Privacy Policy

1.Who we are, and what this policy covers

DocuGulf is a brand of Docugulf Technology FZE, a Free Zone Establishment licensed by the Sharjah Publishing City Free Zone Authority under trade licence 4431109.01, registered at Business Centre, Sharjah Publishing City Free Zone, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Docugulf Technology FZE is the data controller for the personal data described here. This policy explains what we collect, why, who we give it to, how long we keep it and what you can ask us to do about it, under the UAE Personal Data Protection Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021, the “PDPL”).

It covers docugulf.com, your DocuGulf account, our WhatsApp and web-chat channels, and the emails and documents we exchange with you about an order.

DocuGulf is a documentation facilitation service. We are not a law firm: we do not give legal advice and we do not represent you in a dispute. The regulated parts of your matter are carried out by licensed notaries, legal translators and approved typing centres. See The DocuGulf Guarantee for a plain-language summary of what we do commit to.

2.The data we collect, and why

We ask for the information genuinely needed to deliver the service you have requested, no more. What that is depends on the service.

We never see or store your card details. Card payments are handled entirely by our payment provider on their own pages.

3.Our lawful basis for using it

Under the PDPL we rely on one of the following for every use above:

• Performance of our agreement with you, nearly everything: quoting, processing, paying, delivering, supporting.
• Our legal obligations, issuing tax invoices and keeping accounting records for the period UAE law requires.
• Your consent, marketing emails, and the optional analytics and advertising cookies described in section 4. You can withdraw consent at any time, and doing so does not affect an order already in progress.
• Our legitimate interests, keeping the service secure and preventing misuse, where that does not override your rights.

4.Cookies, analytics and the chat widget

Being specific about this, because a general statement would not be honest about what the site loads:

• Strictly necessary, a session cookie when you sign in to your account, and a local preference for whether you chose the light or dark theme. These are not used for anything else and cannot be switched off without breaking sign-in.
• Analytics, we use Google Analytics through Google Tag Manager to see which pages people find useful. We also use Microsoft Clarity, which goes further: it records a replay of your visit, the pages you opened and where you moved, clicked and scrolled, and builds heatmaps from it. Clarity is set to mask text as it is captured, so what you type into a form is not recorded, and we use it to find where a page confuses people, never to identify you.
• Advertising attribution, when you arrive from an advert or a campaign link we record which one, and if you then message us on WhatsApp that campaign name is included in the message you send. It is how we know which advertising is worth paying for.
• Web chat, our chat widget is provided by Chatwoot, which we host ourselves. A conversation you start in it is stored with your order history.

Your browser can block or delete cookies, and most offer a “do not track” setting. Blocking analytics cookies does not stop you using the site or placing an order.

5.Who we share it with

We do not sell your personal data, ever, to anyone. We share it only where sharing is how the service gets delivered:

• The licensed partner handling your matter, the notary, legal translator or approved typing centre. They receive only what that step needs.
• The government body or registry your service requires, for example MOFAIC, the Dubai Land Department for Ejari, MOHRE, the Ministry of Economy, Dubai Police, the RTA or the relevant notary public.
• An embassy or consulate, where your document needs legalisation.
• Our payment provider, to take your payment.
• Our email and messaging providers, to send you the quotation, the invoice, the status updates and the finished documents.
• Our analytics providers, Google and Microsoft, as described in section 4.
• A court, regulator or authority, where the law requires us to.

Everyone in that list receives your data to do a defined job with it and is not permitted to use it for their own purposes.

6.Sending data outside the UAE

Some services require it by their nature: attesting a foreign degree means dealing with the issuing country, and legalising a document for use abroad means dealing with that country's embassy. Some of our providers also process data outside the UAE.

Where we transfer your data out of the UAE we do so only for a purpose described in this policy, only to a recipient that has to receive it, and with the safeguards the PDPL requires.

7.How long we keep it

• Your documents and order records, for as long as you have an account with us, so you can retrieve them, and then for the period UAE tax and accounting rules require us to keep the transaction record.
• Enquiries that never became orders, long enough to answer you and to follow up once, then deleted.
• Analytics, at the retention period set in our analytics account, held separately from your order records.

You can ask us to delete your data earlier. We will, except where we are legally required to keep a record, in which case we will tell you what we are keeping and why.

8.How we protect it

Your documents are held in your private area of our system, not in a shared folder and not in an email inbox. Access is limited to the people and partners who need it for your order. Traffic to and from the site is encrypted.

No system is perfect. If a breach affects your personal data we will notify you and the authorities as the PDPL requires, and tell you plainly what happened and what to do about it.

9.Your rights, and how to use them

Under the PDPL you may ask us to:

• give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• correct anything inaccurate or incomplete;
• delete your data, subject to records we must keep;
• stop or limit a particular use, including withdrawing consent;
• provide your data in a portable format;
• explain any automated processing that affects you.

Email info@docugulf.com and say which of these you want. We will respond within the period the law allows, and we will not charge you for a reasonable request. We may need to confirm who you are first, which is itself a protection for you.

10.Children

Our service is for adults. We do not knowingly collect data directly from anyone under 18. We do routinely process a child's details, for a family visa or a birth certificate attestation, for example, but always from the parent or guardian ordering the service, on their instructions.

11.Automated decisions

We do not make any decision about you by automated means alone. Prices are calculated by our system from a published price list, but a person reviews and issues your quotation, and a person handles your order.

12.Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, tell us first at info@docugulf.com, we would rather fix it than have you take it elsewhere. You also have the right to complain to the UAE Data Office.

13.Changes to this policy

We update this policy when what we do changes. The current version is always at docugulf.com/privacy with the date it took effect at the top. Where a change materially affects you, we will tell you rather than rely on you noticing.

14.Contact us

• Email: info@docugulf.com
• Phone and WhatsApp: +971 58 569 3628
• Post: Docugulf Technology FZE, Business Centre, Sharjah Publishing City Free Zone, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

We answer Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm UAE time.