Zawj Match Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Zawj Match (the "app", "we", "us") is operated by Chaudhary Muhammad Ali Raza, 169, Street 4, Ayub Colony, Chaklala Scheme 3, Rawalpindi, Punjab 46000, Pakistan. We are responsible ("data controller") for the personal information described in this policy.

Zawj Match is for adults seeking marriage (nikah). It is not a casual-dating service.

2. What we collect

We only collect what you give us while using the app, plus the small amount of technical information described in 2.8. We do not access your device location (GPS), contacts, microphone, call logs or SMS.

2.1 Account information

• Email address and password. Your password is handled by Google Firebase Authentication; we never see it in readable form.
• The role you register as (brother, sister, guardian/wali or family member).
• Display name and the age you enter when you register.
• Your own phone number, only if you add it in Edit Profile. It is kept in your private account record, which only you and our team can see. It is never shown to other members, including your guardian.
• Account status information, such as when you joined and when you were last active.

2.2 Profile information

Your profile includes the following. Some of it is required to create a profile and some is optional, as shown in the app.

• Country, city, nationality and, if you add it, your hometown (typed or selected by you, not taken from your device).
• Religion and, if you choose, your sect and details of your religious practice (for example prayer, madhab, Qur'an learning, hijab or beard, revert status, views on polygyny, family-involvement and gender-interaction preferences).
• Ethnicity and, if you add it, your caste or biradari.
• Languages, marital status, number of children, education, occupation, height and residence status.
• Family details you choose to add (for example your parents' occupations and how many brothers and sisters you have).
• Your "about me" text and what you are looking for in a spouse.
• Profile photos you upload.
• Your privacy settings (for example photo blur, discoverability, profile visibility, initials-only name).
• Your verification status, trust score and a short profile ID (for example SM-4K7Q2X) that members can search for.

Religion, sect, caste, ethnicity, beliefs and family circumstances are sensitive information. We collect them only because you choose to add them to your marriage profile, and we use them only to run the service (see section 3).

2.3 Match preferences

The preferences you set for a spouse (for example age range, height range, marital status, religious level, countries, languages).

2.4 Proposals, chats and requests

• Proposals you send or receive, including your statement of marriage intention and the proposal's status.
• Messages you send in in-app chats, with their time and read status. To protect members, the app blocks messages that look like phone numbers, email addresses or social-media handles.
• Requests to see another member's photos, and requests other members make to see yours.
• Reports you make about other members and members you block.

2.5 Identity verification (optional)

If you choose to verify your identity, you upload a photo of a government ID document and, optionally, a selfie. These are used only so our team can confirm you are a real person of the stated identity and age. Only you and our review team can open them. They are never shown on your profile or to other members. See section 6 for how long we keep them.

2.6 WhatsApp number (optional, off by default)

You can choose to add a WhatsApp number and show a "Message on WhatsApp" button on your profile. This is off unless you turn it on. When you turn it off, the number is removed from your profile.

2.7 Guardian (wali) details and linking (optional)

• You can add your guardian's name and relation, and their phone number and email. The name and relation can appear on your profile. The phone number and email are kept in your private account record and are only visible to you and our team.
• You can link a guardian's own Zawj Match account to your profile. You create a short invite code in the app and share it with your guardian yourself; they enter it in their app and you confirm the link. We store the invite code, its status, and which two accounts it links. Codes expire after 7 days, and you can cancel a code or unlink your guardian at any time.

2.8 Technical information

• No usage tracking or advertising tools. The app does not include usage-tracking, crash-reporting or advertising SDKs. It does not read your device’s ad identifier and does not record which screens you open.
• Connecting to our servers. When the app signs you in or loads data, Google Firebase necessarily processes technical information such as your IP address and basic app and device details in order to provide the service and keep it secure. We record when you were last active.
• On your device. The app keeps your settings and a copy of your own profile in app-private storage on your phone so it works smoothly. This storage is excluded from device backups and is cleared when you sign out.

3. Why we use your information

We do not sell your personal information. We do not show advertising and we do not use your information to build advertising profiles. We do not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects using only automated processing. The compatibility score shown in the app is a suggestion based on the answers in both profiles.

