{"id":19304,"date":"2026-10-09T11:15:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?page_id=19304"},"modified":"2026-10-09T11:15:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T09:15:28","slug":"privacy-policy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/privacy-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Privacy Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"z3-read z3-policy\">\n<section class=\"z3r-intro\">\n<p class=\"z3r-lead\">We know that reading Zawia3 can be a risk for some of our readers. That is why we start from a simple rule: what we do not collect, no one can take from us.<\/p>\n<p>This page explains clearly, without complicated legal language, what we know about you when you read our website, subscribe to our newsletter, use our app or write to us, why we need it, with whom we share it, and how you control it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"z3p-meta\">Last updated: 9 October 2026 \u00b7 Applies to zawia3.com in its Arabic and English editions, its alternative copies, the newsletter and the Zawia3 app.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"z3p-pledges\">\n<div class=\"z3p-pledge\"><b>What we collect<\/b><span>The bare minimum: visit statistics through Google Analytics, your email address if you subscribe to the newsletter, and your messages if you write to us.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"z3p-pledge\"><b>What we never do<\/b><span>We do not sell your data, we display no advertising, we require no account to read, and we hand your data voluntarily to no one.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"z3p-pledge\"><b>What you own<\/b><span>The right to access, correct and delete your data and to object to its processing, and to complain to the Belgian Data Protection Authority.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<nav class=\"z3p-toc\" aria-label=\"On this page\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">On this page<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"#controller\">Who is responsible for your data<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#browsing\">When you browse our website<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#analytics\">Visit statistics and cookies<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#newsletter\">The newsletter<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#contact\">When you write to us<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#app\">The Zawia3 app<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#social\">Our social media accounts<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#journalism\">The people we write about, and our sources<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#sharing\">With whom we share data<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#demands\">Requests from authorities<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#retention\">Protection and retention<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#rights\">Your rights and how to exercise them<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#safety\">What we cannot protect you from<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#changes\">Children and updates to this policy<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/nav>\n<section id=\"controller\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">1<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Who is responsible for your data<\/h2>\n<p>The controller responsible for processing your data is Zawia3 ASBL, a non-profit association registered under Belgian law, based in Brussels, with number 1000.219.557 in the Belgian enterprise register. We comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and with the Belgian Act of 30 July 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data.<\/p>\n<p>We treat these obligations as a minimum. In the environment where many of our readers live, personal data can become a targeting tool: a browsing history can become evidence, and a list of subscribers can become a list of suspects. That is why we collect the least we need, protect what we collect, and delete it when it is no longer needed.<\/p>\n<p>For any question or request concerning your data, write to us at <a href=\"mailto:info@zawia3.com\">info@zawia3.com<\/a> with &#8220;Privacy&#8221; in the subject line.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"browsing\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">2<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>When you browse our website<\/h2>\n<p>You do not need an account or registration to read any piece on our website. When you open a page, the website&#8217;s server, like any website on the internet, receives technical data that your browser sends automatically: your IP address, your browser and device type, the page requested and the time of the request.<\/p>\n<p>We host our website with a provider that specialises in hosting independent media organisations and protecting them from cyberattacks. This provider keeps temporary technical logs that it needs to protect the website and keep it running, and we do not use these logs to identify or track readers.<\/p>\n<p>The alternative copies of our website, which we make available to circumvent blocking, are subject to this same policy. We explain how to reach them on the page <a href=\"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/read-us\/\">How to Read Us Despite the Blocking<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"analytics\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">3<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Visit statistics and cookies<\/h2>\n<p>We use Google&#8217;s Google Analytics service to understand how our website is read: which pieces people read most, how long they spend on them, how they reach them, from which countries and cities approximately, and on which devices. We need this knowledge to know whether our journalism reaches its readers despite the blocking, and how to improve the way we reach them.<\/p>\n<p>The service works through cookies it places on your browser, chiefly <code>_ga<\/code> and <code>_ga_*<\/code>, which remain on your device for up to two years unless you delete them. The service estimates your approximate geographic location from your IP address, and Google states that the version we use, Google Analytics 4, does not log or store IP addresses.<\/p>\n<p>We see aggregate reports only, not the identity of any particular reader or their reading history. We do not use this data for any advertising purpose, we do not sell it, and we do not link it to any other data about you. The data may be transferred to Google servers outside the European Union, including the United States, under the safeguards of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.