Privacy Policy

1 — Who we are

Al Minbar Institute (AL MINBAR FOR ARAB LEARNING SARL PRIVÉ), Appt N°5, Imm N°106, Avenue Allal Ben Abdellah, Rabat 10000, Morocco, is the controller of the personal data described here.

For any question about your data, or to exercise any right below, write to contact@alminbar-institute.com or call +212 649 65 54 10.

2 — What we collect

• When you enquire or apply: your name, email address, phone number, nationality, date of birth, the program and dates you are interested in, your Arabic level, and anything else you choose to tell us.
• When you enroll: passport details where required for enrollment or accommodation, emergency contact details, accommodation preferences, dietary requirements or allergies where you give them, and payment information.
• During your studies: attendance, assessment results, placement outcomes, and the certificates and transcripts we issue.
• If you apply for a scholarship: your motivation letter and any supporting documents you send.
• When you use this website: the pages you visit and how you reached us, as described in section 8.

Some of this is more sensitive than the rest. Dietary requirements or allergies can reveal health or religious information; we ask for them only so that host families and our team can look after you properly, we collect them only where you volunteer them, and we share them only with the people who need them for that purpose.

3 — Why we use it, and on what basis

• Answering your enquiry: your request.
• Enrolling you, teaching you, arranging accommodation and transfers: performing our contract with you.
• Issuing certificates, transcripts and attendance records: performing our contract, and our legitimate interest in maintaining academic records.
• Accounting, invoicing and tax: legal obligation.
• Safety and duty of care during your stay: your vital interests and our legitimate interest.
• Newsletters and updates about courses: your consent, withdrawable at any time.
• Improving this website and measuring our advertising: your consent where we ask for it (section 8), our legitimate interest otherwise.

We do not sell your data. We do not share it with advertisers. We do not make automated decisions about you.

4 — Who we share it with

• Host families and accommodation providers: your name, arrival dates, and any dietary or health information you have given, so they can host you properly.
• Language Testing International: where your program includes an official ACTFL proficiency interview, so they can administer and rate it.
• Your home university or sponsor: where you ask us to send documents, or where your enrollment is arranged through them.
• Our teachers and staff: to the extent each needs it to teach and support you.
• Service providers: who run our website, email, payment processing and administration.
• Public authorities: where the law requires it.

Everyone else: no.

5 — Where your data goes

We are based in Morocco, so your data is processed here. Some of our service providers, website hosting and email among them, process data outside Morocco, including in the European Union and the United States.

Where data is transferred internationally, we do so only with appropriate safeguards, and where Moroccan law requires authorization for a transfer, we obtain it.

6 — How long we keep it

• Enquiries that do not lead to enrollment: 2 years.
• Student records (enrollment, attendance, assessment): 10 years. Universities and sponsors ask for transcripts years later.
• Accounting and invoicing records: as Moroccan tax law requires.
• Scholarship applications that are not successful: 2 years.
• Newsletter subscriptions: until you unsubscribe.

These are the periods we apply. Where the law requires us to keep something longer, the legal period prevails.

7 — Your rights

• Show you the data we hold about you.
• Correct anything that is wrong.
• Delete it, where we are not required to keep it.
• Stop using it for a particular purpose, or object to a use.
• Send it to you or someone else in a portable form.
• Withdraw consent at any time, where consent is the basis; this does not affect what we did before you withdrew it.

Write to us and we will respond within thirty days. There is no charge.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you may complain to the CNDP (Commission Nationale de contrôle de la protection des Données à caractère Personnel) in Morocco, at www.cndp.ma. If you are in the European Union, you may also complain to your national data protection authority.

8 — Cookies

We count visits in two ways. For everyone, without cookies and without knowing who you are. And with Google Analytics and Google Ads, which use cookies: they show us which pages are read, how visitors reach the site and which of our ads led to a registration or a message.

If you are in Europe or the United Kingdom, these cookies stay off until you accept them in the banner. Elsewhere they are on from your first visit. Wherever you are, you can turn them off at any time through "Cookie settings" in the footer, or block and delete cookies in your browser.

When you send a form, we also see how you found us, for example a Google search or one of our ads. The map on our pages comes from Google Maps, which applies its own privacy policy.

9 — Photographs

We sometimes photograph classes, workshops and excursions for our website and social media. Tell us if you would rather not appear, before, during or after, and we will respect it without explanation or awkwardness, and remove existing images on request.

10 — Students under 18

Where a student is under 18, enrollment is made by a parent or legal guardian, who provides consent for the data described here. We collect no more than we need, and we do not market to anyone under 18.

11 — Security

We keep your data on access-controlled systems, share it internally only with those who need it, and require our service providers to protect it. No system is perfect; if a breach ever affects your data materially, we will tell you and the CNDP as required.

12 — Changes

We may update this policy. The current version's date is at the top of this page, and material changes will be notified to enrolled students by email.