Privacy Notice

TEXMAS has kept the records of Dubai’s textile trade since 1990, and much of what we hold was handed to us across a counter by the merchants themselves. This notice sets out, in plain terms, what we keep, why we keep it, and what you can ask us to do about it.

Who we are

TEXMAS — Textile Merchants Group (Dubai Textile Merchants Association), 102 Al Baqali Building, Bur Dubai, P.O. Box 50961, Dubai, UAE. If anything here concerns you, write to texmas@eim.ae or call the office on +971 4 353 1551 — a person will answer.

What we hold, and why

If you write to us

Contact and newsletter forms give us your name, email address and whatever you tell us. We use it to reply and to send the updates you asked for — nothing else. If you subscribe to the newsletter we keep your email address, your language and any interests you ticked, for as long as you stay subscribed. Every newsletter carries a one-click unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing takes you off the list immediately. Our forms are protected by Google reCAPTCHA, which checks that a submission comes from a person and not a script — that check is governed by Google’s privacy policy.

If you have an individual account

We hold your email address and the profile you choose to complete: name, country of residence, nationality, WhatsApp number and date of birth. We also note how you signed in — email link or Google — so your account can be recognised. Signing in with an email link or Google completes directly; no extra code is emailed to individual accounts. Under Account → Updates you can choose the topics you want to hear about: choosing any topic places your email address on the newsletter list with those interests, and clearing them all takes you off it.

If your firm has a member login

Member firms are issued a login by the office, not by signing up online. Against that login we hold your company name exactly as it appears on the membership register, your username, and the contact record the office keeps for you: email address, landline, mobile, fax, P.O. Box, and the name and phone number of your point of contact. We record when the account last signed in, which tells us whether credentials have gone astray.

When a firm signs in for the first time it records its trade licence number and expiry date. That is the record your membership rests on, so it is kept for as long as your firm is a member and the expiry date tells us when a renewed copy is due. The scanned copy of the licence document your firm uploads is kept with that record — it is the document your membership rests on, and it is retained while your firm remains a member. Your username, email address, mobile number and licence details can only be changed by the office — that is deliberate, because those are exactly the details someone would need to alter in order to take an account over.

We also keep your firm’s Merchant ID (MID), the date its membership runs to (always 31 December) and when it was last renewed, and we send service emails to the firm’s register address — a courtesy reminder each January and a confirmation when the membership is renewed. When your firm signs in with its password, a six-digit code is emailed to that same register address and must be typed before the session starts; a browser that has passed the code is remembered for thirty days. One-time sign-in and password-reset links go to that address too and expire within minutes.

If your firm updates its directory listing

Logos, websites, social media links and the cloth categories you deal in are submitted for review and published on the members’ directory once the office approves them. Nothing you submit appears until a person at TEXMAS has looked at it. Bear in mind this material is meant to be seen — it is your shop window.

If you apply for a Dubai Textile City permit

For every person on the permit we take their full name and a copy of their Emirates ID (the front, and the back where the form asks for it), along with the date and time of the visit, the warehouse number and the reason for going. Where a member firm applies, the request is recorded against that firm, which is responsible for it. Choosing “Take a photo” opens your device camera — nothing is captured or kept until you attach the photo and submit. Permits are decided by TEXMAS staff and by reviewers the committee has designated; every decision is recorded with who made it and, where a request is declined, the reason.

How we look after Emirates ID copies

We treat these as the sensitive documents they are. They sit in a private, access-controlled store, visible only to authorised TEXMAS reviewers — never on the public site, never to other applicants, and never to other member firms. Photos are reduced in size before they are stored. They are used to verify who is entering Textile City and for nothing else. They are also deleted automatically: 180 days after a permit is decided, the ID copies attached to it are erased, while the permit record itself is kept without them. You do not need to ask — though you can, at any time, and we will delete them sooner. Deleting your account removes them along with everything else.

Dubai Textile City gate security

Once a permit is approved, the gate security team at Dubai Textile City (operated by DP World) is told who to expect: the visit date and time, warehouse number, reason, permit reference and the names on the permit. They see this in a read-only roster and by email on the day. To match the person in front of them, a guard can open the Emirates ID copy in a view-only window on the roster: it cannot be downloaded, it is watermarked with the guard’s name and the time, and every view is recorded. Security never receives ID files, your contact details or anything else about you.

What we never do

We do not sell personal information, and we do not pass it to third parties for their own purposes. Member mobile numbers are never published in the directory — only a business landline, and only where the firm has one. Emirates ID copies are never published, and never handed to anyone outside TEXMAS. Permit details, and an on-screen view of the ID at the gate, go only to Dubai Textile City gate security, as described above, and only for approved visits. Beyond that, we share information only where the law obliges us to.

What you can ask us to do

Ask us to correct anything that is wrong, delete what you no longer want us to hold, unsubscribe you from updates, or remove an Emirates ID you have submitted. Write to texmas@eim.ae and we will act on it. Individual account holders can delete their own account and its data from Account settings; member firms should contact the office, since a firm account is tied to the membership register.

Where your information lives

The site runs on Vercel, and its database and file store on Supabase, both hosted in the Mumbai (ap-south-1) region of Amazon Web Services. Encrypted backups are kept for up to 90 days. Our hosting keeps short-lived request logs — including IP addresses — to block abusive traffic, and forms and sign-in endpoints are rate-limited for the same reason. Access to member data by TEXMAS staff and designated reviewers is logged.

Cookies

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