Privacy Policy

1. Introduction and scope

This Privacy Policy explains how personal information is collected, used, stored and shared in connection with the website at alqasr.lat and the palace hospitality desk services that are designed and delivered by Al Qasr for cultural venues, heritage estates and the guests who visit them. The policy applies to every visitor of this website, every venue that commissions our desk work, every guest whose details pass through a venue desk that we have built or supported, and every person who writes to our office at Paya Lebar Square.

We have written this policy as a plain working document rather than a legal ornament. It describes the records we keep, the reason each record exists, the person who owns it and the period after which it is removed. Where the policy refers to the company, it refers to AL QASR PTE. LTD., the entity that contracts with venues and operates this website. Where the policy refers to our work, it means the design, integration, rehearsal and handover of court event desks, booking rounds, tour weeks, audit days, liaison sessions and season programmes.

This policy does not describe the privacy practices of a venue that commissions us. A venue is a separate organisation with its own notices, its own guest relationships and its own obligations. When we work inside a venue, our role is usually that of a service provider that processes guest information on the instructions of the venue. In that situation the venue is the primary decision maker and its privacy notice governs the guest relationship. We still apply the safeguards described in this policy to every record we touch.

A short summary before the detail: the developer Al Qasr and the office team at AL QASR PTE. LTD. keep only the records that a court commission or a website enquiry genuinely needs, share them only with the people who must act on them, and remove them on the schedule set out in section 16. The remaining sections explain each part of that promise in full.

By using this website or by engaging our services, you confirm that you have read this policy and understand how records are handled. If any part of the policy is unclear, write to us before you send personal information, and a named member of our team will explain the relevant part in plain language.

2. Who we are

AL QASR PTE. LTD. is a company registered in Singapore that provides computer systems design and related professional services for palace hospitality operations. Our registered and operating office is located at 60 Paya Lebar Road #06-28 Paya Lebar Square 409051, Singapore (SG). We can be reached by email at hello@alqasr.lat and by telephone at +18155225583.

The developer responsible for this website and for the digital systems described in this policy is Al Qasr. The developer works with our office team on design, integration, documentation and support. The company is the entity that determines the purposes and means of processing described here, except where a venue instructs us as a processor, in which case the venue holds that decision making role.

We do not appoint a separate data protection officer because the scale and nature of our processing does not require one, but we do maintain a single internal owner for privacy questions. That person is reachable through the general email address and is responsible for the retention schedule, the vendor list and the response to access or deletion requests.

3. Information we collect

The information we collect depends on how you interact with us. A reader of this website provides far less than a venue that commissions a full season, and a guest who attends a court event provides different details again. The categories below describe the full range rather than what applies to any single person.

• Contact details. Name, organisation, role, email address, telephone number and postal address supplied through the contact form or by direct correspondence.
• Enquiry content. The subject and body of messages, including venue names, programme dates, service line interests and any documents you choose to attach.
• Commission records. Contracts, statements of work, meeting notes, flow maps, rehearsal observations and handover documents connected to a venue engagement.
• Venue operational data. Booking round rosters, arrival lists, seating charts, tour departure lists and season calendars that a venue asks us to help design or maintain.
• Guest interaction notes. Liaison session records that describe a request, a promise, a decline and a follow up owner, kept in the narrow form described in section 10.
• Audit observations. Scores and written notes recorded during a hospitality audit day, which focus on touchpoints rather than on individual guests.
• Technical data. Browser type, device type, referring page and general region derived from standard server logs when you load this website.
• Communication history. Emails, call notes and messages exchanged with our office team, including the dates and times of contact.

We do not collect payment card numbers on this website, and we do not ask for identity documents through the contact form. If a commission requires payment details, those are handled through the invoicing process agreed in the engagement contract and not through this site.

4. How we obtain information

Most information reaches us directly from the person concerned. You write to us, you complete the contact form, you attend a meeting, or you sign an engagement contract. In each case you choose what to provide, and you can ask us to explain why a particular field is needed before you complete it.

Some information reaches us from a venue. When a venue commissions a desk, it may share guest lists, booking round rosters or tour departure records so that we can design the tools that carry them. The venue is responsible for having a lawful basis to share those records with us, and our engagement contract requires the venue to confirm that it does.

Finally, a small amount of information is generated automatically when you load a page. Server logs record the request time, the page requested and the general network region. We use these logs to keep the site available and to detect abusive traffic. We do not use them to build profiles of individual readers.

We do not buy personal information from data brokers, and we do not enrich contact records with information scraped from unrelated sources. If a record in our files is incomplete, we ask the person concerned rather than guessing.

5. Why we use information

Every record we keep exists to serve one of the purposes listed below. If a new purpose appears, we update this policy before we begin the new processing.

