Privacy Policy

1Information We Collect

When you create a profile, we collect the details you enter in the sign-up form. If you book a 1-1 consultation, we collect a little more, just for that purpose:

Category	Examples
Profile details	Age, height, qualifications, employment, residency, preferences, about-you description
Community background	Ahmadi Muslim status, local Jamaat, previous engagement/marriage history, children
Contact details	Your email address (used for login only — never shown to other members; members message each other through in-app chat instead)
Photo	A required photo, reviewed by our team before it goes live, shown only to members who open your profile
Ahmadi Verification	Your Local Jamaat, your Local Sadr's name and contact details, any positions you hold or have held, when you joined the Jamaat, your Jamaat activity, and a short self-introduction video — collected once, as part of getting your profile approved. See "Who Can See Your Information" below: this is seen only by our admin team during that one review, and is permanently deleted, video included, the instant a decision is made.
Messages	Chat messages you send other members are retained as part of your account, same as your profile details
Account & billing	Login credentials, subscription status, and payment processing details, handled by Stripe — we never see or store your card details.
Push notification token	A device identifier issued by Google's push service, used only to deliver "you have a new message" and "your profile was reviewed" notifications — not used for tracking or advertising
Phone number	Optional, collected only if you book a 1-1 consultation, so our facilitator can contact you to arrange the session — not collected anywhere else on the platform, and only visible to our admin team

We never ask for or store your real name. Your identity on the platform is your anonymous reference code.

With one exception (Ahmadi Verification, above — deleted the instant it's reviewed), this data is not ephemeral: it's retained for as long as your account exists, so the platform can function (showing your profile, remembering your subscription, keeping your message history) — see "How Long We Keep Your Information" below for exactly how to have it deleted.

2How We Use Your Information

• To create and display your profile to other active members, and to operate search and filtering — necessary to perform our contract with you.
• To confirm genuine Ahmadi community involvement before your profile is approved (Ahmadi Verification) — based on your explicit consent, given separately during sign-up, since your Ahmadi Muslim status and related community details are "special category data" (religious belief) under UK GDPR Article 9. You can withdraw this consent at any time by deleting your account (see "Your Rights" below); we cannot provide the service without it, since verifying genuine community involvement is central to what this platform is for.
• To process your subscription payment via Stripe — necessary to perform our contract with you.
• To communicate with you about your account, and to respond to consultation requests — necessary to perform our contract with you.
• Occasionally, to send you announcements or promotional offers by email — our legitimate interest in keeping members informed, balanced against your right to opt out at any time via the "Turn Off Marketing Emails" link on your Account page, or the unsubscribe link in any such email. Opting out never affects emails about your own account (e.g. approval status, payment).
• To keep the community safe — including reviewing accounts reported for breaching our Terms or Community Guidelines, and reviewing the conversation around a flagged message to understand its context — our legitimate interest in keeping the platform safe and trustworthy, balanced against your privacy (see "Who Can See Your Information" below for exactly how this is limited).
• To meet our own legal obligations, for example financial record-keeping for tax purposes — necessary for compliance with a legal obligation.

We do not sell your information to anyone, or use it for advertising.

3Who Can See Your Information

• Before someone opens your profile, they only ever see your reference code, gender, age, and country of residence.
• Search and messaging only ever show you, and let you contact, members of the opposite gender — this is a matrimonial platform for opposite-gender introductions only, enforced at the database level, not just in the app's design.
• Once a member opens your profile, they can see the full details you've entered — this is only available to other paying, active members, never the public.
• If your Country of Residence is Pakistan, your City, County, and Local Jamaat are never collected or shown to anyone, including other members and our own admin team's regular profile view — for the safety of Ahmadis in Pakistan.
• Your photo (once approved by our team) is only ever shown via a short-lived, secure link generated at the moment someone opens your profile — it is never a permanent public URL.
• Your Ahmadi Verification answers and introduction video (see above) are seen only by our admin team, during that one review — for Lajna members, only by a Lajna admin team member — and are never shown to other members at any point, before or after approval.
• Your contact email is never shown to other members — everyone communicates through the platform's in-app messaging instead.
• Our admin team can view full account details, strictly for safety, moderation, and support purposes — including, when a message is flagged or a profile reported, the full conversation history between the two members involved, so a decision can be made with proper context rather than a single message in isolation.

4How Long We Keep Your Information, and How to Delete It

Virtual Rishta Naata gives you two separate options, depending on what you want:

• Deactivate — from Account → Deactivate My Account. This cancels your subscription (you won't be charged again) and hides your profile from search, but keeps your data in case you want to return.
• Permanently delete your account and data — from Account → Delete My Account & Data. This immediately and permanently removes your profile (all fields you entered — age, background, preferences, about you, etc.), your photo, your conversations and messages (both sides), your block list, and any profile reports you filed or were named in, and cancels any active subscription. This cannot be undone.

We may retain a minimal record (such as the fact that a payment was made) for a limited period where we're legally required to, for example for financial/tax record-keeping — this is held by our payment processor (Stripe) in line with their own retention obligations, not by us.

Your Ahmadi Verification answers and introduction video are the one exception to "kept for as long as your account exists": these are permanently deleted, video included, the moment our admin team approves or rejects your profile — there is no way to retrieve them afterward, by you or by us.

5How We Protect It

Your data is stored with Supabase, using row-level security so that a member's full profile can only ever be read by themselves or by another active, paying member — never by an anonymous visitor. Administrative access is restricted to verified admin accounts and logged. Payment details are handled entirely by Stripe and never touch our own systems.

6Third-Party Services

We use a small number of trusted providers to run the platform, each of which processes a limited slice of your data solely to provide their service to us:

• Stripe — payment processing (your card details never reach our own servers).
• Supabase — database, authentication, and secure file storage.
• Google (Firebase) — delivering push notifications to the Android app.
• EmailJS — delivering consultation request notifications.

7International Data Transfers

Some of the providers listed above may process data outside the UK. Where that happens, we rely on the safeguards required by UK data protection law — such as the UK's International Data Transfer Addendum, Standard Contractual Clauses, or the provider's participation in a recognised data protection framework — to ensure your information stays protected to UK standards wherever it's processed.

8Your Rights

Under UK data protection law, you have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Correct any information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Request erasure of your information (also available any time via account deactivation).
• Restrict or object to certain processing of your information.
• Request a copy of your information in a portable format.
• Withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent (this applies to Ahmadi Verification specifically) — withdrawing it means deleting your account, since we can't offer this service without it.
• Lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk if you believe we've mishandled your information — though we'd appreciate the chance to put things right directly first.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at contact@virtualrishtanaata.com.

9Cookies

We use only the minimal, essential cookies/local storage needed to keep you securely logged in. We do not use tracking or advertising cookies.

10Children's Privacy

Virtual Rishta Naata is intended solely for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.

11Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We'll post the updated date at the top of this page whenever we do.

12Contact Us

Virtual Rishta Naata is the data controller for the information described in this policy. Questions about this Privacy Policy, or requests relating to your data, can be sent to contact@virtualrishtanaata.com.