Privacy Policy

1. About this policy

MENA Minds Syria (“MENA Minds”, “we”, “us”) is a consulting business that helps companies enter the Syrian market. This policy covers personal information we handle when you:

• visit www.mena-minds.com;
• contact us by email, phone or WhatsApp, or send an enquiry through our website;
• book or attend a consultation with us, or become a client.

It does not cover talent.mena-minds.com, our separate service for job candidates, or the websites and apps of other companies we link to or work with.

2. Information you provide to us

Depending on how you contact us and what you ask for, this can include:

• Contact details — your name, phone number and email address.
• Company details — your company name, your role, and the sector you are interested in.
• Enquiry content — what you tell us about your business and what you would like help with.
• WhatsApp messages — the messages you send to our WhatsApp business number, and related details such as your WhatsApp profile name and phone number.
• Booking details — the date, time and subject of a consultation you arrange with us.
• Attachments — documents or files you choose to send us that are relevant to your enquiry or to our work for you.

Please only send us information that is needed for your enquiry. If you share details about other people (for example a colleague), make sure they are aware you are doing so.

3. Information our team records

When we work on your enquiry or engagement, authorised MENA Minds staff may add:

• Consultation notes — notes from calls, meetings and conversations with you.
• Enquiry status — where your enquiry stands, for example new, in discussion or engaged.
• Follow-up tasks — reminders for our team, such as sending you information or arranging a next meeting.

4. Our website

The enquiry form

Our website’s enquiry form does not send your details to a server of ours. When you press “Send enquiry”, it opens your own email app with a pre-filled message addressed to us. We only receive your details if you then send that email.

Hosting

Our website is hosted by Vercel. Like any website host, Vercel processes technical information needed to deliver the pages to your device, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested.

Fonts

Our pages load fonts from Google Fonts. To deliver them, your browser connects to Google’s servers, which receive your IP address.

Google Ads tag and cookies

We use the Google tag (gtag.js) for Google Ads. It uses cookies and similar technologies so we can measure how well our advertising works. On our website it records:

• visits to our pages; and
• a “contact” event when you submit the enquiry form, or click one of our phone numbers or our email address.

It does not send us the content of your enquiry. Google processes this information under its own policies — see how Google uses information from sites that use its services. You can manage ad personalisation at myadcenter.google.com, and you can block or delete cookies in your browser settings.

We do not use any other analytics or advertising tools on this website.

5. WhatsApp

We use WhatsApp, provided by Meta, to communicate with customers. Our WhatsApp setup has these parts:

• WhatsApp Business App — our business account, which our team uses to message you.
• Meta’s business agent — a Meta feature on our WhatsApp account that handles conversations on our behalf. Replies you receive from it are generated automatically by AI, not written by a member of our team.
• WhatsApp Business Platform — Meta’s platform that lets our customer records system receive information about WhatsApp conversations, so we can keep track of enquiries and follow-ups. Being tested

When you message us on WhatsApp, Meta processes your messages and account information under its own terms and privacy policy, available at whatsapp.com/legal. Copies of messages also remain on your device and in our WhatsApp account.

6. Our customer records system

We are introducing a private customer relationship management system (CRM) that only authorised MENA Minds staff can sign in to. It is for tracking and scheduling, not for holding conversations with you.

The CRM does not synchronise automatically with Apple Calendar.

7. How we use information

We use personal information to:

• respond to your enquiries and messages;
• provide our consulting services, including the work you engage us to do;
• arrange, schedule and prepare for consultations;
• keep accurate records of our customers and our work with them;
• follow up with you about your enquiry or engagement; and
• measure how well our Google Ads advertising works, as described in section 4.

8. Who we share information with

We use the following service providers to run our business. They process information for us as part of the services they provide:

Our services include introducing clients to partners, suppliers, counterparts and authorities in Syria. We only share a client’s details with those parties when the client agrees, and only the details needed for the introduction or task.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or where needed to protect our rights or the safety of others.

9. International processing

We work across Syria, Lebanon and the United Kingdom, and our service providers operate internationally. As a result, your information may be stored or processed in countries other than the one you live in, including where our providers or their own suppliers have facilities.

10. Access and security

We limit access to customer information to MENA Minds staff who need it for their work. Our CRM requires staff to sign in, and its data is held with Supabase rather than on personal devices. We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from loss, misuse and unauthorised access.

No method of storing or sending information over the internet is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you believe information you shared with us has been put at risk, please contact us straight away.

11. Retention and deletion

Our CRM is still being tested. The retention period we intend to apply to CRM records is 30 days, after which they will be deleted. Automatic deletion is not yet in place: until it is, records stay in the CRM until we delete them or you ask us to delete them.

You can ask us to delete your information at any time — see how to make a request.

Emails you send us also remain in our email account, and WhatsApp messages remain in our WhatsApp account and on your own device. Meta handles WhatsApp messages under WhatsApp’s terms.

12. Your choices and requests

You can ask us to:

• access the personal information we hold about you;
• correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
• delete your information; or
• stop sending you marketing communications.

13. Marketing communications

We do not send newsletters or promotional WhatsApp messages. We contact you about your own enquiry or engagement.

If you receive any message from us that you do not want, email taym@mena-minds.com and we will stop.

14. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when our practices change. The current version is always published on this page, with its effective date shown at the top. If we make significant changes, we will also highlight them on this page.

15. Contact us

For any question about this policy or your personal information, contact us at taym@mena-minds.com.