• To answer enquiries and provide the information a venue or guest has requested.
• To prepare proposals, scopes of work and engagement contracts.
• To design, build and rehearse the desks and systems described in our service lines.
• To support a venue during a live season, including event evenings and tour weeks.
• To conduct hospitality audit days and produce the reports that follow them.
• To maintain the narrow liaison records that keep guest promises accurate.
• To issue invoices, keep accounting records and meet tax obligations.
• To protect the website and our systems against misuse, fraud and intrusion.
• To comply with legal requests from a court or a regulator with proper authority.
• To improve our own service design using aggregated, non-identifying observations.

We do not use venue guest lists to market our own services, and we do not add guests to a mailing list because their name appeared on a court roster. Marketing consent is always separate and always opt in.

6. Legal basis for processing

We process personal information where at least one lawful basis applies. For enquiries and correspondence, the basis is the legitimate interest of responding to a person who has chosen to contact us, together with the steps needed to enter a contract. For a commissioned engagement, the basis is the performance of the contract with the venue, including the design, rehearsal and support work described in the scope.

For records that a venue shares with us, the venue confirms that it has a lawful basis to share them and that its own privacy notice covers the guest relationship. Our role is to process those records only on the documented instructions of the venue and only for the purposes of the engagement.

For accounting, tax and security records, the basis is compliance with legal obligations and the legitimate interest of protecting the business. For any optional communication such as a seasonal note, the basis is consent, which can be withdrawn at any time without affecting earlier lawful processing.

7. Court records and venue data

The central design principle of our work is that a court should keep one record per guest and one record per evening. That principle shapes how we handle venue data. When we design a desk, we aim to reduce duplicate lists rather than multiply them, because duplicates are both a privacy risk and an operational failure. A guest who appears three times in three systems is a guest who will eventually receive three different answers.

Venue data that passes through our design work is held in the venue systems wherever possible. Where we must hold a working copy during a build or a rehearsal, the copy is stored in an access controlled location, is limited to the fields needed for the task, and is removed once the handover is complete. We do not retain a shadow copy of a venue guest list after the engagement ends.

Where a venue asks us to maintain a desk during a season, we operate as a processor and follow the venue written instructions. We do not use the venue data for our own purposes, we do not combine it with data from other venues, and we do not disclose it except as the venue instructs or as the law requires.

8. Booking round and majlis data

Booking round records usually contain a guest name, a contact method, a round identifier, an arrival window and an attendance mark. In some venues they also contain a host name, a seating preference or an accessibility note. Each of those fields exists to run the round correctly, and each is limited to what the round actually needs.

Overflow and replacement lists are handled with particular care. The order of a replacement list is written down in advance so that no guest is moved by favour, and the list is visible only to the desk team that must act on it. We do not publish replacement order, and we do not discuss one guest position with another guest. When a round closes, the attendance record is reduced to the minimum needed for the venue season report.

Accessibility notes are treated as sensitive. They are shared only with the staff who need them to welcome the guest properly, they are not copied into general reports, and they are removed at the end of the season unless the venue has a documented reason to keep them for a returning guest.

9. Heritage tour week data

Tour week records contain booking details, departure times, group sizes, guide assignments and occasional notes about visitor needs. The booking details are used to confirm a place, to send the meeting point and access notes, and to reconcile attendance at the end of the week.

Guide briefs are prepared each morning from the day schedule. A brief may name a closed room, a delayed opening or an extra departure, but it does not contain guest contact details unless a specific access requirement makes that necessary. Guides are trained to keep briefs on the desk and not to carry them out of the venue.

At the end of a tour week we produce an attendance record and a short friction list. The friction list describes places and processes rather than people, so that it can be shared with the venue operations team without exposing any visitor. Any visitor note that must be retained for a follow up is separated from the aggregate record and kept only for the period described in section 16.

10. Guest liaison records

A liaison record is deliberately narrow. It holds four things: what the guest asked for, what was promised, what was declined and who owns the follow up. It does not hold opinions about the guest, it does not hold unrelated personal history, and it does not hold anything the court would be embarrassed to explain to the guest on request.

The reason for the narrow form is practical as well as ethical. A liaison who records too much will eventually record something that conflicts with what another member of staff has written, and the conflict will surface at the worst moment. A short, factual record reduces that risk and makes the handover to the evening desk reliable.

Liaison records are visible to the named liaison, the event coordinator and the desk lead for the relevant evening. They are not visible to the wider venue team, and they are not shared with other guests. A returning guest brief is maintained only where the venue has a continuing relationship with that guest and has documented the reason to keep it.

