Privacy Policy

The Digital Archive is a platform of the Cultural and Scientific Association — Al Rasheed Street Extension, Al Mamzar, Dubai, United Arab Emirates — documenting the Association’s history and events through photographs, articles, video and publications. In this policy, “we” means the Association and “the archive” means this website.

• When you write a comment: your name, email address, the comment and the time it was sent. Your name and comment are published once they have been reviewed and approved. Your email address is never published and is seen only by the archive’s moderators.
• Technical data collected automatically: as with any website, the servers record general technical information on each visit — such as IP address, browser and device type, and the time of the request — to run and protect the site.
• Visit verification: on pages that connect to the database, such as articles and the comment form, we use Google reCAPTCHA Enterprise (through Firebase App Check) to confirm that requests come from a real browser rather than an automated script. It runs without asking anything of you; Google may collect device and browser information for this purpose under its own privacy policy.

We do not use analytics or advertising trackers, we do not sell or rent data, and we do not send marketing messages.

The archive does not set cookies for advertising or tracking. What may be stored in your browser is limited to:

• What the reCAPTCHA service needs to verify visits.
• Sign-in data for the archive’s moderators only — never for visitors.
• Videos play directly from YouTube, which may set its own cookies when you play them, under Google’s policies.

You can set your browser to refuse or delete cookies, although some features, such as playing videos or sending comments, may then not work as intended.

• To review comments before publishing them, and to display those that are approved.
• To contact you, when needed, about your comment only.
• To run the site, protect it from abuse and spam, and improve its performance.
• To meet any legal obligation.

We share your data only in the following cases:

• Service providers: the archive is hosted on Google Firebase (hosting, database and file storage), whose servers process data on our behalf.
• Authorities: where the law requires it, or in response to a valid request from a court or government body.
• Protecting rights: to protect the Association’s rights, the safety of the site’s users or the public, or to prevent or investigate misuse of the site.
• With your consent: in any other case you explicitly agree to.

Data may be stored and processed on Google servers outside the United Arab Emirates, where data-protection laws may differ from those of the UAE. We make sure this happens only with a provider that applies appropriate security controls.

We keep a comment’s data for as long as the comment is kept in the archive, and you can ask for it to be deleted at any time. Technical logs are kept for a limited period for operational and security purposes, unless the law requires us to keep them longer.

You may ask to see the data we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete your comment and email address. Write to us at the address below, giving the article’s title and your name as it appeared on the comment, and we will handle your request as soon as possible. We may keep some information where the law requires us to.

We take reasonable measures to protect data, including restricting email addresses to moderators, strict database access rules, visit verification and encrypted connections (HTTPS). No method of transmission or storage over the Internet is completely secure, however, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

The archive is open to everyone, but we do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you are a parent or guardian and learn that your child has sent us personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.

The archive may link to external sites, such as YouTube, social media platforms and the Association’s official website. We do not control these sites and are not responsible for their content or practices; we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every site you visit.

We may update this policy from time to time. The updated version will be posted on this page with the “Last updated” date changed at the top. Any change takes effect when it is posted, so please review this page from time to time.