Last Updated: October 2026
The Ugandan Community in Qatar ("UGACOQ", "we", "us", or "our") operates the UGACOQ Member Portal at ugacoq.org and the UGACOQ app for Android (together, the "Portal"), including membership registration, the community board, messaging, the Leadership Elections feature, the Complaint/Petition form, the digital ID card, and the UGACOQ SACCO savings platform. This Privacy Policy explains what information these features collect, why, and what rights you have over it.
At registration: full name, email, date of birth, gender, place of birth, marital status, phone numbers, physical address, passport number, Qatar ID/Visa number, employment and visa details, next-of-kin details, and any skills/talents you choose to share.
Optional profile data: a profile photo (a URL you provide, or a file you upload), and blood group. Blood group is health information — we only collect it if you voluntarily add it (at registration or later in Profile settings), and we only use it to display it on your own digital ID card. It is never shared with other members.
Community features: posts (which in the Android app can include up to four photos, a topic tag and a poll), comments, reactions, poll votes and messages you send are stored and shown to the audience that feature is designed for (public board posts to all members, private messages only to the recipient).
Leadership Elections: if you apply for a post, your application statement and identity are shown to other members considering your candidacy; if you vote, your ballot is recorded but never shown to anyone, including admins — only aggregate counts are ever displayed.
Complaint/Petition form: whatever you enter in the form, including sensitive details you choose to disclose about an incident. This is emailed to UGACOQ administrators and stored in a restricted-access log for follow-up.
UGACOQ SACCO: if you apply to join, we collect the additional fields on that application — identification details, next-of-kin and beneficiary information, employment details, bank/mobile-money payout details, and (optionally) a photo. We also keep a record of every deposit, withdrawal, and share transaction you submit, including the payment reference you provide. See Section 6 for more on how this financial data is handled.
In the Android app: the app asks for access to your camera only when a UGACOQ leader opens the ticket scanner, to read event-ticket QR codes — camera images are processed on your phone to read the code and are never saved or uploaded. If you choose to change your profile picture, or add photos to a job, business, property or vehicle listing you post, the photos you select are resized on your phone and uploaded to our server; the app does not read any other photo or file on your device. The app does not use your microphone or your location. The radio feature streams audio from third-party Ugandan radio stations and can keep playing while the app is in the background or the screen is locked, using an Android media-playback service with lock-screen controls; nothing you say or play is recorded. If you turn on prayer reminders (they are off until you do), the app asks for permission to show notifications and schedules local reminders on your phone for the five daily prayers in Doha; prayer times are calculated on the phone and no location or prayer data is sent to us.
Listings (jobs, businesses, property and vehicles): listings are public, and anyone may browse them without signing in. If you post a listing while signed in, your membership ID is stored with it privately (it is never shown to other people) so you can manage it from your profile. If you post without a membership ID, the listing is labelled "posted by a non-member" and you choose a 6-digit PIN; only a one-way hash of the PIN is stored and it is used solely to let you delete that listing. The contact details you put in a listing are shown publicly.
Reporting and blocking: you can report a member, a post or a listing to UGACOQ leaders, and block a member. A report is stored with your email and the reason you give, and is emailed to administrators. Your list of blocked members is kept only on your phone.
Automatically: a session token (see Section 8, Cookies & Local Storage) and basic timestamps of when records are created or updated. Like any internet service, our hosting provider's server logs record your IP address and the time of each request for security and troubleshooting.
Blood group is the only health-related field we collect, and it is entirely optional. Qatar ID/Visa number, passport number, home address and phone numbers are treated as sensitive identity data: they are hidden from every other member by default and only ever visible to you, and (for SACCO-specific fields) to SACCO Treasurers/Chairpersons reviewing your application.
The Portal runs on our own web application and a MySQL database hosted with our hosting provider (Hostinger). Uploaded photos are stored in a restricted folder on the same server, and regular backups of the database are kept for recovery. Reasonable technical measures are in place — encrypted transmission (HTTPS), session-token authentication (stored in your device's secure storage in the app), limits on repeated sign-in attempts, and role-based visibility (e.g., only SACCO admins see other members' financial data) — but as with any community-run platform, we cannot guarantee absolute security, and this is not a bank-grade financial system (see Section 6).
UGACOQ SACCO is a member-run community savings arrangement, not a licensed bank or regulated financial institution. Deposits are not government-insured. All payments are made directly between members and UGACOQ SACCO via bank transfer or mobile money — the Portal never processes payments itself; it only records transactions that a Treasurer or Chairperson has manually verified. Financial transaction records are retained indefinitely for accounting and audit integrity, even if you later delete your Portal account (see Section 9) — we anonymize your personal details but do not remove your transaction history, consistent with standard bookkeeping practice.
We do NOT sell your personal information. It is shared only:
In the Android app, your sign-in token is kept in the phone's secure storage, and small preferences (your favourite radio stations, radio volume, prayer-reminder settings, the members you have blocked, and which posts you have liked) are kept on the device; signing out removes the token. On the website, the Portal stores a login session token and a short-lived cache of your own data in your browser's local storage, so you stay signed in and the app loads quickly. This stays on your device — it is not a tracking cookie shared with third parties. Clearing your browser's site data will sign you out.
You have the right to access, correct, and delete your data. Most fields can be corrected yourself under Profile → Edit. You can delete your account at any time from Profile → Edit → Danger Zone on the website, or from More → Settings → Delete my account in the Android app. Deleting your account:
To request anything this self-service flow doesn't cover, contact us using the details in Section 12.
The Portal is intended for adult members (18+). We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time as the Portal changes. Material changes will be announced via the Community Board or email.
For privacy-related questions or requests, contact us at:
By registering for or using the UGACOQ Member Portal, you consent to this Privacy Policy.
This policy was drafted to plainly and accurately describe what the Portal actually does. It is not a substitute for review by a qualified lawyer familiar with Qatar's Personal Data Privacy Law No. 13 of 2016 — UGACOQ is encouraged to obtain that review, particularly for the SACCO feature.