Who we are
This site is operated by Welcome To Emirates, a property and relocation platform based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is hosted in France, and it is written for readers in Europe as much as in the Gulf, so it is run to the standard the European General Data Protection Regulation sets. For anything to do with your data, write to contact@welcome2emirates.com.
What we collect, and when
We collect what you type into an enquiry form and nothing more: your name, your email address, your phone number, the subject you choose and your message. There is no account to create and no other form on the site.
Our web host keeps standard server logs, as every web host does. They record the address a request came from and the page it asked for.
Why we are allowed to hold it
Because you asked us something and we are answering. In the words of the regulation, the processing is necessary to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, and beyond that it rests on our legitimate interest in replying to a serious enquiry. We do not send marketing to anyone who has not asked for it.
What we do with it
We use it to answer you. An enquiry is saved in the site’s own records and sent by email to our team in Dubai. We do not sell it, rent it, or pass it to anyone for their own marketing.
Where answering you means involving a developer, a bank, a government authority or a service provider, we tell you first and share only what that step requires.
Where your data is held
This site and its database are hosted in France, inside the European Union. Your enquiry is stored there.
It also reaches the people who will answer it, and they are in Dubai. That means a copy of what you send leaves the European Union for the United Arab Emirates. We are telling you plainly rather than burying it: it is the transfer that makes the answer possible, and it is limited to what you typed into the form.
Cookies
The site sets a cookie when you choose a language, so the page stays in that language as you move around it. Google’s translation service sets its own cookie for the same purpose. Administrators who sign in to manage the site get the usual WordPress session cookies.
Advertising measurement. We advertise on Facebook and Instagram, and we measure whether those adverts work. To do that we use the Meta pixel, provided by Meta Platforms Ireland Limited. It loads only if you allow it. When you first arrive a short banner asks you, and until you answer, nothing from Meta is requested by your browser. If you decline, or if your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, we treat that as a refusal and load nothing at all. Anyone signed in to manage the site is never measured. If you accept, the pixel tells Meta which pages you opened here, and whether you used our WhatsApp, email or telephone links. Those clicks are how we contact you, so they are what we count as a result. The pixel also sets two cookies of its own in your browser, named _fbp and _fbc, and Meta may use what it receives to show you our adverts on its own services. We never send Meta your name, your message or your telephone number. The legal basis is your consent, and consent can be taken back. You can review your choice at any time, or clear this site's cookies, after which the banner will ask you again. Apart from this, nothing has changed: the site runs no analytics, sets no other advertising cookie, and builds no profile of you beyond what is described here.
Services loaded on our pages
Parts of the site are provided by others, and your browser contacts them directly when a page loads: Google Translate for the language switcher, Google Fonts for the typefaces, Google Maps on property pages that show a location, AddToAny for the sharing buttons, and — only once you have accepted advertising measurement — Meta for the pixel described above. Each of these is governed by its own provider’s privacy policy, and each sees your browser’s address when it serves you.
How long we keep it
We keep an enquiry for as long as we are working on it, and for a reasonable period afterwards in case you come back to us. Ask us to delete it and we will.
Your rights
Under the General Data Protection Regulation you can ask us to show you what we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to stop using it for a while, to hand it back to you in a portable form, or to stop processing it altogether. Where we are relying on our legitimate interest, you can object to that.
Write to contact@welcome2emirates.com. We answer within one month, and we do not charge for it.
If you are not satisfied with how we handle it, you have the right to complain to a data protection authority. In France that is the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertes, the CNIL.
Changes to this policy
If this policy changes, the new version replaces this one on this page, and the date at the top of the page changes with it.