Emirates Telecommunication Group Company PJSC (“We”,” Us”, “Our”, “e&”) takes your (“You”, “User”, “Subscriber”, “Customer”) privacy very seriously and is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This Privacy Notice provides details on the following sections:
1. Applicability of this Notice
2. What Personal Data do We collect about You
3. How is personal data collected
4. How We use your Personal Data and on which Lawful Basis
5. Automated Decision Making & Profiling
6. Your Personal Data and your Legal Rights
7. Sharing and Disclosing Your Personal Data
8. Cookies Notice
9. Data Transfers
10. Direct marketing
11. How long We retain your Personal Data for
12. Privacy Notice updates
This Privacy Notice applies to all individuals who have downloaded, installed, and logged into the GoChat Messenger application (“Application”, “Platform”) and whose Personal Data is collected, processed, and stored for the purpose of this application. If You provide Us with Personal Data including your contact details and any other information that will allow Us to identify You and provide You with Our services, We will process it according to this Privacy Notice (“Notice”).
Your “Personal Data” means any information, which allows Us to identify You directly or indirectly (together with information from other sources), that You have provided to Us or Our Third parties, in connection with a service or product offered whether through the use of the Application, in person or any other mode of communication.
We may collect your Personal Data such as:
i. General Identification Personal Data including but not limited to name, e-mail address, contact number, date of birth, nationality, gender, country of residence, photo etc.;
ii. Profile Data such as username, service preference and reviews;
iii. Web data including but not limited to cookies, user activity logs, IP address and Platform visitor interaction data;
iv. Marketing and Communications Data such as Your preferences for receiving marketing from Us, third parties (i.e., external partners), and Your communication preferences;
v. Device Contact List to display current GoChat registered contacts, with your consent;
vi. Images and other information from Your device’s camera and photos, including when shared with other users, with your permission;
vii. Approximate location, including location information based on your SIM card and/or IP address. Precise location data (such as GPS) may also be collected with Your permission.
We may collect your personal data through the following processes:
We will only use your Personal Data for the purposes for which We collected it.
Based on the processing being necessary to satisfy Our specific obligations under other laws of the UAE for the following purposes:
Based on the necessity to enter into or perform a contract, We may process your Personal Data for the following purposes:
Based on your consent, We process your Personal Data for the following purposes:
Based on data subject’s interest (under UAE Data Protection Law), we process your Personal Data for the following purposes:
We do not perform automated decision making and profiling on Your Personal Data for this application.
▪ Right to be informed
You have the right to be informed of any processing of your data in clear, transparent, and easily understandable means. The present Notice aims at fulfilling this right.
▪ Right to access Personal Data
You have the right to request information and make a request for a copy of the Personal Data that We hold about you. To make this request, please contact Our Contact Centre team or Data Protection Office (see contact details below).
▪ Right to Personal Data rectification
You have the right to have Personal Data held about You corrected if it is not accurate. If what We hold on You needs updating, or You think it may be inaccurate, You can contact Our Contact Centre team or Data Protection Office (see contact details below).
▪ Right to processing suspension/restriction
You have the right to request the suspension of the processing your Personal Data, when :
(i) the accuracy of your Personal Data is contested, for a period enabling Us to verify the accuracy of the Personal Data; or
(ii) the processing of your Personal Data is unlawful, but You do not want it erased and request the restriction of its use instead; or
(iii) your Personal Data is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, but it is required by You for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
Notwithstanding the above, under UAE Data Protection Law, we may process your Personal Data in the following cases:
- If the processing is limited to storing Personal Data
- If the processing is necessary to establish any legal claims or defence of rights or is in connection with any judicial proceedings
- If the processing is necessary to protect the rights of third parties in accordance with applicable legislation
- If the processing is necessary to protect the public interest.
▪ Right to Personal Data transfer/portability
You have the right to ask Us to provide You with your Personal Data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format and to transmit it to another data controller, providing the following cumulative criteria:
(i) the Processing is based on your Consentor the performance of a contract with you;
(ii) the processing is carried out by automated means. Where the transfer is technically doable, You have the right to have your Personal Data transmitted directly from Us to another controller. e& shall endeavour to provide this information by allowing You to raise a request for the same to the e& Contact Centre team or Data Protection Office (see contact details below).
▪ Right to stop/object to processing
You have the right to object, at any given time and without any justification, in the following cases:
• Processing of your Personal Data is for direct marketing purposes, including profiling related to direct marketing;
• Processing is carried out to conduct statistical surveys unless it is necessary to achieve public interest (under UAE Data Protection Law);
• Processing is in violation of the data protection standards under article 5 of UAE Data Protection law (under UAE Data Protection Law).
▪ Right not to be subject to an automated processing/automated individual decision-making
You have the right of your Personal Data not being subject to a decision based on automated processing, including profiling resulting in legal effects or seriously affecting you, however, exercising this right may not enable Us to design and promote products and services tailored to your needs.
▪ Right to erasure
You are entitled to require a controller to delete their personal data if the continued use of their personal data is not justified. If the legal basis for processing is Your consent and You later withdraw Your consent, your Personal Data will only be erased if no other lawful grounds exists for retaining your data. In compliance with Our regulatory requirements, your Personal Data will be retained for the duration of time prescribed by Our regulator. For more information on retention periods, refer to section in this Privacy Notice called ‘How long we retain your Personal Data’.
▪ Right to withdraw your consent
You have the right to withdraw your prior consent to processing based on it, at any time. Once We have received notification that You have withdrawn your consent, We will no longer process your Personal Data for the consented purposes.
How to exercise your rights?
To invoke your data subject rights, please send an email or letter to e& data protection officer (see contact details below).
Please note that You are entitled to lodge a complaint with a competent Data Protection Authority, concerning e& compliance with the applicable data protection laws and regulations.
Your Personal Data will be accessed internally by e& employees in accordance with their scope of work and competence, only on a need-to-know basis.
We shall not share or use your Personal Data with our affiliates or any third party not directly involved in the provision of telecommunication service without your consent.
Your Personal Data may be shared with, or transferred to, our subsidiaries, affiliated companies, and trusted third parties (including vendors, resellers, subcontractors, and suppliers) who are directly involved in the supply of the services provided to you.
We may disclose your Personal Data, with predefined processes, if such disclosure is:
i. permitted by UAE applicable laws;
ii. expressly permitted under the UAE regulatory framework;
iii. in response to legal process (e.g., police, emergency services, etc.) in order to comply with a court order or applicable law or in connection with judicial proceedings or other legal process.
iv. necessary for the execution of the agreement between Us and the provision of Our services to you;
v. made in order to protect Us or Our Customers’ legitimate interests (e.g., with credit reporting agencies for purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction);
vi. expressly permitted by You (express opt-in consent).
A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the said site. It enables the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login, location etc.) over a period, so you do not have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another, thereby making your next visit easier
We use cookies across https://www.gochatapp.net/ to save your session as You browse this Website, enhance your experience when browsing the Platform, and improve the Platform.
We may collect your personal data from, transfer it to, and store and process it in the United Arab Emirates and other countries outside of where You live. Whenever We share information outside of where You live, when We are legally required to do so, We make sure an adequate transfer mechanism is in place. We also make sure any third parties We share information with have an adequate transfer mechanism in place, as well. If You are accessing the Platform from outside the United Arab Emirates, You would have been required to consent to the transfer, storage, and processing of your data in and to the United Arab Emirates or other countries.
We may share your Personal Data with third parties outside the countries of Our jurisdiction in the following cases:
i. Your Personal Data may be transferred to Our Contact Centre vendors in India and Egypt on the basis of Data transfer agreements between e& and the vendors.
Direct Marketing is conducted to contact You to offer promotions and carry marketing of e& services. Below channels are used for this purpose:
i. Calls;
ii. SMS;
iii. E-mails.
At any time if You would prefer to stop receiving marketing information from e& and as indicated in the section dedicated to Your rights above, You may object to direct marketing by using the “unsubscribe” option included in the message or contact the e& Contact Centre or Data Protection Office (see contact details below).
e& and Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) understand that some of You may not wish to receive promotional SMSs or calls anymore. Therefore, You can opt-out from these communications at any time. In that case, please consider the below options:
- If You do not wish to receive SMSs from e& about offers and promotions w.r.t. GoChat Messenger application, please text "b AD-GoChat" to 7726 and We will immediately make sure that You will not receive any promotional SMS. To unblock receiving offers, please text "u AD-GoChat" to 7726
- If You do not wish to receive any SMSs at all about offers and promotions, please text "ball" to 7726 and We will immediately make sure that You will not receive any promotional SMS. By doing so, all promotional SMSs will cease even if you are no more connected to the GoChat Application. To unblock receiving offers from all entities, send “uall” to 7726.
- If You do not wish to receive SMSs from a specific sender about offers and promotions, please text "b sender ID" to 7726 and We will immediately make sure that You will not receive any promotional SMS from that specific sender. To unblock receiving offers, send u sender ID to 7726.
- To stop receiving promotional calls from e& w.r.t. GoChat Messenger application, You may send your request by typing DNCR and sending it to 1012 or via e& website or MyEtisalat mobile application. You will stop receiving promotional calls from all entities. To unblock promotional calls, you can send UDNCR to 1012.
- You can at all times, subscribe again to e& promotions w.r.t. GoChat Messenger application by texting "u AD-GoChat" to 7726.
We respect your privacy. Informational messages from e& such as bill invoices and balance recharge notification, service, and information related communication, etc. are not subject to blocking.
We will only keep your Personal Data for as long as it is necessary or needed for Our business purposes or to fulfil the applicable legal or regulatory obligations, post which We would delete it from Our systems. In some circumstances we will anonymize Your Personal Data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to You.
e& reserves the right to change the Privacy Notice or Terms and Conditions when necessary. We keep this Privacy Notice under regular review to reflect any changes and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.
For queries regarding this Privacy Notice or e&’s services, please contact the e& Contact Centre on 101.
If You have any questions or concerns about Our use of your Personal Data, You should write to the address below:
e&
Data Protection & Privacy
Head Office Marketing Department
Intersection of Sheikh Zayed II Street and Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum Road
PO Box 3838
Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates
data-privacy-officer@eand.com
Last updated in May 2024