Privacy policy (theAsianparent Awards UAE)

1. Who we are

The Awards are run by Tickled Media Pte. Ltd., the company that operates theAsianparent, incorporated in Singapore (registration number 200917867M), at 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent, #01-04/05, Singapore 139951 ("we", "us"). We decide how and why the personal data described here is processed, so we are responsible for it. We have no office in the UAE; the Awards are run from Singapore.

2. Contact

• About the Awards: awards@theasianparent.com
• About your personal data, and to exercise your rights: our Chief Data Protection Officer, Alvin De Cruz, at dpo@tickledmedia.com

3. What we collect

• Entries (a brand entering a product or service): company name, contact name, work email, phone number, role, details of the brand, product or service entered, and any optional notes.
• Public voting: the brands you vote for, a random identifier stored in your browser (a device ID and a cookie), and the country your connection comes from, worked out from your IP address. The Awards in the UAE are vote-only: there is no prize draw and no prize for voting, so we do not ask voters for a name, email, phone number or address.
• Security: when you vote, your IP address is used to check the country and to limit repeated attempts. We do not store the address itself: rate-limit counters keep only a one-way scrambled form of it that cannot be turned back into the address, and nothing from it is stored with your vote except the country.
• Using the site: our hosting provider's access logs (time, pages requested, browser type, IP address), kept for security and troubleshooting.

We do not ask for sensitive personal data (such as health, religion or family details). Please do not include it in an entry's notes.

4. What we use it for, and why we may

We use personal data only for these purposes:

• Running the Awards: receiving and reviewing entries, receiving and counting votes, announcing the results. For entrants this is needed to handle the entry they asked us to make; for voters it is needed to count the vote they chose to cast.
• Keeping the vote fair: detecting and preventing duplicate, automated, out-of-market and fraudulent voting. We do this because a fair count is what the Awards promise, and where the law allows it, as our legitimate interest.
• Answering questions from entrants and voters, and contacting an entrant's representative about the results, media coverage and the award logo.
• Understanding how the site is used and keeping it secure and working.
• Meeting our legal obligations and responding to lawful requests from authorities.

Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time by emailing us. We do not use an entrant's contact details for marketing unless that person has separately opted in. We do not sell personal data, and we do not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects based solely on automated processing.

5. Who we share it with

• Service providers that host the site, store data and send email for us (section 6).
• Our professional advisers (such as lawyers and auditors), under a duty of confidentiality.
• Courts, regulators or other authorities, where the law requires it or to protect the rights and safety of voters, entrants or us.
• A buyer or successor if all or part of our business is sold or reorganised, under the same protections.

When we announce results we publish the names of the brands, products and services, never the names or contact details of the people who entered or voted.

6. Service providers

We use cloud providers for website hosting, databases and email delivery. They receive only the personal data that work needs, may use it only on our instructions, and are bound by contract to keep it confidential and secure.

7. Transfer outside the UAE

Personal data collected through the Awards is managed by our company in Singapore and stored with our providers, whose servers may be in Singapore, the United States or other countries.

• In Singapore, the Personal Data Protection Act 2012 (PDPA) governs how we collect, use, disclose, protect, retain and transfer personal data; the Personal Data Protection Commission supervises it.
• Wherever the data is held, we require the same level of protection by contract and apply the safeguards in section 11.

8. Local data-protection law

We process personal data of people in the UAE in line with Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 on the Protection of Personal Data (the UAE PDPL) and its implementing rules, to the extent they apply to us.

When we transfer your personal data outside the UAE (see section 7), we do so only to a country with adequate data-protection law or under a contract that requires the recipient to protect it to the standard the UAE PDPL sets.

If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Officer first. You may also complain to the UAE Data Office.

9. How long we keep it

• Entries and votes (including the device ID and country): about two years after that year's winners are announced, then deleted or anonymised.
• The cookie that records that a browser has voted: 180 days.
• Scrambled IP values in rate-limit counters: no longer than the vote records above. Hosting access logs: no longer than 30 days.

We keep data longer only where the law requires it, or for as long as we need it to investigate fraudulent voting or resolve a dispute.

10. Your rights

Under the UAE PDPL, and subject to the limits it sets, you have the right:

• to be told how we process your personal data (this policy)
• to access it and receive a copy, including in a structured, machine-readable format where that is technically possible
• to have it corrected or completed
• to have it erased, unless we must keep it by law or to resolve a dispute
• to restrict or object to its processing, including for direct marketing
• to withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting processing that took place before

To use any of these rights, email our Data Protection Officer at dpo@tickledmedia.com. We will verify your identity first, so no one else can make the request for you. There is no fee. We reply within 30 days; if the law lets us take longer for a complex request, we will tell you why and when to expect an answer. Because voters give no name or email, we may need your device ID (shown in your browser's storage for this site) to find your vote.

11. Security and incidents

We protect personal data against unauthorised access, disclosure, loss and damage with organisational and technical measures, including encryption in transit, restricted access for staff who need it, access logging and supervision of our service providers.

If a breach puts your personal data at risk, we will notify the competent regulator and, where required, the people affected, within the time the law sets.

12. Cookies and browser storage

The Awards site uses only what voting needs: a device ID kept in your browser's storage and a cookie that records that the browser has voted in that market, so each device votes once. These are strictly necessary for the vote to work. The Awards site uses no advertising cookies and no third-party analytics. If you block or clear them you can still view the site, but voting may not work.

13. Who the Awards are for

Entries are for businesses and their representatives. Public voting is for parents and carers aged 18 or over. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children; if you believe a child has given us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

14. Changes

We may update this policy when the law or the way we run the Awards changes. The date at the top shows the latest version. Important changes will be shown on this page, and, where the law requires, we will ask for your consent again.

15. Relationship to our main policy

theAsianparent's sites and apps are covered by the privacy policy of Tickled Media Pte. Ltd. (https://sg.theasianparent.com/privacy-policy). This document adds to it for the Awards in the UAE; where the two differ, this document applies to personal data collected through the Awards.

16. Language

This document is published in English.