4. Who can see your information

4.1 Other members

• Your profile can be opened by other signed-in members unless you set your profile to hidden. It appears in other members' discovery lists only while discoverability is switched on. Members you have blocked cannot open your profile.
• Your name: if you choose "initials only", other members see your short alias instead of your display name.
• Your photos: if you switch on photo blur, other members see only a heavily blurred copy of your photo (or a placeholder) unless you have approved their photo request. The link to your original photo is kept in a private record that only you, your linked guardian, our team and the members you approved can open. Your original photo files are stored privately on our servers (Cloudflare) and are only delivered to a signed-in member who is allowed to see them; the blurred copy is a separate, low-detail image. Blur is not encryption, and no app can guarantee that a determined person can never capture or obtain an image. Only upload photos you are comfortable sharing.
• Sharing a profile summary: members can share a short text summary of your profile outside the app, for example with their family on WhatsApp. The summary contains the name members see (or your initials), age, city and country, and may include occupation, marital status, sect, caste, height and your profile ID. It never includes your photos or contact details.
• Your WhatsApp number is visible to members who view your profile, but only while you have that option switched on.
• Your messages can be read by: the other member in that conversation; a guardian (wali) who has been included in that conversation; and our moderators when they review a report about that conversation or its members (see 4.2). No other member can read them.
• Guardian (wali): if you link a guardian account to your profile with an invite code, that guardian can view and help manage your profile and the proposals that involve you.

4.2 Our team

A small number of authorised administrators and moderators can access account and profile information (including your private account record: email address, private phone number and guardian contact), verification images, reports, and conversations. They open conversations only to review a report or investigate misuse, and verification images only to verify identity.

4.3 Service providers

We use these providers to run the app. They process data on our behalf and under their own security commitments:

• Google Firebase / Google Cloud (Google LLC): sign-in, and the database for accounts, profiles, proposals, chats and reports.
• Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc.): private storage (Cloudflare R2) and delivery of profile photos, their blurred copies and identity-verification images, and the processing that resizes and blurs photos.
• Cloudinary (Cloudinary Ltd.): only for photos and verification images uploaded with versions of the app released before 9 October 2026, until they are deleted.

If you tap the WhatsApp button on someone's profile, the WhatsApp app (operated by Meta) opens outside Zawj Match and WhatsApp's own privacy policy applies.

4.4 Legal reasons

We may disclose information if we are required to by law, by a court order or by a lawful request from authorities in Pakistan or elsewhere (including under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016), or where it is necessary to protect someone's life or safety, or to prevent fraud or abuse.

4.5 Business transfers

If Zawj Match is merged, acquired or transferred, your information may be transferred to the new operator, who must continue to protect it in line with this policy. We will tell you before that happens.

5. Where your information is stored and how it is protected

• Account, profile, proposal, chat and report data are stored with Google Firebase (Cloud Firestore) in Google Cloud data centres in the United States (Google Cloud multi-region nam5).
• Photos and verification images are stored in a private Cloudflare R2 storage bucket in Cloudflare data centres in the Asia-Pacific region, and are delivered through Cloudflare's global network. Photos uploaded with older versions of the app may still be stored with Cloudinary, whose servers may be located outside Pakistan (for example in the United States or the European Union).
• This means your information may be transferred to and stored in countries other than your own. Where the law requires it, we rely on our providers' standard data-protection terms for these transfers.
• All communication between the app and our servers is encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS). Our providers encrypt stored data at rest.
• Chats are not end-to-end encrypted. Messages are stored on our servers so that both people can see the conversation on any device and so our team can review a conversation if it is reported.
• Access to the database is restricted by security rules, so members can only read and change what they are allowed to.
• Screen capture is blocked in the release version of the app to discourage screenshots of private profiles.

No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a data breach that affects you, we will notify you and any authority as required by law.

6. How long we keep your information

7. Deleting your account and data

In the app: open Profile → Settings → Account actions → Delete Account, tap Continue, then enter your password and tap Delete my account. Nothing is deleted until your password is confirmed.

Without the app: email contact@zawjmatch.com from the email address on your account with the subject "Delete my account", or follow the steps at https://zawjmatch.com/account-deletion. We may ask you to confirm the request from that address. We complete email requests within 30 days.

