Privacy Policy.

This privacy policy explains how Mint Capital Investment LLC ("Mint Capital", "we", "us") — operator of mintsouq.com — collects, uses, and protects your information. It applies to everyone who visits the site, registers an account, or transacts through the platform.

1. What we collect

We collect information in three categories:

• Information you give us: name, email, phone, password (hashed), display name, profile photo, listing details, payment instructions, government identity documents and selfies submitted for verification, contact-form messages, support tickets.
• Information about transactions: escrow payments, escrow status changes, message threads between buyer and seller, sponsored-listing payments, abuse reports.
• Information collected automatically: IP address, browser type, device type, pages visited, search queries, voice-search audio (if you use the microphone), cookies, login times.

2. How we use it

• To operate the marketplace — show your listings, route buyer messages to you, process escrow.
• To verify your identity when you submit phone numbers or government IDs.
• To detect fraud and abuse — including comparing identities across accounts, flagging duplicate or suspicious listings, and investigating reports.
• To improve the AI search and listing tools — voice queries are anonymised and used to improve speech recognition and result ranking.
• To send transactional emails (verification codes, escrow status updates, abuse-report acknowledgements) and, if you opt in, occasional product updates.
• To comply with legal obligations under UAE law and the laws of countries we operate in.

3. Government ID documents — special treatment

Identity documents (Emirates ID, Iqama, National ID, Civil ID, passport, driving licence) and the selfie taken during verification receive heightened protection:

• Stored encrypted at rest in access-controlled storage.
• Visible only to Mint Souq's verification team and senior compliance staff at Mint Capital Investment LLC.
• Never displayed to other users on the platform under any circumstance.
• Retained after approval so that we can support fraud investigations and law-enforcement requests connected to a user's later activity.
• Released only to UAE law enforcement (Dubai Police e-Crimes, federal authorities), the UAE Central Bank, or equivalent foreign authorities upon a lawful request linked to a fraud or financial-crime investigation.

You can request deletion of your stored documents at any time by emailing trust@mintsouq.com. We will honour the request within 30 days unless an active fraud or law-enforcement matter requires retention. Deletion of your documents does not delete your account; you simply lose the ID-verified badge.

4. Who we share data with

We share data only with:

• Service providers who process data on our behalf — email delivery (Resend), SMS (Twilio), hosting (our cPanel host), error monitoring. Each is bound by data-processing terms.
• Other users you transact with — buyers see your display name and verification badges; if you escrow with them, they see your transaction reference.
• Law enforcement and regulators — when we receive a lawful request connected to a specific investigation. We do not sell or share user data with marketing companies, data brokers, or unauthorised third parties.

5. Cookies and tracking

We use cookies for session management (so you stay logged in), for cart/escrow state, and lightweight analytics. We don't use third-party advertising cookies. See our cookie policy for details.

6. Your rights

• Access — you can request a copy of all data we hold about you.
• Correction — you can fix inaccurate data via your dashboard or by emailing us.
• Deletion — you can request account and data deletion (subject to legal retention requirements for transaction records).
• Portability — you can request a machine-readable export of your data.
• Withdraw consent — you can opt out of non-transactional emails at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, email support@mintsouq.com. We respond within 30 days.

7. Data retention

• Account data: kept while your account is active, plus 12 months after you close it (for fraud follow-up).
• Listing data: kept for 24 months after a listing is removed.
• Transaction records (escrow): kept for 7 years per UAE financial-record requirements.
• Identity documents: kept while your account is active, plus 12 months after closure, unless an investigation requires longer.
• Voice-search recordings: anonymised within 30 days; raw recordings deleted within 12 months.

8. Data security

We use HTTPS for all traffic, hash passwords with bcrypt, store ID documents in encrypted storage with access logging, and apply CSRF tokens to all state-changing actions. We are not perfect — no system is — but we report any incident affecting your data within 72 hours of discovery, as required by UAE data-protection law.

9. International transfers

Mint Souq's primary servers are in the UAE. Some service providers (e.g. email delivery, error monitoring) may process data in other countries (US, EU). All such processors are contractually bound to UAE-equivalent protection standards.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the product evolves or laws change. Material changes will be announced by email to registered users at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use of the platform after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

11. Contact

For privacy questions, data requests, or complaints:
Email: support@mintsouq.com
Trust & Safety: trust@mintsouq.com
Postal: Mint Capital Investment LLC, Dubai, United Arab Emirates