Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Aateeq Auctions (“we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and safeguard your personal information when you use our platform at auction.aateeq.com.

2. Data We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide

• Account data: Full name, email address, phone number, display name.
• Verification data: Government-issued ID, proof of address (for KYC verification).
• Payment data: Billing address and payment details processed securely by Tap Payments. We do not store full card numbers.
• Listing data: Item descriptions, photographs, provenance information uploaded by Sellers.
• Communications: Messages sent through the Platform, support inquiries, dispute details.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

• Device information: Browser type, operating system, screen resolution, device identifiers.
• Usage data: Pages visited, auction participation, bid history, search queries, click patterns.
• Network data: IP address, approximate location, referral URLs.
• Cookies and tracking technologies: As described in our Cookie Policy.

3. How We Use Your Data

• Transaction processing: Facilitating auctions, processing bids, managing payments and escrow.
• AI analysis: Our AI systems analyse item images and descriptions to provide authenticity assessments, valuations, and classifications. This processing is automated.
• Trust scoring: We calculate trust scores based on account verification, transaction history, and platform behaviour to maintain marketplace integrity.
• Fraud detection: Monitoring bidding patterns to detect shill bidding, bid manipulation, and other fraudulent activity.
• Communications: Sending auction notifications (outbid alerts, winning notices), transaction updates, and platform announcements via email.
• Platform improvement: Analysing usage patterns to improve features, performance, and user experience.
• Legal compliance: Meeting regulatory requirements, responding to legal requests, enforcing our Terms of Service.

4. Third-Party Services

We share data with the following third-party service providers:

• Tap Payments: Payment processing. Tap receives payment details necessary to process transactions. See Tap’s Privacy Policy.
• Resend: Email delivery for transactional notifications (bid alerts, payment confirmations, account verification).
• Microsoft Clarity: Session replay and heatmap analytics to understand how users interact with the Platform. Clarity is cookieless and does not collect personally identifiable information.
• Google Analytics: Website traffic analysis and conversion tracking.
• Meta (Facebook) Pixel: Advertising measurement and audience targeting.
• TikTok Pixel: Advertising measurement and audience targeting.
• Snapchat Pixel: Advertising measurement and audience targeting.
• LinkedIn Insight Tag: Advertising measurement and professional audience targeting.

Marketing pixels are only loaded if you have accepted cookies. See our Cookie Policy for details.

5. Cookies & Tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies for authentication, preferences, analytics, and marketing. You can manage your cookie preferences at any time. For full details, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

6. Data Retention

• Account data: Retained for the lifetime of your account plus 2 years after deletion.
• Transaction records: Retained for 7 years to comply with financial regulations.
• Bid history: Retained for 5 years for audit and dispute resolution purposes.
• AI analysis data: Retained for the lifetime of the associated item listing.
• Analytics data: Aggregated and anonymised after 26 months.

7. Your Rights

You have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correction: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Deletion: Request deletion of your personal data, subject to legal retention requirements.
• Portability: Request your data in a machine-readable format.
• Objection: Object to processing of your data for marketing purposes.
• Restriction: Request restriction of processing in certain circumstances.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@aateeq.com. We will respond within 30 days.

8. Security Measures

We implement industry-standard security measures to protect your data, including:

• Encryption of data in transit (TLS/HTTPS) and at rest.
• Secure payment processing via PCI-DSS compliant Tap Payments.
• HTTP security headers (HSTS, X-Frame-Options, Content-Security-Policy).
• Rate limiting and fraud detection on all API endpoints.
• Role-based access control for internal staff.
• Regular security audits and vulnerability assessments.

9. Children’s Privacy

The Platform is not intended for individuals under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If we learn that we have collected data from a child under 18, we will delete that information promptly. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us at privacy@aateeq.com.

10. International Transfers

Your data may be transferred to and processed in countries outside the UAE where our service providers operate. We ensure appropriate safeguards are in place for such transfers in compliance with applicable data protection laws.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated via email or a prominent notice on the Platform. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page indicates when the Policy was last revised.

12. Contact Us

For privacy-related inquiries, please contact: