavior, in order to tailor the content you see when visiting our Platform.
• To any other person or business, with your consent to the disclosure.

We may provide aggregated or anonymized data to third parties, but when we do so, the information we share is in a de-identified format that does not personally identify you.

Protection of Our Platform and Others. We release account and other Information when we believe such a release is appropriate to comply with the law and law enforcement investigations and to protect the rights, property or safety of our users or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for various reasons, such as fraud protection and credit risk mitigation.

Note that our Platform may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data or other information to these websites. We retain your personal information as long as we have a legitimate business need, or as required or permitted by applicable laws.

The Information that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside of the UAE. It may also be processed by staff operating outside the UAE who work for us or for one of our suppliers. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. We will store your Information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes indicated in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise permitted or required by law. Your Information may be transferred, stored, processed and used by our affiliated companies and/or non-affiliated service providers in one or more countries outside your originating country. Your payment details may be transferred to and stored with our affiliated companies in order to, among other things, process your payment details and provide support services to you.

We maintain commercially reasonable technical, administrative, and physical safeguards to ensure your Information is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and to protect against unauthorized access or alteration to, disclosure, or destruction of your Information. We may, for example, use encryption technology to secure your Information during transmission to our Platform as well as external firewall and on-host firewall technology to prevent network level attacks. Only those authorized employees, contractors, and agents who need to know your Information in connection with the performance of their services are allowed to access this Information. It is important for you to protect yourself against unauthorised access to your password and to your devices used to access our Services. You are responsible for keeping your password confidential. For example, ensure that you sign off when you have finished using a shared device. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your Information, we cannot guarantee the security of your Information transmitted to our Platform and any transmission is at your own risk.

You are able to access a broad range of information about your account and your interactions with the Platform for the purpose of viewing and, in certain cases, updating your Information. Examples of information you can access easily at the Platform include: up-to-date information regarding recent orders; personally identifiable information (including name, e-mail, password, communications and personalised advertising preferences); payment settings (including credit card information); and e-mail notification settings. You can opt-out of receiving future marketing communications from us at any time by adjusting your customer communication preferences, through the unsubscribe link within the email communication. If you wish us to erase your personal data from our systems, please contact us with your request, providing accurate, reliable information to identify yourself ( such that we can complete your request) and we will act accordingly, within the parameters of the applicable legislation and this Policy. Kindly bear in mind that a data erasure request will mean that you will no longer have access to some or all of the services provided by masdary.For marketing via your mobile application, you will need to adjust your notifications settings in the general section of your mobile. Also, our system will place cookies when you log on to our Platform and this is to ensure you have an enjoyable user experience and are able to utilise all aspects of the Platform. You may disable Cookies by changing the settings on your browser. If you disable Cookies, it will affect how our Platform works and you may not be able to access or use certain areas of our Platform or full functionality. For example, performance cookies collect information about how you use the Site, for instance, which pages you visit most often, which allows us to provide you with targeted and relevant choices that enhance your Site experience. We may retain a copy of your Information for compliance reasons. When you update Information, we may retain a copy of the prior version for our records.

Our business changes constantly, and our Privacy Policy may therefore also need to change. We will post the current version of this Privacy Policy on the Platform and each such change will be effective upon posting on the Platform or upon the date designated by us as the "effective date". We may e-mail periodic reminders of our notices and conditions, but you should check our Platform frequently to see recent changes. It is your obligation to regularly check the Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the Platform following any such change constitutes your agreement to this Privacy Policy as so modified.

If you have any concerns about your Information on the Platform, please email to: [email protected] with a thorough description, and we will try to resolve it.