Privacy Policy

Who is responsible

The data controller is Creative Ideas Store L.L.C, registered at QFC Tower 1, West Bay, Doha, Qatar (QFC No. 04673). For any privacy question or request, contact info@creativeideasstore.com or call +974 4496 7777. We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer at this time; all privacy enquiries are handled directly by the management team.

Applicable law

We comply with the Qatar Personal Data Privacy Protection Law (PDPPL) No. 13 of 2016, the QFC Data Protection Regulations 2021, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the UK GDPR. The EU and UK regulations apply because our services are offered to individuals in the EU and UK, and because our server-side processing runs in Frankfurt, EU.

What we collect and why

We collect only the minimum data necessary to respond to your enquiry or assess your application. We do not build profiles, run analytics, or sell data to anyone.

• Contact form: your name, email address, optional phone number, and your message — used solely to read and reply to your enquiry (legal basis: steps taken at your request prior to entering a contract / our legitimate interest in responding).
• Trainer application: your name, email address, phone number (required), degree, specialisation, optional notes, and an optional portfolio PDF — used to assess your application to become a trainer (legal basis: steps taken at your request / our legitimate interest in evaluating candidates).
• Anti-spam signals: a hidden honeypot field and a timing value, plus your IP address held briefly in server memory for rate-limiting — used only to prevent automated abuse of our forms.
• Community showcase: your name, city, and country — provided by you offline with your consent and displayed publicly on the Community page.
• Language preference: your choice of English or Arabic is stored in your browser’s localStorage (“cis-lang”) — it never leaves your device and is not personal data.

How your data is handled

When you submit the contact form, your message is delivered to our team as a plain-text email through our email provider (MailerSend, MailerLite’s transactional email service). We do not store enquiries in a database on this website — the message lives in our email inbox.

When you submit a trainer application, the same email delivery applies. If you attach a portfolio PDF, it is held in server memory only for the duration of the request and sent as an email attachment; it is never written to disk or stored in a database by this site. Your IP address is used only for short-lived, in-memory rate-limiting (a ten-minute window) and is never written to a database.

Third parties

We share data only with the service providers needed to run the site. Each acts on our instructions under its own data-processing terms:

• Vercel — website hosting and delivery (headquartered in the US, processing in Frankfurt, EU). The contact and trainer endpoints run in the Frankfurt region.
• MailerSend — delivers your enquiry or application to us by email (MailerLite’s transactional email service; provider based in the EU/Lithuania).
• Google Maps — our Contact page can display an embedded Google Maps map (headquartered in the US). The map loads only after you give consent (see our Cookie Policy). When it loads, Google receives your IP address and may set its own cookies under Google’s terms.

International transfers

Your data may be processed in the EU (Vercel’s Frankfurt region; MailerSend is provided by an EU-based company) and in the US (Google’s infrastructure, and possibly MailerSend’s email-delivery infrastructure). Where required, transfers rely on the providers’ Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and supplementary measures. [NEEDS CONFIRMATION: MailerSend’s data-processing region, and DPA status with Vercel, MailerSend, and Google.]

How long we keep it

We retain data only as long as needed for the purpose it was collected, then delete it:

• Contact enquiry emails: retained for up to 24 months from the date of last reply, then deleted.
• Trainer application emails and attachments: retained for up to 36 months to allow for future opportunities, then deleted.
• Rate-limit IP data: held in server memory for a maximum of 10 minutes, then automatically discarded.
• Community showcase data: retained until you request removal.
• Language preference (cis-lang): stored in your browser until you clear your browser data.
• We conduct a quarterly review of our inboxes to ensure retention schedules are followed.

Security

We protect your data with measures appropriate to the risk, including: HTTPS with a two-year HSTS policy, a strict Content Security Policy (CSP), Zod schema validation on all form inputs, magic-byte verification for uploaded files, PII-free error logging, payload size limits, and per-IP and global rate limiting on all form endpoints.

Your rights

Subject to applicable law, you have the right to: access the personal data we hold about you; request correction of inaccurate data; request deletion of your data; object to our processing; request restriction of processing; request data portability; and withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent. To exercise any right, email info@creativeideasstore.com; we aim to respond within 30 days. If you are unsatisfied with our response, you may complain to: the Qatar Ministry of Transport and Communications; the QFC Authority; your EU supervisory authority (if you are in the EU); or the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (if you are in the UK).

Cookies

For full details on cookies and browser storage, see our Cookie Policy. In summary: we set no first-party cookies. We use three localStorage items (“cis-lang” for your language preference, “cis-currency” for your currency display preference, and “cis-map-consent” for your Google Maps consent choice) and one sessionStorage item (“cis-veil-shown” for a one-time animation state) — none is personal data.

Children

This website is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 13. If you believe we have received data from a child, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

Changes

We may update this policy as the site evolves. The “last updated” date above shows the current version.

Contact

Creative Ideas Store L.L.C, QFC No. 04673, QFC Tower 1, West Bay, Doha, Qatar. Email: info@creativeideasstore.com. Phone: +974 4496 7777.