Privacy Policy

Who this covers

• This policy explains how Athar by Wafra ("Athar", "we", "us") collects, uses, and protects personal data when you use the Athar mobile app. Athar is owned and operated by Wafra Environmental Consulting and Solutions Company ("Wafra"). If you have questions, contact us at athar@wafraeco.com.

Data we collect

• Account information: your email address, display name, and language preference, whether you sign up with a password or with Google or Apple sign-in.
• Activity data: daily step counts you choose to sync, the points you earn, and your paper-pickup waitlist status.
• Groups: if you create or join a group, other members see your display name and your step totals for the day and week on that group’s leaderboard, and nothing else. You can leave at any time.
• Phone number: to protect rewards, groups and data contributions from fake accounts, we ask you to verify one phone number. We send a six-digit code to that number by WhatsApp (through Meta’s WhatsApp Business Platform, from Wafra’s business number) and store the number and the time it was verified on your account. A number can belong to only one account. The code itself is kept only as a one-way hash for 10 minutes. Meta processes the message under its own terms.
• Notifications: if you turn notifications on, we store a push token that identifies your phone (not your name or email), your language, and the crops you follow, so we can send official weather warnings from the Kuwait Meteorological Department and, unless you switch community updates off, a notification when one of your community cards gets a cheer (never saying who) and when a person you follow shares a new card, and, unless you switch event updates off, notifications about events: a new event from an organizer you follow, and a change or cancellation of an event you are going to or are interested in. Turning notifications off, or deleting your account, removes it. Crop reminders you set are scheduled on your phone itself.
• Farm journal (optional): if you start the journal, we store the farms, plots, herds and entries you write (names, dates, quantities, costs and income in KWD, notes) and any farm boundary you draw on the map (the exact corner points you choose). It is saved to your account so you do not lose it, and it is private to you: we do not share it, sell it, or use it for any map, ranking, statistic or advice. Your phone’s location is used only to centre the map and is not saved. You can delete everything at any time in the app, and withdrawing your consent or deleting your account deletes it too.
• Optional commute totals: if you turn this on, we store only the minutes per day you spent in a vehicle or cycling, worked out on your phone. Turning it off deletes them.
• Kept on your phone only: your motion-based trips, the noise check readings (the audio recording is deleted straight away), and your carbon calculator answers are saved to your account only when you finish the calculator.
• Orders and course bookings (when online ordering is available): the items you buy, the total, your name, your mobile number and, for products, your delivery address, so the seller or trainer can deliver your order or confirm your seat. We never see or store your card number: payment is taken by Tap Payments on its own secure page.
• Circles (discussion board): if you post a thread or a reply, we store the text you write, the circle (topic) you chose, the time, and your profile name, linked to your account. Anyone signed in to Athar can read it, with your profile name. We also store the reports and blocks other people make about posts. You can delete your own posts at any time (the text is removed for everyone); if you delete your account your replies are deleted and your threads are removed.
• Feedback: if you send us feedback, a request or a complaint, we store your message, the type you chose, any phone number or email you choose to add, your app version, the type of phone (iPhone or Android) and your language, linked to your account so that we can reply.
• Organizer (optional): if you use the Organizer we store the to-dos, reminders and appointments you write (title, notes, date and time, place, repeat settings and whether each is done), linked to your account so they are on your other phone. They are private to you and are used for nothing except showing them to you and sending you your own alerts. Alerts for private items are scheduled on your phone. If you use Add to my phone calendar, the title, date, time and place of the item are sent to our server only to build the calendar file for your phone; they are not stored. If you create or join a shared space, the items you add to it, and your display name, are visible to and editable by every member of that space, and notifications about shared items are sent through the push service (Expo) to the phones of the members they concern. Leaving a space ends your access; if you delete your account your private items are deleted and the items you added to a shared space stay in it without your name.
