Privacy Policy

AwAn Marriage Bureau (the "Platform") is committed to protecting the privacy and personal data of our members. This Privacy Policy details how we collect, process, secure, and share your personal information in connection with our matrimonial services.

This Privacy Policy applies to all candidates, account creators, and anonymous visitors of the Platform. Our data processing activities are designed to comply strictly with the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) 2025 of Pakistan and other relevant data security standards.

Under the applicable regulations, the entities responsible for managing your data are defined as follows:

• Data Controller / Brand Owner: AwAn Marriage Bureau, represented by Muhammad Akmal Awan, Lahore, Pakistan. The brand owner oversees business operations and matchmaking standards.
• Data Processor / Technical Partner: Maxxsol, represented by Jalal Haider Makki, Lahore, Pakistan. Maxxsol builds, operates, hosts, and secures the technical infrastructure, servers, and database.

All personal data is safely processed and stored in Pakistan on secure, on-premise servers managed exclusively by Maxxsol. No third-party cloud database providers are utilized at launch to ensure localized physical control over your sensitive details.

We collect personal data to deliver accurate matrimonial recommendations. The information collected is categorized below:

Group A: Standard Personal Data

Standard details collected during candidate profile creation include: Full name, gender, date of birth (DOB), current residential city, area/neighborhood, physical height, citizenship, residence status (local/expatriate), academic qualification, professional status, income range, property ownership details, family details (parents' occupations, number of siblings), and sibling marital status.

Group B: Special-Category Sensitive Data (PDPA 2025 Explicit Consent Required)

Certain details are classified as sensitive under the PDPA 2025 and require your explicit, separate consent at profile creation. This includes:

• Religious affiliation, including sect and practice level (made visible to all active paid subscribers).
• Health and physical disability information (made visible to Premium subscribers only).
• Marital history and status, including Divorced, Widowed, or Khula status, along with child custody details (made visible to Premium subscribers only).

Group C: Technical Data

We collect background technical details, including social OAuth login tokens (Google, Facebook, or Apple), active session logs, browser type, device details, IP address, and login timestamps.

Under the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) 2025, the Platform processes your personal information on the following legal bases:

• Consent: You grant us clear consent to process standard personal details (Group A) during registration and profile wizard submission.
• Explicit Consent: For special-category sensitive details (Group B), you must check a separate explicit consent box for each category at the time of profile creation. You may withdraw this consent at any time.
• Legitimate Interest: We process technical logs and send notifications (match suggestions, interest outreach, subscription renewal alerts) based on our legitimate interest in providing a functional, highly secure matrimonial utility.

We utilize your personal information strictly for matchmaking and portal administration:

• Profile Display & Searching: Customizing visibility settings based on your subscription level and privacy controls.
• Match Matching Algorithms: Generating matching profiles based on qualifications, location, sect, and preference requirements.
• System Notifications: Sending transactional emails and notifications regarding match milestones, received profile interests, and subscription expiry alerts.
• Identity Verification: Conducting internal verification of CNIC numbers to keep the platform free of fraudulent accounts. CNIC numbers are never displayed to other users.
• Aggregated Analytics: Processing anonymized statistical data to measure matching success and overall database growth.

To guarantee security and privacy, data visibility is strictly restricted according to user roles on the Platform:

Third-Party Data Sharing

AwAn Marriage Bureau does not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to any third-party marketing firms or commercial partners. The only third-party data exchange occurs during financial transactions, where our processing partner PayFast receives payment metadata. Absolutely no matrimonial preferences, health histories, or CNIC details are shared with PayFast.

To protect your identity, we offer a robust three-tier visibility configuration for candidate photos and media uploads:

• Hidden from All: Photos are completely hidden from all members. No user can view the files.
• Show on Request: Photos are rendered blurred. Users must request permission, and they will only see the original photo after you manually accept their request.
• Visible to Premium: Photos are shown clear automatically to active Premium subscribers, and remain blurred or hidden for all other members.

Your primary contact number is protected using the exact same three-tier security settings.

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfill matrimonial matching services:

• Active Accounts: Data is retained on active databases while your account remains active and registered.
• Completed Profiles: To maintain database hygiene and respect privacy, profiles marked as 'Completed' are archived and automatically permanently deleted from active systems 3 months after completion.
• Deleted Accounts: If you delete your account, your active candidate profiles are immediately and permanently scrubbed from our active databases.
• Backup Cycles: Encrypted backup archives of our database are retained for a maximum of 30 days, after which they are automatically overwritten.

We implement advanced technical safeguards to secure your personal data on Maxxsol's on-premise servers:

• Rest Encryption: Highly sensitive identifiers, such as CNIC numbers and contact phone numbers, are fully encrypted at rest using AES-256 cryptographic standards.
• Transit Encryption: All data transferred between your browser and our servers is secured using robust HTTPS/TLS 1.3 encryption protocols.
• Audit Logging: All administrative actions, data edits, and profile views by Support Agents or Bureau Managers are fully audit-logged for security monitoring.
• Application Security: Our codebase and infrastructure follow OWASP Top 10 security standards to prevent injection, cross-site scripting, and unauthorized horizontal privilege escalations.

As a data subject under the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) 2025, you hold the following statutory rights:

• Right of Access: Request a copy of all personal details we hold regarding your account.
• Right of Correction: Correct or complete any inaccurate or outdated information in your candidate profile.
• Right of Erasure: Request the immediate deletion of your candidate profile from our systems.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Withdraw your consent for the processing of special-category details (religious practice, health status, or marital history) at any time. This will trigger the removal of those specific fields from your profile.
• Right to Portability: Request an export of your personal profile data in a structured, machine-readable format.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact our data privacy officer at: privacy@awanmarriagebureau.com.

The Platform employs cookies strictly to manage user authentication and active logins:

• We use only essential, secure session cookies to remember your login status as you navigate pages.
• We do not use advertising, retargeting, or promotional cookies.
• No third-party web analytics or tracker scripts (e.g., Google Analytics, Meta Pixel) are loaded at launch to ensure absolute user anonymity and data confinement.

AwAn Marriage Bureau is strictly designed for adults. No candidate or account holder may be under 18 years of age. We do not knowingly collect, process, or maintain data for individuals under the age of 18. If we identify that a minor's details have been submitted, they will be deleted immediately.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time in response to legal updates or technical revisions in our platform infrastructure.

When changes are published, we will update the "Last Updated" timestamp at the top. For critical updates, we will send an email alert to all active registered members.

For any questions, compliance requests, or data privacy complaints, please reach out to our privacy desk:

• Email Address: privacy@awanmarriagebureau.com
• Data Controller: AwAn Marriage Bureau (Muhammad Akmal Awan)
• Data Processor & Host: Maxxsol (Jalal Haider Makki)
• Location: Lahore, Pakistan