Tasdeeq (“Tasdeeq”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) a brand of Aequitas Information Services Limited, operates the website located at www.tasdeeq.com and other related websites, domains, sub-domains and mobile applications with links to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Platform”). We are a credit bureau duly licensed by the State Bank of Pakistan under the provisions of Credit Bureaus Act, 2015, and its ancillary rules and regulations (the “CB Laws”). Our services include provision of credit information reports (CIRs), credit score etc. (the “Services”) to various customers (the “User/Users”) in compliance with the CB Laws.

We have developed this privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) to explain how and why we collect, use, and disclose information from and/or about you when you use the Platform or our Services.

We respect your privacy and values, the trust you place in it. Set out below is our ‘Privacy Policy’ which details the manner in which information relating to you is collected, used and disclosed.

All visitors to the Platform are advised to read and understand our Privacy Policy carefully, as by accessing the Platform, you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of the Privacy Policy and consent to the collection, storage and use of information relating to you as provided herein.

BY USING THE PLATFORM, YOU AGREE THAT WE CAN COLLECT AND USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION AS DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY. BY USING THE PLATFORM, YOU AGREE TO THE CONTENTS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY AND GIVE YOUR IRREOVACABLE CONSENT TO US FOR COLLECTING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION.

Our Privacy Policy explains:

• What information we collect and why we collect it.
• How we use that information.
• The choices we offer, including how to access and update information.

We have tried to keep it as simple as possible, but if you are not familiar with terms like cookies, IP addresses, pixel tags and browsers, then read about these key terms first. Your privacy matters to us so please do take the time to get to know our practices and if you have any questions feel free to contact us by sending an email to info@tasdeeq.com.

1. COLLECTION OF INFORMATION

To provide the best experience to you, we collect and store personal information provided by you from time to time on the Platform. When you contact us, we keep a record of your communication to help solve any issues you might be facing while using our Platform. The personal information that we may collect about you broadly falls into the following categories:

1. Information You Provide to Us

If you are a Company:

• you will be asked to provide certain identity information, tax registration and/or related information about your business, such as your company name, business type and industry, corporate registration details and information about your business license, etc.;
• we will also ask you to provide details or preferences about the type of Services you are seeking to get and any other details or preferences relevant to your use of our Platform;

If you are an individual:

• you will be asked to provide certain contact information that is necessary for the registering for a Platform account, including name, address, phone number, email address, identification number and any other details or preferences relevant to your use of our Platform.

We will process any information provided to us in connection with the provision of the Services and/or with the disputes or to support complaints in connection with the Platform or Services acquired through the Platform. Please note, Users may submit complaints or disputes regarding the Services on the Platform and under other unforeseen circumstances. We will process data provided to us by Users that is relevant to the disputes or complaints submitted.

1. Information That We Collect Automatically

• If you contact us through our customer services department i.e. chat service, telephone or email, we may record a copy of your correspondence and may ask for additional information to verify your identity.
• We may collect contact details and other information of Users from publicly available sources for the purposes of verifying the Users and performing due diligence on the Users.
• We may collect details of the User activities, transactions and interactions on the Platform including information relating to the specifications of the Services requested through our Platform, and retain dispute and complaint records, communications of Users and any information disclosed in any discussion forum.
• From time to time, we may also collect information, including representative contact names, addresses, phone numbers, fax numbers and email addresses, about the existing and prospective Users, during or in connection with trade shows, industry events and/or other functions.
• If you visit our Platform, we will automatically collect certain information from your device including the IP addresses, device type, unique device identification numbers, browser type, broad geographic location (e.g. country or city-level location), browsing patterns and details of how you have interacted with our Platform and the Services available on it. In addition, we gather statistical information about the Platform and visitors to the Platform 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 who access our Platform, where they come from, and what content is of interest to them.  We use this information for our internal analytics purposes and to improve the quality and standard of our Platform. Some of this information may be collected using cookies and similar tracking technology, as explained further under the section F “COOKIES”
• Information That We Receive from Third Parties
• We may receive personal information about you from social media platforms if you choose to access our Platform account through a social media account. Exactly what information we receive will depend on your privacy settings with the Platform, but it may include, without limitation to, basic public profile information such as: 

1. Your user name or nickname;
2. Your profile picture;
3. Contact details etc.

• We may receive personal information about you from third parties that are engaged by us to assist with providing verification services and conducting suitable money laundering and KYC (know-your-customer) checks on Users. This may include your name, email address, company details and contact information.
• If you choose to participate in reviewing or rating Services on the Platform, we may receive personal information about you from third parties that work with us to conduct reviews into our Services and/or rate us.

