Privacy policy

Who runs Darb

Darb is a cafe in Dubai, on the Dubai Water Canal in Al Safa, United Arab Emirates. It runs this app and the website, and it decides what happens to your data.

For anything on this page, write to the address below, or use Talk to a person in the app.

What we collect, and why

Your phone number and your name, for the account. The number is how you sign in, with a six-digit code. If you sign in with Google, we also keep the email Google gives us and Google's id for you, to link the two.

Your orders and payments, to make your coffee and because UAE VAT law requires a record of every sale. Voice uses your browser's or phone's speech service, which may send the audio to Google to turn it into words. Darb keeps only the words.

Your location during a recording, to measure the distance and to tell whether the session ended at Darb, which is what makes a Pit Stop. If you agree to it, also your location while an order waits for you, so the counter can start it as you arrive. For a 'when I arrive' order placed on the app, your phone sends its position to Darb until the drink is started, so it is ready when you reach the doors; those fixes are deleted the moment the order is started, held, cancelled or closed, and never appear on a board, in a post or in your data export. Everything works without it.

Steps and motion from your phone during a recording, to check that a session was walked, run or ridden as it says.

The photos and captions you post, so other members can see them.

Your phone's notification token, so we can send the notifications you have switched on.

Each consent you gave or withdrew, and the date, so we can show what you agreed to and when.

We do not collect anything about your heart, your sleep or your health.

If you joined the list before Darb opened

The list on darbcafe.com keeps what you gave it: your email, your phone number or both, your first name if you gave one, the two boxes you ticked and when, your founding number, your answers to the two questions if you answered them, the link that brought you, and who invited you if you came through a friend's link. Nothing is checked or sent from the page.

It is kept to send you one message when Darb opens, news and offers only if you ticked that box, and to hold your founding number and points until you join the app.

When you join the app or sign in with the same phone number, or with the same email, the row is matched to your account: your founding number and your points move to it, and the row is then part of your data, in your export and deleted with your account.

To be removed, use the Remove me link on the page you joined from: you are removed with a code sent to your email or phone, or from the device you signed up on. You can also write to us at the address above. Your email, phone and number are erased, and the points go with them. Once you are a member, you remove your data from the app's Data and privacy page.

A row never matched to an account is erased twelve months after Darb opens.

From a watch or another app

Only when you connect one: your sessions from Health Connect, Strava, Whoop or Apple Health, each with its time, distance and steps. Nothing else is read from them.

What we read is used inside Darb only and never shared beyond it. You can disconnect any time, and nothing more is read after that.

From Strava we read your activities only: the type, the start, the duration, the distance and the moving time. They are shown to you alone, on your own Move and in your own numbers, never on a board, a post, your tier or another member's view of your profile, and never added into any figure about Darb. Disconnecting Strava, here or at Strava, deletes them from Darb.

The photo check

Every photo, with its caption, is checked by an automated service before anyone else sees it. The check looks for nudity, violence, hate symbols and spam, and nothing else. It never tries to recognise a face.

A photo the check is unsure of is held, and a person at Darb may look at it before it is shown or kept back. A person also looks at every post a member reports.

Who sees what

Other members see the feed and the boards: your posts, your name, your sessions on the boards once you choose to appear on them, and your age band, gender and club only where you switched them on. You can block or mute any member.

Staff at Darb see orders, so they can make them, reports and the queue of held posts, so they can answer them, and the requests you send about your data.

We do not sell your data, and we do not give it to advertisers. Nothing here is used to show you ads.

How long we keep it

When you delete your account, what other members can see goes at once, and everything else is deleted within 30 days.

Three things stay. Your orders, without your name, for the VAT record the tax law requires. The record of moderation decisions, for seven years. And the record of which consents were given and when, as proof they were asked for.

A sign-in code is deleted 24 hours after it is sent. A photo you sent but never posted is deleted after 24 hours. Position fixes sent for a 'when I arrive' order are deleted the moment the order is started, held, cancelled or closed.

Your rights

Under Data and privacy in the app you can see everything we hold about you, ask for anything wrong to be corrected, export a copy as a file, and delete your account. A correction is answered within 30 days, usually the same week.

Joining asks two things, both part of being a member: that you have read the community guidelines, and that you are 18 or over. Withdrawing either means deleting the account.

The other four are asked where they are used, and only then: location the first time you order with When I arrive or start a recording, appearing on the boards when you first join them, notifications from Darb on the Notifications screen, and activity from your watch before you first connect one. Saying not now changes nothing. Each can be agreed to or withdrawn under Data and privacy at any time.

If you cannot sign in, the delete page says how to reach us.

Notifications and marketing

Each kind of notification has its own switch in the app: your order is ready, a reply, a session counted, a perk, Today at Darb, and notifications from Darb.

Notifications from Darb is off until you turn it on, and turning it on is your agreement to them. It is three a week at most. Turning it off stops it at once.

Children

Darb membership is for people 18 or over. We do not knowingly keep an account for anyone younger, and delete one when we learn of it.

Changes to this policy

The date at the top is the date of the last change. This page is always the current version.

Last changed 24 October 2026.