Privacy policy
This policy applies to the whole site: the pages of the charter, Al-Mithaq, and those of its four sections, Riad Al-Uns, Al-Funduq as-Siqilli and Al-Munya.
01The data controller
The controller of the data collected by this site is Il Fondaco Siciliano — Associazione per le arti e i mestieri, Via Giuseppe Simili 63, 95129 Catania (CT), Italy. For any question about these data: info@al-mithaq.org.
02Advertising and profiling
This site displays no advertising, carries out no commercial profiling, and neither sells nor passes on to third parties the data it collects.
03Cookies
The site sets no cookies of its own. The language is shown in the page address; the choice about consent to audience measurement is kept in the browser’s local storage.
04Audience measurement
The site counts its visitors by means of Google Analytics 4, in aggregated and anonymous form, and only after your consent, gathered through the notice shown at your first visit. If you accept, Google sets the _ga cookie, lasting two years, and receives among other indications the page viewed and the truncated IP address. If you decline, no measurement tool is loaded. Your choice is recorded in the browser and stays on your own machine: to change it, delete the site data kept by the browser, and the notice will appear again at your next visit.
05Forms and messages
The form on the contact page, common to the four sections, sends the message to info@al-mithaq.org through FormSubmit, an outside service that delivers it by email; the site keeps no copy of it. Your name, address and the content of your letter serve to reply to you and are not used for other purposes; they are kept no longer than two years after the last exchange. The same holds for those who write directly to that address.
06Newsletter
Those who subscribe to the newsletter leave their email address and the language in which they wish to receive it. Subscription rests on consent, takes effect only after confirmation from the message sent to the address given, and can be withdrawn at any time through the link at the foot of every issue or by writing to info@al-mithaq.org. Addresses are kept, and messages sent, through Brevo, a French company based in Paris whose servers are in the European Union, acting as processor. Addresses are used only to send the newsletter and are not passed on to third parties.
07Private area
The private area is open only to people invited by Al-Mithaq. For each of them we keep the email address, the name, the chosen language, the groups they belong to and the dates of their visits. There are no passwords: one enters through a link valid for one hour, sent to the registered address. These data, together with the documents, images and surveys placed in the area, are kept with Supabase, acting as processor on servers located in Ireland, in the European Union; invitation and access messages are sent through Brevo. The processing serves the collaboration with those who accompany the project (Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679). While signed in, the browser keeps a technical access key, needed to stay connected and erased on signing out. Anyone who wishes to leave the area or have their data erased writes to info@al-mithaq.org: access is closed and personal data deleted within thirty days.
08The project’s contact register
To prepare and follow up the project’s relationships, Al-Mithaq keeps a register of the people and organisations it is in contact with or intends to contact: scholars, institutions, master craftsmen, possible supporters. For each it records the name, the organisation or role, professional contact details (email address, telephone, public profile), the city or country, and brief notes on the state of the relationship. These data are not collected from the people concerned: they come from correspondence exchanged with them, from introductions and business cards, and from publicly accessible sources such as institutional websites, publications and professional profiles online. The register holds no data of the special categories listed in Article 9 of the Regulation.
The processing rests on the controller’s legitimate interest in building and maintaining the scholarly, institutional and supporting collaborations the project needs (Article 6(1)(f) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679), and is limited to the professional data required for that purpose. The register is kept on Notion (Notion Labs, Inc., United States); a read-only copy is stored in the private area with Supabase, in Ireland. Only the project’s administrators have access to it; it is not published, nor disclosed or passed on to third parties. The transfer to the United States rests on the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework or on the standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission. The data are kept for as long as the relationship has a purpose and are reviewed at least once a year: those no longer needed are erased.
This notice is given under Article 14 of the Regulation. Anyone listed in the register may ask at any time which data concern them and from which source they come, have them rectified or erased, and object to the processing (Article 21) by writing to info@al-mithaq.org; requests are answered within one month. The right to lodge a complaint with the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali is unaffected.
09Fonts
The site loads its typefaces from Google Fonts; this request passes the IP address to that service, without setting cookies.
10Legal basis
Audience measurement rests on consent, which may be withdrawn at any time (Art. 6(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679). Messages sent through the form or by email are processed in order to answer the request of the person writing (Art. 6(1)(b) and (f)).
11Transfers outside the European Union
Google (Analytics and Fonts) and Vercel, which hosts the site, are based in the United States and participate in the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, found adequate by the European Commission in its decision of 10 July 2023: transfers take place on that basis. The contact form passes through FormSubmit, an outside service; those who prefer may write directly to info@al-mithaq.org.
12Adults only
The houses receive adults only.
13Your rights
You may ask for access to, rectification and erasure of the data concerning you by writing to info@al-mithaq.org, and lodge a complaint with the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, the Italian data protection authority. Policy updated in October 2026.