Privacy and personal data protection policy

1. Who is responsible for your data

• EgyGomla, based at Smart Village, Giza, Egypt, is the controller of the personal data the platform processes within the meaning of Personal Data Protection Law No. 151 of 2020. Its commercial register and tax card details are published on the «About us» page.
• This policy covers egygomla.com, the web and mobile apps and all our services. We respect the privacy of private life and the confidentiality of electronic correspondence guaranteed by article 57 of the Constitution.
• The personal data protection officer is the founder, Mohamed Elgohary. Data protection requests and correspondence go to privacy@egygomla.com, with «Data protection» in the subject line.

2. The data we collect

• Account and sign-in data: your name, email address, sign-in details and interface language. Sign-in runs through an identity system we operate on our own servers (Keycloak), and passwords are never stored as readable text.
• When you choose “Continue with Google”: we receive your basic account details from Google through Firebase Authentication, such as your name and email address, to link them to your account with us. This option is optional.
• Organisation data: its name, type, members and their roles; a supplier's public profile if it chooses to publish one; and verification documents if they are uploaded.
• Trade data: requests for quotes, quotes, orders and their documents, the messages tied to them, disputes and their evidence, and reports.
• Shipping data: the recipient's name, address and phone number, to deliver through the carrier.
• Payment and settlement data: payment status and amounts as reported to us by the payment provider, without card details. For suppliers: settlement account details and the identity checks the payment provider requires.
• Mobile notifications: the device's Firebase Cloud Messaging token, stored encrypted, if you turn notifications on.
• Technical logs on our servers to run the service and protect it from abuse and intrusion, and optional measurements that start only with your consent.

3. Purposes and legal basis

• Running, signing in to and protecting your account, showing supplier profiles and products, and delivering requests, quotes and messages only to the party concerned: to perform our contract with you under the terms of use.
• Fulfilling orders — payment through the provider, shipping through the carrier, inspection, disputes and settlement: to perform the contract.
• Reviewing verification documents, preventing fraud and abuse, and securing the platform: our legitimate interest in protecting users, unless it conflicts with your fundamental rights and freedoms.
• Invoices, tax and accounting records, keeping technical logs and answering orders of competent authorities: to meet obligations imposed by law.
• Optional usage measurement and crash diagnostics, and any electronic marketing messages: only with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• We do not sell your data, use it for targeted advertising, or take decisions about you based solely on automated processing that produce legal effects.

We process data on the grounds that make processing lawful under article 6 of the Personal Data Protection Law:

4. Financial and sensitive data

• We do not collect bank card details; the buyer enters them directly with the payment provider.
• A supplier's settlement account details may be sensitive financial data under the law; we process them with the supplier's express consent in the supplier agreement, only as needed for settlement, and share them only with the payment provider.
• The services are for businesses and traders, not for children, and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone below the age of majority.

5. What is public and what is private

• Public: published supplier profiles, published products, verification status and the supplier's governorate. A supplier's public profile shows no direct contact details such as phone, email or WhatsApp.
• Private: verification documents and their numbers, requests, quotes, orders, messages, contact and shipping details, and payment and settlement data. They are visible to the parties to the order as far as needed, and to the operations team according to its permissions. Verification documents are kept in private storage that only the reviewers can access.

6. Who we share data with

• Supplier address map: the map editor requests map tiles from OpenStreetMap, which receives the network address and viewed map area. The chosen exact pin is not sent as a query parameter in these requests. The pin and detailed address stay private under account permissions; public location is limited to the governorate. Provider policy: https://osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy.
• The other party to the order: only what the deal needs; the supplier receives the recipient's name, address and phone when needed to prepare shipping.
• The licensed payment provider: order and amount details, settlement details and supplier identity checks.
• The contracted carrier: sender's and recipient's names, addresses and phone numbers, and parcel details.
• Hosting: our servers are rented from the hosting provider netcup. Backups: encrypted database backups with the storage provider Backblaze. Public images: published product images are served to visitors through the Cloudflare network. Email: an email service provider sends account and order emails.
• Google and Firebase: for signing in with Google when you choose it, for phone notifications when you turn them on, and for optional diagnostics and measurement after your consent.
• OpenAI: to process what you type or photograph in the «EgyGomla assistant» when you use it, after personal data is removed from the text (see the AI assistant section).
• Legal advisers and auditors when needed, and official authorities when the law, a court order or a competent investigating authority requires it.
• Every processor that handles data for us is bound by a contract that limits processing to our instructions and requires appropriate safeguards.

• OpenStreetMap privacy policy

The AI assistant

• Before sending, we automatically remove phone numbers, email addresses, national ID numbers, card and bank account numbers and links from the text. We do not send your name, account or organization identifier — only an encrypted technical token that does not identify you, for abuse prevention.
• We do not keep the conversation text or the photo on our servers; the photo stays in memory for the duration of the request only. We ask the provider not to store responses for us; the provider may retain requests for a limited time for abuse monitoring under its terms.
• We keep usage figures only (tokens, cost, feature and outcome) without any text or identity, your rating of an answer (helpful/not helpful), and a one-day cache of answers to identical earlier questions after personal data is removed.
• Results come only from products and suppliers published on the platform. Answers are machine-generated and may contain mistakes, and a manufacturing cost estimate is indicative, not a quote; the assistant makes no decision about you and sends no request on your behalf — you review and decide.
• Text and photos are screened automatically for prohibited content before processing.