1. DISCLOSURE OR SHARING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

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

1. Third party business partners, service providers and/or affiliates of Tasdeeq, engaged by us or working with us to assist us to provide Services to you or who otherwise process personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or notified to you when we collect your personal information. Categories of these partners or service providers include:

• Users of Tasdeeq and their respective affiliates and/or their designated service providers that work with us to provide processing services such as software, tools, systems and messaging services for purposes described in this Privacy Policy;
• our business partners (for example, in order for them to provide you with offers that may interest you);
• marketing and advertising platforms, such as 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. These platforms may combine information they collect on our Platform with data on their platforms and data they collect from other websites or through other sources in order to conduct targeted advertising. The processing activities of these third party marketing platforms are governed by their own privacy policies, not this Privacy Policy;
• cloud computing service providers to provide cloud storage services;
• risk control service providers to assess the security of Users’ accounts and transaction risks; and
• third party rating / reviewing service providers to carry out reviews of our Services with Users if you choose to participate in reviewing or rating Tasdeeq Services;

1. To our professional advisers, law enforcement agencies, insurers, government and regulatory and other organizations where we believe it is necessary to comply with applicable laws or to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights or protect your vital interests or those of any other person, we may also disclose and transfer your personal information or as otherwise required or permitted by applicable laws.
2. To an actual or potential User (its agents or advisers) in connection with any actual or proposed purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business, provided that we inform the User it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
3. To any other person 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.

1. WHY WE COLLECT INFORMATION?

We will normally collect and process personal information about you only where it is:

• necessary for providing the Services pursuant to the agreement between you and Tasdeeq and/or its affiliates (for example, to provide you with the Services you request and to identify and authenticate you so you may use the Platform);
• necessary to comply with legal requirements (for example, to comply with applicable accounting rules and to make mandatory disclosures to law enforcement);
• necessary for our legitimate interests and not overridden by your rights; and/or
• where it is based on your consent.

If we collect and use your personal information in reliance with our legitimate interests (or those of any third party), this interest will normally be to operate our Platform and Services, manage our relationship with you and communicate with you as necessary to provide our Services to you and for our legitimate commercial interest, for instance, when responding to your queries, improving our Platform and our Services, undertaking marketing, or for the purposes of ensuring the security of our Platform and Services and detecting or preventing illegal activities such as fraud.

1. RETENTION

We may retain your personal information as long as we have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so, for example, to provide Services to you, or as required or permitted by applicable laws, such as tax and accounting laws.

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we may either delete or anonymize it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible. 

1. E. HOW WE PROTECT YOUR DATA

We use appropriate technical and organizational measures to control access to personal data so that staff, contractors, and other people working on Tasdeeq business can only see such personal data as is necessary for them to fulfill their duties.

We have set security standards for the management of personal data as part of Tasdeeq’s wider framework of Information Security policies and procedures.

1. COOKIES

This section explains how we use cookies and similar technologies to recognize you when you visit our Platform.

1. What is a Cookie?

Cookies are small text files that uniquely identify your browser or device. The cookie is stored on your browser by website or apps that you visit. When you return to that website or app (or visit websites or apps that use the same cookies) these platforms recognize the cookies and your browsing device.

1. Why we use cookies?

We use first and third party cookies for several reasons. Some cookies are required for technical and/or security reasons in order for our Platform to operate. We refer to these as “essential” or “strictly necessary” cookies. First party cookies are mainly served to enable basic functionality on our Platform, including web analytics cookies that help us understand how Users use our web pages and how we can improve their use.

 In addition we also use social media cookies. You may access our Platform and “share” Platform content through social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Sometimes we embed videos from websites like YouTube etc. These websites have their own privacy policies which govern their use of information, which you can find on the respective websites.

We also use cookies to enable us to track and target the interests of Platform visitors to enhance the experience on our Platform by researching visiting patterns and conduct interest-based advertising; assisting our partners to track user visits to the Platforms; and to track progress and participation in promotions. We use first and third party cookies for these purposes.

• How to delete cookies?

We use cookies on the Platform to make sure you can use the Platform easily and enjoy the Services available on the Platform.

You can change your preferences by changing the settings in your browser. Most browsers will allow you to choose the level of privacy settings you want. This lets you control your cookie settings so that you can:

• See what cookies or other locally stored data you have got and delete them on an individual basis;
• Block third party cookies or similar technology;
• Block cookies or similar technology from particular sites;
• Block all cookies or similar technologies from being set; or
• Delete all cookies or similar technologies when you close your browser.

Deleting cookies or similar technologies means that any preference settings you have made on the Platform will be lost. Blocking all cookies or similar technology means functionality on the Platform will be lost. Please note that if you choose to refuse cookies or pixels you may not be able to use the full functionality of the Platform.

1. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time in response to changing legal, technical or business developments. When we update our Privacy Policy, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make. We may obtain your consent to any material Privacy Policy changes if and when this is required by applicable data protection laws of the country.

Any changes to this Privacy Policy will be communicated by us posting an amended Privacy Policy on the Platform. Once posted on the Platform, the new Privacy Policy will be effective immediately. You can see the amended privacy policy, when a privacy notice was last updated by checking the “last updated” date displayed at the top of the privacy notice.

1. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

The Platform is not for the individuals under the age of eighteen (18), and we request that such individuals should not provide their personal information through the Platform. If a User is under 18 years of age, he/she may browse through our Platform; however, he/she may not provide personal information to us such as his/her name, address, or email address, for the utilization our Services.