Straight away, when you delete in the app:

• Your sign-in is deleted, and your profile is hidden from every member and removed from Discover and profile-ID search.
• Every personal detail is removed from your profile, including your name, initials, profile ID, date of birth and age, location, background, height, education, work, family details, religion and practice answers, sect, caste, "about me", what you are looking for and your phone number.
• Your photo files (originals and blurred copies) and your ID and selfie image files are permanently deleted from our servers.
• Your photo list, the blurred copies, your photo approvals and the private record that links to your original photos are deleted, so the app no longer shows your photos to anyone. Your WhatsApp number and your guardian details are removed.
• Your email address, private phone number and guardian contact are removed from your private account record.
• Your match preferences, your identity-verification request, the guardian invite codes you created and the photo-access requests you sent or received are deleted.

What is left is a hidden "Deleted member" placeholder that only our team can see. It holds no personal details, only an internal account number, your account type, join and last-active dates and account-status flags (verification, trust, profile review, reports and suspension).

Within 30 days, our team deletes by hand what the app cannot delete by itself: the "Deleted member" placeholder records, any photo, ID or selfie image files that an older version of the app stored with our previous image provider, Cloudinary (the app removes every link to them straight away), proposals you sent or received, blocks you made and guardian invite codes you used as a guardian.

What stays:

• Messages you already sent stay in the other member's copy of the conversation, because they were delivered to them. You can ask us to remove a specific message.
• We keep only what section 6 says we keep (for example reports about safety issues and a minimal suspension record), and only for the time stated there.
• Copies may remain in backups, if any exist, for up to 30 days before they are overwritten.

You can also remove individual items without deleting your account: delete photos in Edit Profile, switch off the WhatsApp button, or hide your profile in Privacy Controls. To have an image file erased from our image storage as well, email us.

8. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you and get a copy;
• Correct information that is wrong (most of it you can edit yourself in the app);
• Delete your information (see section 7);
• Restrict or object to certain uses, such as showing your profile in Discover (you can also switch this off yourself in Privacy Controls);
• Data portability: receive your profile information in a common, machine-readable format;
• Withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent (for example sensitive profile details, the WhatsApp button or ID verification). This does not affect anything done before you withdrew it.

Email contact@zawjmatch.com. We will reply within 30 days. We may need to confirm your identity first.

Pakistan: we handle your information in line with the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (PECA) and other Pakistani law that applies to us. PECA makes it an offence to access, copy or share someone's information or images without permission, or to use them to harass, threaten or harm someone. If another member misuses your information or images, please report them in the app or email us. You can also contact the FIA Cyber Crime Wing or the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

European Economic Area, United Kingdom and similar laws: you have the rights listed above under the GDPR / UK GDPR, and the right to complain to your local data-protection authority. We would appreciate the chance to resolve your concern first.

9. Age requirement (18+)

Zawj Match is only for adults aged 18 or over. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. Everyone must confirm they are 18 or older when they register. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will close it and delete its information. If you believe a minor is using Zawj Match, please report the profile in the app (reason "Underage") or email contact@zawjmatch.com.

We have zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation. Any such content is removed and reported to the relevant authorities. See our Child Safety Standards.

10. Information about other people

If you add your guardian's (wali's) name, phone number or email, please make sure they agree to you sharing their details with us. We use them only for the guardian features in the app and delete them when you remove them or delete your account. Only share a guardian invite code with the person you want to link. Do not share other people's personal information or images in chats or on your profile.

11. Profiles listed by our matchmaking team

Some people ask our matchmaking team to list their marriage profile without creating an app account themselves. These profiles are marked "Listed by Zawj Match".

• What is published: the profile details and photo the person (or, with their agreement, their family) gave us, and a WhatsApp number for contact. Listed profiles cannot receive in-app proposals or messages; members contact them only through WhatsApp.
• On whose request: we list a profile only at the request of the person it describes, and we keep a record of their consent (written, or recorded in our WhatsApp conversation with them) for as long as the listing is published.
• Photos: a listed profile's photo is shown to signed-in members without blur, so we only publish photos the person has agreed to show.
• Removal: a listed person can ask us to change or remove their listing at any time by emailing contact@zawjmatch.com with the profile ID shown on it. We remove the listing, its photos and its WhatsApp number within 7 days.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the app changes. We will change the "Last updated" date above and, for significant changes, tell you in the app or by email before the change takes effect.

13. Contact us

Questions or requests about your privacy:

• Email: contact@zawjmatch.com
• Post: Chaudhary Muhammad Ali Raza, 169, Street 4, Ayub Colony, Chaklala Scheme 3, Rawalpindi, Punjab 46000, Pakistan