Privacy policy

1. Who is responsible for your data

RishteDesk is a service operated by ARBSBUY (SMC-PRIVATE) LIMITED, a company incorporated in Pakistan under the Companies Act 2017 (CUIN 0310402). The company is responsible for the personal data described in this policy.

2. What we collect

Religion, community, caste or ethnicity, marital status and photos of your face are sensitive. You decide whether to add them, they are used only to run your profile and suggest matches, and you control who sees each one.

3. Where your data comes from

• From you, when you sign up, build your profile, verify, message, call or pay.
• From family members you invite, when they help with your account within the permissions you gave them.
• From Google or Facebook, if you choose to sign in with them: basic account information such as your name and email address.
• From other members, for example when someone sends you an interest or reports a problem.
• From your device, automatically: technical data such as browser type and IP address.

4. How we use it, and why we are allowed to

• To run your account and show you suitable matches.
• To keep members safe: filtering contact details, screening for fake profiles, scams and abuse, and handling reports.
• To check bank-transfer receipts and activate memberships.
• To send you service messages, and marketing only if you agree. You can opt out at any time.
• To meet our legal obligations.

We rely on these legal grounds: to provide the service you signed up for (your account, matches, messages and memberships); your consent (sensitive profile details, optional verification, marketing and AI assistance — which you can withdraw at any time); our legitimate interest in keeping members safe and preventing fraud; and our legal obligations, such as keeping payment records.

5. Who can see your profile

• Only signed-in members, and only the audience you choose. Profiles are never indexed by Google or any other search engine, and this cannot be switched on by a setting.
• Every sensitive field has its own visibility setting.
• Your photos can stay private until you approve a request, and you can withdraw that approval.
• You can hide your profile or block any member.

Your email address, mobile number, exact address and any identity document data are never shown to another member. These are not settings you could change by accident — the platform has no path that exposes them.

6. Messages and calls

• Phone numbers, email addresses and social media handles are automatically removed from messages.
• Voice and video calls take place inside RishteDesk. Neither side sees the other’s number, and calls are not recorded.
• A wali or chaperone can join a conversation openly; everyone in the conversation can see who is present.
• We may review messages when they are reported or flagged for safety.

7. Verification, identity documents and AI

Verification badges appear only after the evidence behind them has been checked. We do not store your CNIC, NICOP or passport number in any form: we keep a one-way fingerprint so the same document cannot verify two accounts, plus the reviewer’s decision. Document images are deleted once the review is complete.

We may use automated tools, including AI, to help screen profiles, photos and messages for safety. AI assists; a person makes any decision that affects your account. You can turn AI assistance on or off in your privacy settings, and we never send identity documents to any AI service.

If you choose live selfie verification, your selfie and your profile photo may be sent to an AI service provider to help compare them. The result is a suggestion for our reviewer, who makes the decision. The selfie is used only for that check and is deleted once the review is complete.

8. The RishteDesk app

• The app uses your camera and microphone only when you make or answer a voice or video call, or choose to take a photo. Android asks your permission first, and you can change it at any time.
• If you turn on the fingerprint or PIN app lock, that check happens on your phone. We never receive your fingerprint or face data.
• The app keeps you signed in with a secure token stored on your device. Signing out removes it.
• Everything else in this policy applies to the app exactly as it does to the website.

9. Who we share data with

• Other members: only the profile details you choose to show.
• Service providers who make the platform work — hosting, email delivery, SMS delivery, payment processing, sign-in and AI assistance — under confidentiality obligations and only for that purpose. Some of these providers may process data outside Pakistan; when they do, we choose providers that protect it to a comparable standard.
• Authorities, when the law requires it or to protect someone from serious harm.

We never sell personal data.

10. How long we keep it

• Your data is kept while your account is open.
• Closing your account hides your profile immediately and signs out every device. If you sign in again within 30 days, your account is restored; after 30 days your personal data is permanently deleted.
• Records we must keep for accounting, legal or safety reasons, such as payment records or reports of serious misconduct, are kept only as long as needed and with personal data minimised.

11. Your rights and choices

We reply to privacy requests within 30 days, and usually much sooner. If you live in a country with a data-protection authority, you also have the right to complain to it.

12. Security

Traffic is HTTPS only. Mobile numbers, message contents, family notes and two-factor secrets are encrypted in our database, and every moderation decision our staff make is recorded. No online service is perfectly secure; if a breach affects you, we will tell you as the law requires.

13. Children

RishteDesk is for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18 and will delete it if we find it. See our Child safety standards.

14. Changes to this policy

When this policy changes we update the date and version at the top of this page, and we tell you about significant changes by email or on the site. The version you agreed to is recorded against your consent.