11. Audit day observations

An audit day produces scores and notes about touchpoints: the welcome, wayfinding, waiting comfort, accessibility, cloak handling, washroom condition and exit. The notes describe the court, not the guest. Where a note must mention a guest to make sense, the guest is described in a way that cannot identify them, and identifying details are left out of the written report.

Photographs are taken only where the venue has agreed in advance, and they are framed to show the touchpoint rather than the people using it. Faces are avoided by framing, and any photograph that accidentally includes an identifiable person is either not used or is cropped before it enters the report.

Audit reports are shared with the venue management team and the staff who own the closure actions. The report is not published, is not used in our own marketing without written permission, and is retained only for the period needed to track closure and to compare with a later audit in the same season.

12. Cookies and local storage

This website is built to work without tracking cookies. It does not set advertising cookies, it does not load third party analytics scripts, and it does not use a pixel to follow a reader across other sites. The pages are served directly from our own hosting, and the styling and scripts are loaded from the same origin.

The site may store a small preference in your browser memory while a page is open, for example whether a navigation panel or a question panel has been expanded. That state is not sent to us and is discarded when you close the page. We do not use local storage to identify you or to remember you across visits.

Server logs are the main technical record. They are kept for a short operational period, are used for availability and abuse detection, and are not combined with any other record to profile a reader. If we ever introduce a measurement tool that changes this position, we will update the policy and ask for consent where the law requires it before the tool is enabled.

13. Sharing and disclosure

We do not sell personal information. We do not rent contact lists. We do not trade guest records with venues, partners or advertisers. Disclosure happens only in the limited situations described below.

• Within the engagement. Information is shared with the venue team members who need it to run the desk or close an audit action.
• With service providers. Providers who host the website, deliver email or provide accounting support receive only the data needed for that task and are bound to use it only for that task.
• With professional advisers. Legal, accounting or insurance advisers may receive records where necessary for a specific matter, under professional confidentiality.
• For legal reasons. We may disclose records where required by a court order, a lawful regulatory request or a legal obligation that applies to us in Singapore.
• For safety. We may disclose limited information where it is necessary to prevent serious harm, and only to the extent needed for that purpose.
• In a business change. If the business is reorganised, records may transfer to the successor entity, subject to the same protections and with notice to affected parties where the law requires it.

Any other disclosure requires the consent of the person concerned or the documented instruction of the venue that controls the record.

14. Processors and service providers

We keep the list of processors short on purpose. A smaller list is easier to audit, easier to explain and less likely to leak. Each processor is chosen for a specific task, is bound by a written agreement, and is reviewed at least once a year for security and for the accuracy of its own privacy commitments.

Processors may include a hosting provider that serves this website, an email provider that carries our correspondence, an accounting provider that handles invoices, and a backup provider that stores encrypted copies of working files. In each case the processor receives only the data needed for its task and is not permitted to use the data for its own purposes.

Where a processor is located outside Singapore, the transfer is covered by the safeguards described in section 15. We do not add a processor to the list because it is convenient; we add it because the task cannot be done safely without it, and we document the reason.

15. International transfers

Our office is in Singapore, and most records stay in Singapore. Some service providers operate infrastructure in other regions, and some venues we serve hold their own records outside Singapore. Where a transfer leaves Singapore, we require the receiving party to apply protections that are at least equivalent to those described in this policy.

The protections include a written agreement that limits the purpose of the transfer, requires appropriate security, restricts onward transfer and provides a route for individuals to exercise their rights. Where a venue controls the record, the venue is responsible for the transfer basis, and we follow the venue instructions while applying our own technical safeguards.

If you would like to know whether a specific engagement involves a transfer outside Singapore, write to us with the venue name and the approximate engagement period, and we will confirm the position without disclosing information about any other person.

16. Retention and deletion

We keep records only as long as they serve the purpose for which they were collected, or as long as the law requires. The schedule below describes the general periods we apply. A specific engagement contract may set a different period where the venue has a documented reason.

• Enquiries that do not proceed. Contact details and messages are removed twelve months after the last exchange.
• Commission records. Contracts, scopes and handover documents are kept for six years after the end of the engagement, in line with accounting and contractual needs.
• Working copies of venue data. Removed within thirty days after the handover or the end of the season support period, whichever comes first.
• Liaison records. Removed at the end of the season unless a documented returning guest reason applies, in which case they are reviewed each year.
• Audit reports. Kept for two seasons so that a later audit can compare, then reduced to an aggregate summary.
• Server logs. Kept for ninety days for availability and abuse detection, then deleted.
• Accounting records. Kept for the period required by Singapore tax and company law.

When a retention period ends, the record is deleted or, where deletion is not technically possible in a backup, is isolated and removed at the next backup rotation. We do not keep deleted records in a hidden archive for later use.