<\/p>\n<div class=\"z3p-promise\">\n<p>We base this measurement on our legitimate interest in understanding our audience and developing our journalism, and you have the right to refuse it: set your browser to block or delete cookies, install <a href=\"https:\/\/tools.google.com\/dlpage\/gaoptout\">Google&#8217;s official add-on to disable Google Analytics<\/a>, or browse in private mode. All our pieces remain fully available to you in every case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>In addition, the website may use technical files necessary for its operation, such as remembering your browsing language. Some of our pieces include content embedded from external platforms, such as YouTube videos or posts from X and Facebook; when this content loads, the platform that owns it may receive data about your visit under its own policies, not ours.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"newsletter\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">4<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The newsletter<\/h2>\n<p>If you subscribe to our newsletter, we ask you for nothing but your email address, and we use it for one purpose: sending you the newsletter. We rely on your consent for this, and you can withdraw it at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in every issue.<\/p>\n<p>When you subscribe, we pass your email address directly to Mailchimp, the service through which we send the newsletter, and we keep no copy of it on our website&#8217;s server. Mailchimp, which belongs to the US company Intuit, acts as a data processor on our behalf, and the data is transferred to the United States under the safeguards of the Data Privacy Framework and standard contractual clauses. Like most email services, it records the opening of messages and clicks on their links, and we use this information in aggregate to learn what matters to our readers.<\/p>\n<p>We share the subscriber list with no one, we do not sell it, and we add no data to it from other sources. We treat it as sensitive data by nature, because a list of people who choose to read blocked journalism could, in the wrong hands, become a list of accused. If you want your email address permanently deleted from our records after unsubscribing, write to us and we will delete it.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"contact\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">5<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>When you write to us<\/h2>\n<p>When you write to us by email, we use what you send, such as your name, email address and the content of your message, only to reply to you. Only those members of our team who need your message to reply to it see it, and it passes through the email service provider we use. We do not keep ordinary correspondence longer than we need it.<\/p>\n<p>If you have sensitive information or documents and are thinking of sharing them with us, do not send them from your work device or from an email address easily linked to you. Start with a short message containing no details, and we will agree with you on a more secure means of communication. From the moment you become a source for us, you are protected by the source-protection rules set out in our <a href=\"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/editorial-policy\/#sources\">Editorial Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"app\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">6<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The Zawia3 app<\/h2>\n<p>Our app requires no account for reading, collects no personal data about you, and shares no data with other parties, as we have declared in the &#8220;Data safety&#8221; section of the Google Play store.<\/p>\n<p>Google processes the data of downloading and updating the app under the privacy policy of the Google Play store. If the app offers signing in to comment, we use the data you provide for that purpose, such as the name you choose, your email address and the text of your comment, only to operate that feature, and you have the right to request its deletion at any time.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"social\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">7<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Our social media accounts<\/h2>\n<p>We publish our pieces on Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. When you follow us or interact with us there, your data is subject to the policies of these platforms. We do not export the data of our followers or of those who interact with us, we do not compile it into lists, and we do not link pieces of it together.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"journalism\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">8<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>The people we write about, and our sources<\/h2>\n<p>When we gather, verify and publish information about people for journalistic purposes, we work within the exemptions that Belgian law provides in implementing Article 85 of the EU Regulation, to reconcile data protection with press freedom, and in doing so we abide by the rules of our <a href=\"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/editorial-policy\/#privacy\">Editorial Policy<\/a> on privacy, the public interest and the protection of the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n<p>In practice, this means that data protection rights cannot be used to reveal the identity of a source, to access unpublished journalistic material, or to learn the details of an ongoing investigation. We do not alter or delete accurate published journalism in response to a deletion request; it is governed instead by the correction and removal rules set out in our Editorial Policy. Anyone who believes we have wronged them can request a correction or exercise the right of reply through <a href=\"mailto:info@zawia3.com\">info@zawia3.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"sharing\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">9<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>With whom we share data<\/h2>\n<p>We do not sell your data, rent it or share it with advertisers, since we have no advertisers. Your data reaches only the service providers we need to run our work, who process it on our behalf under terms that oblige them to protect it: the hosting and protection provider, Google for visit statistics, Mailchimp for the newsletter, and the email service provider.