• Events (optional): if you create an event we store its title, description, date, time, place, category, the name (and organization, if you add one) shown as organizer, and who it is shared with. Events are visible only to you or to the members of the spaces you choose. If you mark that you are going to, or interested in, an event we store that choice and your alert setting; the organizer of an event can see the names of the people going to it. Deleting an event deletes its responses; deleting your account deletes the events you created. If you post an event to the whole community we also store your full real name and the time you accepted the events terms, the event is reviewed by the Wafra team, and its title, description, place and organizer name become visible to all Athar users once approved. If you report an event or block an organizer we store that report or block so we can act on it; blocks are visible only to you and reports only to the Wafra team.
• Community cards (optional): if you share a card from the Community tab we store the numbers and choices on the card (for example kilometres walked in a week, your yearly carbon footprint and its split, a crop and its stage, an amount harvested, an event you joined or organized, a count of clean-ups, or a milestone such as a goal streak or total distance), the period it covers, who you chose to share it with, and your display name. Cards contain no free text, pictures or captions. You choose, card by card, to share with only yourself, with the members of the spaces you select, or (when this is open) with the whole community, and you confirm what will be published first; nothing is shared automatically. For the whole community you may hide your name, and then the card is shown as "Anonymous member" (we still store which account published it, so that reports can be handled and the card deleted with your account). People you share with can see the card and your display name, can cheer it, report it, block you, and can follow you. Anonymous cards cannot be followed. The community numbers and community goals on the tab are totals and medians built from community cards and are shown only when at least 10 people contributed. Reports are stored with the reporter's account and the reason, and are seen only by the Wafra team. You can choose, card by card, to keep a walking, footprint or clean-up card up to date: your phone then replaces its numbers with your current ones when you open the app, and you can switch this off at any time. You can delete a card at any time, and deleting your account deletes your cards, cheers and follows. Walking distance is health-related data: it is shared only when you explicitly choose to, and the figure is self-reported.
• Profile answers (optional, adults only): if you complete “Complete your profile” on the You tab we store your year of birth, gender, governorate, who you are (individual, student, farmer, school, company or non-profit), interests, home type and household size, main way of getting around, and how you heard about Athar. Every question can be skipped. Nothing is saved for anyone under 18. We use the answers for research and to improve our services and features, and, only if you switch on “Tailored messages”, to tailor Athar’s own messages and offers to you. Each of research, tailored messages and contact by email, in-app notification or WhatsApp is a separate switch that starts off and can be turned off at any time; each change is recorded. The answers are never shown to other people, never sold, and are deleted with your account; you can also remove them all from the same screen.
• Class attendance (optional, for students of institutions that use it): when you scan a lecture QR code in Athar, the code text is sent to the attendance service of your institution (PAAET), together with your civil ID number only if you type it to link your phone, a random device token, and, once, your phone position if the lecture requires you to be in the classroom. The camera is used only on the Attendance screen and its images are not saved or sent. The institution’s service decides the result; Athar keeps only a device token on your phone and shows what the service returns. You can unlink your phone at any time on the Attendance screen.
• Building calculator (optional): if you use it we store the projects you create (name, type, and the floor area and budget if you add them), the contractors you add (name, and phone number and trade if you add them), and the cost items you enter (title, amount in KWD, paid or not, a private note and a green tag if you add them, and who the item is shared with). Only enter a contractor’s phone number if they know it is kept here. A contractor who joins with an invite code sees only their own items and the items you choose to share with them, never your notes, your budget or other contractors’ phone numbers. No money moves through Athar. Deleting a project deletes everything in it, and deleting your account deletes all your projects.
• Technical data: basic device and app diagnostics needed to keep the service running (for example, crash reports), handled by our infrastructure providers below.

