Privacy policy

Who is responsible

The data controller is the operator of Dental Cost Gulf. Operator details, including a contact address for privacy requests, are published here before this site launches.

What is collected, and why

• Visiting the site. When you load a page, our host receives your IP address, browser details and the page requested. It uses them to deliver the page and protect the service from abuse, because a website cannot be delivered or kept secure without them.
• Clinic enquiries about the website plan (only once the booking form on the clinics page is switched on). Clinic name, where the clinic operates, its current website, your name, email address and, if you give it, a phone or WhatsApp number. We use them to arrange a call and reply about the plan, on the basis of your consent and the steps you ask us to take before any agreement. The form asks nothing about patients.
• Patient requests: none. This site does not collect patient requests and does not pass anyone's details to clinics.

Health details

Health information needs particular care. Under UAE law, health information is sensitive personal data. Under Qatar's personal data law, health data is special-nature data that needs a permit to process. And under the UAE's health ICT law, health data about care given in the UAE stays in the UAE unless an exception is issued.

For those reasons the site asks for no symptoms, medical history, photographs or scans, and no form here asks what treatment you need. We will not open any form that could collect health-related details until the legal basis, the storage location and any permits it needs are settled, and this page will be updated before that happens. If you send us health details anyway, we delete them and do not use them.

Who receives data

• Our host. The site is served by Cloudflare Pages, run by Cloudflare, Inc. in the United States, through a global network. Request data is processed by Cloudflare in the course of delivering pages.
• Our form processor, once a form is switched on. No form processor is in use today. When one is added, it is named here, with the country where it stores data.
• Clinics: none. We do not share personal data with clinics or any other business, and we do not sell personal data.
• Authorities, only where the law requires it.

Transfers outside your country

Because our host operates internationally, request data may be processed outside the UAE, Qatar or Kuwait, including in the United States. Where the law we fall under requires a basis for such transfers, we rely on the safeguards our providers offer, and we will not transfer data where that law does not allow it.

How long we keep it

• Clinic enquiries: 12 months after our last message with you, then deleted, unless a contract requires longer.
• Host request data: kept by Cloudflare for the periods set out in its own policies; we keep no separate copy.
• Anything sent to us that we did not ask for, including health details: deleted when we find it.

Cookies and analytics

This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics and loads no advertising or tracking scripts. If that changes, for example if advertising is added, this page will say so before it happens, and you will be asked for consent where the law requires it.

Your rights

You can ask what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, object to its use, and withdraw consent at any time. Once operator details are published, requests go to the address shown above. We reply within 30 days.

Complaints and the laws that apply

• United Arab Emirates. Personal data is protected by Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021, and you may complain to the UAE Data Office. Health information is also governed by Federal Law No. 2 of 2019.
• Qatar. The applicable law is Law No. 13 of 2016 on the Protection of Personal Data Privacy. Complaints go to the competent department that enforces it; the National Cyber Security Agency's page on the law is at ncsa.gov.qa.
• Kuwait. Data privacy is regulated by CITRA's Data Privacy Protection Regulation, so questions and complaints go to that regulator.

We would rather hear from you first, so we can put things right. This policy is also available in العربية.