<\/p>\n<p>When data is transferred outside the European Economic Area, as in the case of Google and Mailchimp, we rely for that transfer on safeguards recognised by the EU Regulation, such as the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"demands\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">10<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Requests from authorities<\/h2>\n<p>We hand the data of our readers, subscribers or sources voluntarily to no one. We respond only to requests that are legally binding on an association registered in Belgium under Belgian and European law, after examining them legally, and we challenge excessive or improper requests by every available means. As for requests from the authorities of any state that has no legal jurisdiction over us, we refuse them and document them.<\/p>\n<div class=\"z3p-promise\">\n<p>The identity of our sources is not negotiable. We accept the legal consequences of refusal; we do not accept the human consequences of betrayal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>If the law obliges us to disclose data concerning our users, we notify them whenever it is lawful and safe to do so.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"retention\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">11<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Protection and retention<\/h2>\n<p>We protect the data we keep with encryption in transit and in storage wherever possible, we limit access to it to those members of our team who need it, and we use two-step verification on our accounts. We keep each type of data only for the period its purpose requires: your email address on the newsletter list until you unsubscribe or request its deletion, correspondence until it is no longer needed, and browser-linked statistics data in Google Analytics for no more than fourteen months, while aggregate reports contain nothing that identifies anyone.<\/p>\n<p>If personal data we hold is breached, we notify the Belgian Data Protection Authority within seventy-two hours whenever the law requires, and we notify those affected without delay when the risk to them is high, through a channel we choose carefully so that the notification itself does not increase their exposure to danger.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"rights\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">12<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Your rights and how to exercise them<\/h2>\n<p>The EU Regulation gives you rights that we respect in substance, not in form: to know whether we process data about you and to obtain a copy of it, to request the correction of inaccurate data, to request its deletion when no legal reason to keep it remains, to request the restriction of its processing or to object to it, including objecting to visit measurement, to receive the data you provided in a portable format, and to withdraw your consent at any time.<\/p>\n<p>To exercise any of these rights, write to us at <a href=\"mailto:info@zawia3.com\">info@zawia3.com<\/a> in Arabic or English. We reply within one month, and we may extend the deadline by two further months in complex cases, informing you of the reason, and we charge no fees. We will never ask you to send an identity document whose sending could expose you to a greater risk than the request itself; instead we verify your identity by the simplest safe means. If we refuse a request, we explain its legal reason to you in writing.<\/p>\n<p>You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (Autorit\u00e9 de protection des donn\u00e9es), Rue de la Presse 35, 1000 Brussels, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dataprotectionauthority.be\">dataprotectionauthority.be<\/a>, or with the data protection authority of your European country, without being obliged to write to us first.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"safety\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec z3p-dark\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">13<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>What we cannot protect you from<\/h2>\n<p>We want to be honest with you: we can refrain from collecting your data, but we cannot protect you from surveillance of your connection itself. Your internet provider or whoever runs your network can see that you visit our website, and anyone who gains access to your device can see your browsing history.<\/p>\n<p>To reduce these risks, read us through our app, our alternative copies, a trusted virtual private network (VPN) or the Tor browser, delete your browsing history after reading, and avoid reading us on work devices or shared devices. We have gathered all the ways of reaching us safely on the page <a href=\"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/read-us\/\">How to Read Us Despite the Blocking<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"changes\" class=\"z3r-card z3p-sec\"><span class=\"z3r-kicker\">14<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Children and updates to this policy<\/h2>\n<p>We direct our services to an adult audience, and we do not knowingly collect data from children under sixteen. If we learn that a child has subscribed to our newsletter or written to us, we delete their data unless their guardian agrees to its retention.<\/p>\n<p>We may update this policy when our services or the laws governing them change. We announce the date of every update at the top of this page, and we inform newsletter subscribers of any substantive change before it takes effect.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"z3r-intro z3p-cta\">\n<p class=\"z3r-lead\">Questions about your data? We answer them ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>Write to us with &#8220;Privacy&#8221; in the subject line, and we will reply in Arabic or English.<\/p>\n<p class=\"z3p-actions\"><a class=\"z3r-btn\" href=\"mailto:info@zawia3.com\">Write to us<\/a><a class=\"z3p-link\" href=\"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/editorial-policy\/\">Editorial Policy<\/a><a class=\"z3p-link\" href=\"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/read-us\/\">How to Read Us Despite the Blocking<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We know that reading Zawia3 can be a risk for some of our readers. That is why we start from a simple rule: what we do not collect, no one can take from us. This page explains clearly, without complicated legal language, what we know about you when you read our website, subscribe to our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-19304","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19305,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19304\/revisions\/19305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}