Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Balad International Ltd. is the data controller for personal data collected through this website.

• Registered address: Kasenyi Road, Nkumba, Katabi Town Council, Wakiso District, Uganda
• Email: baladinternational@gmail.com
• Phone: +256 772 501 735

2. What personal data we collect

• Buyer inquiries: name, company, country, email, phone, and the details of your product/quote request.
• Customer accounts: name, company name, email, password (stored as a one-way hash, never in plain text), phone, country, and business address/registration details you provide when registering or updating your profile.
• Order & shipment records: buyer/company name, email, order and shipment details tied to an order you place or that our sales team creates on your behalf.
• Staff accounts: name, work email, and role, for employees and authorized personnel who operate the admin platform.
• Technical data: IP address and basic request metadata, used only for security purposes such as rate-limiting login attempts and preventing abuse of public forms.

3. How we use your data

• To respond to buyer inquiries and provide quotes.
• To create and manage your customer account and order history.
• To send transactional emails you would reasonably expect: account confirmation, password reset links, order confirmations, and shipment status updates.
• To maintain the security of our platform (e.g. detecting suspicious login activity).
• To comply with Ugandan export, customs, and tax record-keeping obligations.

We do not sell personal data to third parties, and we do not currently use marketing/advertising cookies or tracking pixels on this website.

4. Legal basis for processing

We process personal data on the basis of: (a) your consent (e.g. registering an account); (b) performance of a contract (e.g. fulfilling an order or inquiry you submitted); (c) our legitimate business interests (e.g. platform security, record-keeping); and (d) compliance with legal obligations (e.g. export documentation and tax law).

5. Cookies

This site only uses strictly necessary cookies required to keep you signed in to your account (staff or customer) and to protect against cross-site request forgery. We do not use analytics, advertising, or third-party tracking cookies. See our Cookie Policy for details.

6. Sharing your data

We share personal data only with service providers who process it on our behalf, under contractual confidentiality obligations, strictly to operate this platform:

• Our hosting provider (Vercel) and database provider, to run the application and store data securely.
• Our email delivery provider, to send transactional emails on our behalf.
• Government agencies (e.g. MAAIF, UNBS) where required for export certification and compliance.

We do not share your data with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

7. Data retention

We retain personal data for as long as your account is active, or as needed to fulfil the purposes described above, and thereafter as required to meet legal, tax, or export record-keeping obligations. We do not permanently delete order, shipment, or certification records — closed accounts and archived records are retained (soft-deleted) rather than erased, since they form part of our regulatory audit trail.

8. Your rights

Subject to applicable law, you may have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Request correction of inaccurate data (you can update most account details yourself under Account Settings).
• Request erasure of your data, where we are not legally required to retain it.
• Object to or restrict certain processing.
• Lodge a complaint with Uganda's Personal Data Protection Office (PDPO), or your local data protection authority if you are located in the EU/UK.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at baladinternational@gmail.com.

9. Security

Passwords are never stored in plain text (only a one-way cryptographic hash). We use rate-limiting on login and public forms, role-based access control on our admin platform, and encrypted connections (HTTPS) throughout.

10. International transfers

Our hosting and database infrastructure may process data outside Uganda (e.g. within the EU). Where this occurs, we rely on our providers' standard contractual safeguards for cross-border data transfer.

11. Children's privacy

This website and platform are intended for business use by adults (buyers, farmers, and staff) and are not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by updating the "Last updated" date above.