Privacy Policy

Ahlan Rishta is a matrimonial platform for Muslim families. Marriage is a serious matter, and the information you share with us is serious too — it concerns your family, your faith, and your future. This policy explains, in plain language, exactly what we collect, why, who can see it, and what control you have. Where we make a promise here, it is also enforced in our software.

1. Who we are

Ahlan Rishta (“we”, “us”) is the controller of the personal data described below. Questions, requests, and complaints: privacy@ahlanrishta.com.

[To be completed before launch: registered legal entity name, commercial registration number, registered address, and the name of the appointed data protection officer or contact person.]

2. Who may use Ahlan Rishta

Ahlan Rishta is only for adults (18 or older) who are seeking marriage, and for the parents, guardians, wali, relatives, and facilitators helping them. We do not knowingly collect data about children. A profile may be created and managed by a guardian on behalf of an adult candidate — see “Profiles created by a family member” below.

3. What we collect

Information you give us

• Account: your phone number (your identity on Ahlan Rishta), optionally an email address, your language preference, and your role (candidate, guardian, facilitator).
• Profile: name, date of birth, gender, marital status, country and city of residence, state, city and native place of origin, languages, education, profession, religious practice, family background, marriage timeline, openness to relocation, family involvement preference, non-negotiables, and anything you write about yourself.
• Partner preferences: the age range, countries, education, profession, religious and community expectations you are looking for.
• Photographs: a profile photograph, if you choose to upload one.
• Verification evidence: material you submit to prove phone, selfie, family contact, education, employment, identity, or community reference. This may include identity documents, certificates, and letters — sensitive material, handled as described in section 6.
• Communications: messages exchanged inside an introduction, interest messages, and notes to our team.
• Family notes and shortlists: private notes your family writes about other members, and the profiles you shortlist.
• Reports: what you tell us when you report another member.
• Payments: your plan and its status. Card details are handled by our payment provider and are never stored by us.

Information we generate

• Trust level — computed from which verifications our team has approved.
• Compatibility scores and reasons — computed from your profile and preferences.
• Activity records — who viewed your profile, the stages of each introduction, photo requests, biodata share-link views, and an audit trail of decisions our team makes about your account.
• Technical — session records (including the browser or app you signed in with), and server logs of requests.

4. Why we use it, and on what basis

• To provide the service — creating your profile, finding curated matches, running introductions, and enabling messaging. Basis: performance of our contract with you.
• To verify members and keep the platform safe — reviewing profiles and verification evidence by hand, investigating reports, blocking and removing accounts. Basis: our legitimate interest, and yours, in a platform free of fake and misleading profiles. This is the core promise of Ahlan Rishta.
• To communicate with you — verification codes, notifications about introductions and decisions, and service messages. Basis: contract and legitimate interest.
• To take payment for a paid plan. Basis: contract.
• To meet legal obligations and to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

We do not sell your data, we do not show third-party advertising, and we do not use your profile to train advertising or profiling systems outside Ahlan Rishta.

5. Who can see what — the privacy model

This is the heart of Ahlan Rishta, so we set it out precisely. These rules are enforced by the platform, not merely stated here.

• Your phone number is never shown to other members. It is your sign-in identity, and it stays private.
• Your name is masked by default. Other members see an abbreviated form (for example “Ahmed K.” or “A. K.”) until an introduction between you is accepted. You may choose to show your full name instead.
• Your photograph is never public. Members see a placeholder. They must request to see your photograph, and you approve or decline each request individually. You can also choose never to share it.
• You choose who can find you — verified members, only people you have an accepted introduction with, or nobody.
• Your family side sees your introductions. Family members and a wali you invite, and a mediator you engage, can see and act on introductions for your profile, and can read the conversation. This is intentional; it is why the platform exists. You control who is on your family side, and you can remove them.
• Family notes and shortlists are private to your side. The member a note is written about can never see it. Equally, notes other families write about you are not visible to you.
• Biodata share links that you create expire, can be revoked by you at any time, count every view, and never include your phone number or photograph.
• Our team can see profiles, verification evidence, and reports in order to review them. Access is limited to what is needed for that purpose and is recorded in an audit log.

Profiles created by a family member

A parent, guardian, or relative may create and manage a profile for an adult candidate. If you do this, you confirm that the candidate knows and agrees, and that you have the right to share their information with us. The candidate can be linked to the profile with their own account at any time, after which they can see and control it jointly. If a candidate asks us to remove a profile created about them, we will act on that request.

6. Verification evidence

Identity documents and certificates are the most sensitive material we hold. They are used only to decide a verification, are visible only to our reviewing team, are never shown to other members, and are never included in a shared biodata link. We keep evidence only as long as needed to support the verification decision and to defend against disputes, and then delete it.

[To be set before launch: the exact retention period for verification evidence — we recommend deleting documents within 90 days of the decision, retaining only the fact of the decision.]

7. Sharing with others

• Other members and their family side — as described in section 5.
• Mediators you choose to engage, who then act with the standing of a family member on your side.
• Service providers who work on our instructions: hosting, database, SMS delivery, payment processing, and error monitoring.
• Authorities, where the law requires it, or to protect someone from harm.

[To be completed before launch: the named list of processors — hosting provider, SMS provider, payment provider, storage and monitoring — and their locations.]

8. Where your data is held, and cross-border transfers

Ahlan Rishta serves families in the Gulf and in India, and matches are made across that corridor. Your data may therefore be processed outside your country of residence. We take steps to ensure it is protected wherever it is processed, and we comply with the transfer rules of the Saudi Personal Data Protection Law and other applicable laws.

[To be completed before launch: the country where data is hosted, and the legal mechanism for any transfer out of Saudi Arabia.]

9. How long we keep it

• While your account is active, we keep your profile and activity so the platform works.
• If you delete your account, we delete your profile, photographs, preferences, notes you wrote, and shortlists. Messages already delivered to another family may remain in that family’s conversation. Records we must keep — payment records, moderation and safety records, and audit logs — are retained for as long as the law or a genuine safety need requires.
• Sign-in codes expire within minutes. Sessions expire and can be revoked.

10. Your rights

Subject to applicable law — including the Saudi Personal Data Protection Law — you may ask us to: give you a copy of your data; correct it; delete it; restrict or object to how we use it; and withdraw consent where we relied on it. Many of these you can do yourself from your privacy settings. For anything else, write to privacy@ahlanrishta.com and we will respond within the period the law allows. You also have the right to complain to the competent supervisory authority.

11. Security

Access to the platform requires a verified phone number and a session that we can revoke. Photographs and verification documents are served only to those entitled to see them. Actions taken by our team are recorded in an audit log. No system is perfectly secure, but we design for the failure that would hurt you most: your information travelling further than you intended.

12. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy in a way that materially affects you, we will tell you before the change takes effect. The date at the top of this page always shows the current version.