Privacy and Data Collection Policy

• Overview

  Version ٢٫١ - effective ١٤ September ٢٠٢٦. QatarWheels is operated by Technogency Ltd ("we", "us"). This Privacy and Data Collection Policy is issued in accordance with the State of Qatar's Personal Data Privacy Protection Law (Law No. ١٣ of ٢٠١٦) and reflects internationally-recognized data protection principles. It explains what personal data QatarWheels collects, the legal basis for processing it, how it is used, shared, and protected, and the rights you may exercise over your data when you use our app to buy, sell, rent, or service vehicles.

• Information We Collect

  We collect only what the app needs to work. That is a deliberately short list, and it is the complete one:

  • • Your mobile number, used to sign you in, and the name you choose to display.
  • • Business verification details, such as a trade licence, only where you register as a business and verification is required.
  • • What you create in the app: your listings, orders, bookings, service and test-drive requests, saved searches, and messages you send to other users.
  • • Photos you upload. Location and camera metadata embedded in a photo is removed automatically before the image is stored, so uploading a picture never discloses where it was taken.
  • • Searches you run, used to show your recent searches and to rank results.
  • • Your date of birth and gender, if you hold an individual account. These are asked for once, at the point you post your first ad, and are used to confirm you are old enough to trade a vehicle and to report anonymised, aggregate figures about who uses the marketplace. Providing them is optional until you post an ad, and a business account is never asked for either.
  • • A push-notification token for your device, if you allow notifications. It is shared with Google Firebase Cloud Messaging only to deliver notifications, and is removed when you sign out or turn notifications off.
  • • An individual account is never asked for an email address. A business may choose to publish a contact email on its directory listing, because publishing it is the purpose of the listing.
  • • We do not collect precise or approximate location, and the app contains no third-party advertising or analytics trackers.

• How We Use Your Information & Legal Basis

  In line with Law No. ١٣'s requirement that personal data only be processed for a clear, legitimate purpose, we process your data on the following legal bases:

  • • Performance of a contract - to operate listings, bookings, Autostore orders, Sell It For Me requests, and chat between users.
  • • Your consent - for optional features such as marketing notifications, which you may withdraw at any time from Settings.
  • • Legitimate interest - to personalize search results and recommendations, and to keep the marketplace safe.
  • • Legal obligation - to detect fraud, enforce our policies, and comply with applicable Qatari law and regulator requests.

• Sharing, Cross-Border Transfer & Retention

  We do not sell your personal data. Where data is shared, transferred, or kept, the following applies:

  • • A private seller's phone number is shown only to signed-in users. A business's contact details are public, because publishing them is the purpose of a directory listing.
  • • Data is shared only with service providers (payments, delivery, hosting, image processing, customer support) bound by confidentiality and data protection obligations, and with businesses (garages, showrooms, rental companies) you choose to contact through the app.
  • • If personal data is transferred or processed outside Qatar, we require recipients to apply protections consistent with Law No. ١٣ and internationally-recognized standards.
  • • We delete data on a schedule rather than keeping it indefinitely: expired sign-in sessions after ٣٠ days, notifications you have read after ٩٠ days, and your search history is unlinked from your account after ١٨٠ days. Administrative access records are kept for ٣٦٥ days.
  • • Order and payment records are kept for the period Qatari law requires. After you delete your account they are retained without any link to your identity.

• Your Rights & Data Security

  Consistent with Law No. ١٣ and internationally-recognized data-subject rights, you may:

  • • Correct your details, download a copy of everything we hold about you, or delete your account - all from Settings, at any time, without contacting us.
  • • Understand what deleting your account does: your personal details are erased, your listings are withdrawn, your sessions end immediately, and reviews you wrote remain but are no longer attributed to you.
  • • Withdraw consent for optional processing, such as marketing notifications, from Settings.
  • • Object to processing based on legitimate interest, or lodge a complaint with Qatar's competent data protection authority if you believe your rights have been infringed.
  • • Rely on the protections we do use: encrypted connections, one-time codes stored only as hashes, sign-in credentials held in your device secure keystore, and access controls limiting which staff can view your data.

• Contact Us

  For any question about this policy, or to exercise a right you cannot complete in the app, contact us before escalating - we would rather resolve it directly:

  • • Email support@qtrwheels.com with the subject "Privacy request".
  • • We respond to data-subject requests within ٣٠ days, as Law No. ١٣ requires.
  • • You retain the right to complain to the competent Qatari data protection authority at any time, whether or not you contact us first.