When the «EgyGomla assistant» is available (AI search, photo search, request-for-quotation drafts and the indicative manufacturing cost estimator), what you type into it or the photo you choose is sent to the AI model provider OpenAI, acting as our processor, to produce the answer. Using the assistant is optional.

7. Transfers outside Egypt

Some of the providers above process or store data outside Egypt, such as hosting, backups, the Google, Firebase and Cloudflare services, and OpenAI when you use the AI assistant. We transfer personal data abroad only under the conditions of the Personal Data Protection Law and its executive regulations, including a level of protection at the recipient no lower than Egypt's, a licence or permit from the Personal Data Protection Center where required, or your express consent in the cases the law allows.

8. How long we keep data

• Account data: while the account is active, then deleted or anonymised as described on the account-deletion page.
• Order, invoice, payment and settlement records: for the applicable commercial and tax obligations, taking account of book closing and any investigation or dispute.
• Payment-evidence files and order and shipment documents that became transaction records: 2555 days (approximately seven years) after the order is finally completed or cancelled. Their deletion does not begin while the order remains open.
• Uncompleted uploads: 24 hours from reservation. Files refused during scanning: seven days from refusal, in private quarantine without ordinary download access. Files withdrawn by their uploader that never became transaction records: 30 days from withdrawal.
• Withdrawing a file previously used as agreement, payment or delivery evidence does not shorten transaction-record retention. A legal hold, dispute or investigation requiring preservation stops deletion, and the file is kept for any longer period this requires.
• Disputes and their evidence: until the dispute ends and the related limitation periods expire.
• Technical system logs: the period required by Anti-Cybercrime Law No. 175 of 2018, then deleted unless needed for an investigation or dispute.
• Verification documents: while the verification is in force, then as long as needed to prove the review and prevent fraud.
• Messages and reports: while the dealing continues, then as long as needed to protect the other party and settle reports.
• When a retention period ends, the data is deleted or anonymised so that you can no longer be identified.

9. Your rights

• To know what personal data we hold about you, to access it and to obtain a copy.
• To have it corrected, modified, updated or completed.
• To have it erased, subject to what the law requires us to keep.
• To withdraw your consent to processing based on consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.
• To restrict processing to a defined scope, and to object to processing or its results where it conflicts with your fundamental rights and freedoms.
• To be told of any breach of your personal data.

Article 2 of the Personal Data Protection Law gives you these rights:

10. How to exercise your rights

1. A copy of your data: from «Your personal data» in the app settings or your account on the website, download a JSON file with your account data, messages and activity straight away.
2. Correction: edit your account and organisation details in the settings, or ask support to correct them.
3. Erasure: request account deletion in the app or on the web account-deletion page.
4. Withdrawing consent to optional measurement: in the app's privacy settings or through the «Measurement settings» link on the website.
5. Any other request: write to the data protection officer at privacy@egygomla.com. We may verify your identity first, and we reply within the period set by the law and its executive regulations and without undue delay.

Using your rights through the account tools is free. If you are not satisfied with our reply, you may complain to the Personal Data Protection Center.

11. Security and breach notification

• We apply appropriate technical and organisational measures, including encrypted connections, encrypted device tokens, private storage for verification documents, need-to-know access, extra identity checks for admin accounts, and audit logs.
• If your personal data is breached, we notify the Personal Data Protection Center within 72 hours of becoming aware of it under article 7 of the law, inform you as the law and its executive regulations require, and take steps to contain and remedy it.

12. Cookies and measurement

We use necessary cookies to sign in and protect your session. Measurement and crash diagnostics are optional and off until you agree, and we use no advertising cookies. The details are on the cookies and measurement page.

• Cookies and measurement

Optional Google web measurement

When available, Google Analytics requires consent separate from local web measurement and app diagnostics. We send public visits and the first successful send of an eligible quote request; product/supplier detail measurement and conversions exclude test or unconfirmed data. A mixed public listing may record an aggregate visit without sending its item details. Advertising, Google signals and automatic Enhanced Measurement are disabled.

Google receives technical client/session identifiers and connection/device information, and may process IP addresses. The official SDK is trusted code on the public page; we promise neither full anonymity nor a sandbox around it. EgyGomla code sends only closed page types, language and a coarse acquisition source, without account, organization, product or request identifiers, request text, or raw URLs, queries or referrers.

A signed preference lasts up to one year; acquisition context and Google identifiers last up to 30 minutes. This purpose shares cookies between egygomla.com and app.egygomla.com using domain egygomla.com; browsers may send them to other sibling domains. Preference/context records are inaccessible to JavaScript. A writable opt-out marker can veto collection but cannot grant consent.

Decline or change this choice through Google measurement settings here. GPC/DNT, blocked cookies, unreadable storage or protected drafts prevent SDK startup. The SDK is absent from private customer documents. Customer-page startup requires confirmed authentication absence and real eligible content. Marketing measurement concerns its public shell; it does not inspect the customer host’s private session.

Withdrawal stops local collection, requests context revocation and reloads the page. Other tabs observe it on state refresh or focus; there is no promise of instant atomic withdrawal across tabs, and an already-started request or delivered data cannot be recalled. Expiry or blocked cookies/SDK may break attribution from a visit to its quote request.

13. Changes to this policy

We publish any update to this policy with its date, and tell you about material changes in the platform or by email before they take effect.

Account deletion

You can ask for your account to be deleted from the web account-deletion page without installing the app, or from the settings inside the app. That page explains what is deleted, what is kept and for how long. To keep a copy of your data, download it first from «Your personal data» in your account settings.

Account deletion page