Balagh reports

• If you send a Balagh report we collect one photo, the location you give (a Google Maps link or your phone position, which you choose to add), a short description, a category, and the time. We also keep your name and mobile number with the report so the Wafra team knows who sent it; they are passed to the authority only if you switch on "Share my name and phone".
• Photos may show people or places: please do not photograph people or number plates. Reports are kept in private storage and are seen only by the Wafra team and by the authority a report is forwarded to.
• A report is a record that you cannot delete once sent. If you delete your account we remove your name and mobile number from your reports (the report itself, its photo and location stay, no longer linked to you).

Where our live data comes from

• Live weather (temperature, humidity, visibility, dust and haze): real observations from the weather station at Kuwait International Airport, measured by the Kuwait Directorate General of Civil Aviation (Meteorological Department) and published as standard aviation weather reports (METAR) through NOAA’s Aviation Weather Center. They are normally issued hourly. Humidity is calculated from the measured temperature and dew point.
• Live air quality (PM10, PM2.5 and the air quality level): readings from the Kuwait Environment Public Authority’s air quality monitoring stations, taken from the authority’s public eMISK air quality portal (enterprise.emisk.org). We show the authority’s own quality level and station readings. These are raw station readings that the authority publishes as they come in, and may be corrected later; we do not alter them.
• Readings come from fixed stations, not from your exact spot, and can differ from the conditions around you. For official warnings, follow the Kuwait Meteorological Department and the Kuwait Environment Public Authority.
• Steps, trips and noise: steps and, if you allow it, distance, active energy, resting heart rate and sleep are read from the Apple Health app on iPhone or from Health Connect on Android (read-only; we never write to either) or, for steps, from your phone’s motion counter; the extra readings stay on your phone and are not uploaded; trips and noise are measured by your own phone (Apple Core Motion and microphone). Carbon footprint results use rounded estimates set by Athar that have not yet been validated by an independent body. Heat map: real satellite measurements of land-surface temperature (Landsat 8/9, USGS and NASA, read through the Microsoft Planetary Computer). It shows the ground surface, not air temperature. Map tiles: Apple Maps.

Why we process it

• To create and secure your account, and to show your own data back to you (steps, points, streaks, waitlist status).
• To operate the rewards and points system.
• To communicate with you about your account, such as email confirmation or password reset.
• Processing is based on your consent, given when you create an account, in line with Kuwait’s Personal Data Protection Law (Law No. 26 of 2024). You can withdraw consent at any time by deleting your account.

Who we share it with

• Supabase, our database and authentication provider, which stores your account and activity data on servers in Frankfurt, Germany, under its own data processing terms.
• Google and Apple, only if you choose to sign in with them — they receive the minimum information needed to authenticate you, under their own privacy policies.
• Tap Payments, which takes card and KNET payments on its own secure page under its own terms, and tells us only whether the payment succeeded.
• The seller or trainer of what you bought (for example Lunofa or Green Horizons for Consultations), who receive your name, mobile number and, for products, your delivery address, only to deliver your order or confirm your seat.
• The public authority that a Balagh report is forwarded to (for example the Environment Public Authority, the Environmental Police or the Public Authority for Agriculture and Fish Resources). It receives the photo, the location, the description and the category; it receives your name and mobile number only if you chose to share them on that report.
• We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers. Sponsor content shown in the app (for example, a partner offer) is shown to everyone the same way and is not based on your personal data.

How long we keep it

• We keep your data for as long as your account exists. If you delete your account in the app (Profile → Delete account), your account and all associated data are permanently removed from our systems. This cannot be undone.
• Some exceptions: order records (the items, the amount and the date) are kept for accounting, but your name, mobile number and delivery address are removed from them when you delete your account; Balagh reports stay as records but lose your name and mobile number; and feedback messages are kept without any link to your account (they may still contain what you wrote), and we will delete a message if you ask us to.

Your rights

• You can access, correct, or export your data by contacting us, and you can delete your account at any time directly in the app.
• If you are in Kuwait, you have rights under the Personal Data Protection Law, including the right to withdraw consent and to lodge a complaint with the Communications and Information Technology Regulatory Authority (CITRA).

Children

• Athar is not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect data from them.

Changes to this policy

• If we make material changes, we will update the date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you in the app.