Give Barakah (“Give Barakah”, “we”, “us”, “our”) provides a Sharia-conscious donation platform for UK community masjids. We take privacy and data protection seriously. This policy explains how we handle personal data when you use our website and services, in line with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. By using the platform you confirm you have read and understood this policy.
1. Who we are and our role
Give Barakah is registered in England and Wales; full company registration details are available on request. We act as the data controller for our own account data (masjid administrators who sign up, billing and support). For donor data that a masjid collects through the platform, the masjid is the controller and its own privacy notice applies — we act as its data processor under a data processing agreement. This policy covers our controller role.
2. Information we collect
- Account data — your name, email, role, masjid, and hashed login credentials.
- Usage data — pages visited, actions taken, device and browser information, and IP address. Our servers collect this automatically; on its own it does not identify you.
- Billing data — handled by our payment processor (Stripe). We store only references, never your full card number.
- Support data — correspondence you send us.
- AI interaction data — prompts and the approvals you give the AI assistant, retained in the audit trail.
3. Our lawful bases (UK GDPR Article 6)
- Contract — to provide the service you signed up for.
- Legitimate interests — security, fraud prevention and product improvement, balanced against your rights.
- Consent — non-essential cookies and marketing emails, which you can withdraw at any time.
- Legal obligation — accounting, Gift Aid / HMRC records and anti-money-laundering requirements.
4. How we use your information
To provide and secure the service, process billing, respond to support, improve the platform, and meet our legal and accounting obligations. We do not sell your personal data. Where you have opted in, we may send you product updates by email; every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link.
5. Cookies and analytics
We use cookies (small text files stored on your device) to keep you signed in and to understand how the platform is used. You can configure your browser to refuse cookies, though some features may then not work properly. We may use privacy-respecting analytics and email open-rate tracking to improve our content; this helps us understand traffic patterns rather than identify you personally.
6. AI processing
The platform uses Claude (Anthropic) to power the AI assistant. The prompts and the masjid context the assistant needs are processed by our AI provider solely to generate drafts that a human reviews and approves. We do not use your data to train third-party models.
7. Sharing and sub-processors
We share data with vetted sub-processors strictly to run the service — for example hosting, payments (Stripe), email delivery and error monitoring. Each is bound by a data-processing contract and may only use the data to provide its service to us. We may also disclose personal data where required by law, or in connection with a corporate restructuring (such as a merger or transfer of assets).
8. International transfers
Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we rely on an appropriate safeguard such as a UK adequacy decision, the International Data Transfer Agreement, or standard contractual clauses, so your data stays protected to UK standards.
9. How long we keep it
We keep account data while your account is active and for a reasonable period after closure, except where the law requires longer — for example, Gift Aid and HMRC records are kept for six years.
10. Your rights
Under UK GDPR you have the right to:
- access the personal data we hold about you;
- have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected;
- have your data erased (the “right to be forgotten”);
- restrict or object to our processing, including for marketing;
- receive your data in a portable format; and
- not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing that has a legal or similarly significant effect.
To exercise any right, email salam@givebarakah.com. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).
11. Security
We protect personal data with encryption in transit and at rest, an append-only audit trail, database-level access controls and regular review. No system is perfectly secure and no transmission over the internet can be guaranteed, but we work to protect your data and will notify you and the ICO of any qualifying breach within statutory timeframes.
12. Links to other websites
The platform may link to websites we do not control. We are not responsible for their content or privacy practices, and a link is not an endorsement. Please review the privacy policy of any site you visit.
13. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time and will post the current version here with its date. We will never change our practices to make them less protective of data collected beforehand without the consent of affected users. Material changes will be highlighted.
14. Contact
Questions about this policy or your personal data? Contact us at salam@givebarakah.com. Give Barakah is the data controller for the personal data processed under this policy.