17. Security measures

We protect records with a layered set of ordinary measures rather than a single dramatic one. Access to working files is limited to the people who need them for the engagement, accounts are protected by strong authentication, and devices that hold records are encrypted and kept up to date. Paper notes taken during a court survey are transferred to the working file within a week and the paper is destroyed.

The website is served over an encrypted connection, does not expose administrative interfaces to the public, and is monitored for unusual traffic. We test the contact form against injection and script abuse, and we keep the server software patched on a regular schedule.

No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise. If a security incident affects personal information, we will investigate promptly, take steps to contain the effect, and notify the affected parties and the relevant authority where the law requires it. We will describe what happened plainly rather than hiding behind technical language.

18. Your rights and choices

Subject to the law that applies to you, you may ask for access to the personal information we hold about you, ask for a correction, ask for deletion, ask us to restrict a use, or object to a processing activity. You may also ask for a copy of the information in a portable format where that right applies.

• Access. You may ask what records we hold about you and why they are held.
• Correction. You may ask us to correct a record that is wrong or incomplete.
• Deletion. You may ask us to remove a record where there is no continuing lawful reason to keep it.
• Restriction. You may ask us to pause a use while a question about the record is resolved.
• Objection. You may object to processing based on legitimate interest, and we will assess the objection in good faith.
• Withdrawal. Where processing relies on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting earlier processing.

Where a venue controls the record, we may need to pass your request to the venue or act on the venue instruction. We will tell you which route applies so that you are not left waiting without an answer.

19. How to make a request

Send your request to hello@alqasr.lat with enough detail for us to find the record: your name, the venue or engagement concerned, and the approximate dates of contact. If you are writing on behalf of another person, we may ask for evidence that you are authorised to act for them.

We acknowledge every request within five working days and aim to respond in full within thirty days. If a request is complex or affects a large number of records, we will explain the reason for any extension before the first deadline passes. There is no fee for a reasonable request, though we may charge a modest administrative fee where a request is manifestly unfounded or repetitive, and we will tell you before any fee is applied.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the relevant privacy regulator in your jurisdiction. We would ask you to raise the matter with us first so that we have a chance to correct it.

20. Privacy for children

This website is intended for venues, professionals and adult guests. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children through the website, and the contact form is not directed at children. Heritage tour bookings for families are made by an adult, and any note about a younger visitor is held only where it helps the venue welcome that visitor safely.

Where a venue programme includes younger guests, the venue is responsible for obtaining any consent required from a parent or guardian. Our design work keeps the number of fields about a younger guest as small as possible: usually a name attached to an adult booking and an age band used for group planning. We do not build profiles of younger guests.

If you believe that a child has provided personal information to us without appropriate consent, write to hello@alqasr.lat and we will remove the record promptly after confirming the position.

21. Marketing and communications

We send marketing messages only to people who have asked for them. A venue contact may receive a seasonal note about programme planning after an engagement, and may opt out at any time using the link in the message or by writing to us. Opting out does not affect messages needed to deliver a service that is already commissioned.

We do not send marketing messages to guests who appear on a venue roster. We do not share our contact list with other organisations. If a newsletter is offered in future, it will be a separate opt in with a clear description of what it contains and how often it arrives.

Service messages such as a rehearsal confirmation, an audit schedule or an invoice reminder are not marketing and are sent as part of the engagement. These messages are kept short and sent only to the people who need them.

22. Third party links and venues

This website may link to a venue website, a public calendar or a professional resource. Those sites are controlled by other organisations and have their own privacy notices. We do not control their content or their practices, and a link is not an endorsement of how they handle personal information.

When you attend a court event, the venue may operate its own cameras, its own access system and its own guest records. The venue notice governs those records rather than this policy. Our design work aims to make the venue handling clearer, but the venue remains the organisation you should contact about its cameras and its own systems.

If you follow a link from this site to another and are unsure which notice applies, write to us and we will tell you what we know about the arrangement.

23. Changes to this policy

We review this policy at least once a year and whenever a material change occurs in our services, our vendor list or the law that applies to us. The effective date at the top of the page is updated whenever a change is published, and a short note describing the change is added to our internal record.

If a change materially affects how we use information that is already held, we will notify the affected venues and, where we have a direct relationship with an individual, the individual concerned. We will not apply a new purpose to an old record without a lawful basis and, where required, a fresh consent.

The current version is always the one published on this page. Printed copies may become out of date, so refer to this page when you need the current text.

24. How to contact us

Privacy questions, access requests, correction requests and complaints should be sent to our office. A named member of the team will read the message and reply, and we keep a record of each request and its outcome so that we can show that we handled it properly.

Thank you for reading the full policy. A court keeps its records in order so that its guests can be welcomed without confusion, and the same discipline applies to the information described here.