Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains, in plain English, what personal information PAKVITAE collects when you visit pakvitae.org, buy a Water Ka Doctor purifier, book a water test or simply send us a WhatsApp message — and what we do with it. We collect only what we need to deliver clean drinking water to your door, we never sell your data, and you can ask us at any time to see, correct or delete what we hold about you.

1. Who we are (the data controller)

The website pakvitae.org and the online shop on it are operated by PAKVITAE (“Pak Vitae”, “we”, “us”, “our”), the maker of the Water Ka Doctor home water purifier and related community filtration products and services.

• Postal address: Block 20, Gulistan-e-Johar, Karachi, Sindh 74200, Pakistan
• Email: [email protected]
• UAN / WhatsApp: 0304-1110227 (+92 304 1110227)
• Office hours: Monday–Saturday, 10am–6pm (PKT); Sunday closed

For the purposes of this policy, PAKVITAE is the “data controller” — the organisation that decides why and how your personal data is processed. Where we use outside companies to help us (for example a courier or a hosting provider) they act on our instructions as “processors” or, in some cases, as independent controllers of their own data; we explain this in section 7.

This policy applies to pakvitae.org, our order and enquiry forms, our WooCommerce shop, our official social media pages and our WhatsApp business line. It does not apply to third-party websites we link to; please read their own privacy notices.

2. What information we collect

We collect information in three ways: information you give us, information collected automatically when you use the website, and information we receive from partners such as couriers or payment providers.

2.1 Information you give us

• Contact and enquiry forms (Contact page, community-filter or NGO quote requests, water-quality checker results you choose to send): your name, email address, phone/WhatsApp number, city, subject and the content of your message. If you describe your water source (for example “municipal line in Gulshan” or “bore water in Faisalabad”), that description is stored with your enquiry.
• Orders through our shop: billing and shipping name, street address, city, province, postcode, phone number, email address, the products or services ordered, quantities, prices, delivery notes and the payment method you select.
• Customer account (optional): if you create an account, your username, a securely hashed password, saved addresses and order history.
• Service bookings (water-quality testing, installation & care plan): your address, preferred visit time, access instructions, and the test results or service notes produced for your property.
• Product reviews and comments: the name you choose to display, your email address (not published), your rating and review text.
• WhatsApp and phone: when you message or call 0304-1110227, we receive your phone number, WhatsApp display name, profile picture (if public) and the messages, photos or voice notes you send. Many customers send photos of their water, tap fittings or a damaged parcel — these are used only to help you.
• Newsletter (if you opt in): your email address and the date you subscribed.

2.2 Information collected automatically

• Technical data: IP address, browser type and version, device type, operating system, referring page, pages visited and the date and time of each request. This is recorded in standard web-server logs and by our security firewall.
• Cookies and similar technologies: strictly necessary cookies that keep your cart and checkout working, a cookie that remembers your consent choices, and — only if you accept them — analytics or functional cookies. Full details are in our Cookie Policy.
• Local browser storage: our water-quality checker and savings calculator may remember your last answers in your own browser so you do not have to retype them. This stays on your device and is not sent to us unless you submit a form.

2.3 Information from third parties

• Couriers: delivery status, proof of delivery, and any notes about failed delivery attempts.
• Payment providers: confirmation that a payment succeeded or failed, a transaction reference and the last digits of an account or wallet number. We never receive or store your full card number, CNIC-linked wallet PIN or bank password.
• NGO and institutional partners: when we deliver community filters through an NGO, school or relief partner, they may share a contact person’s name, role and phone number with us so we can coordinate installation and training.

We do not intentionally collect sensitive data such as health records, religious beliefs or biometric data. If you tell us that someone in your household has been unwell from water-borne illness, we use that only to answer your question and recommend that you see a doctor; please do not send medical documents.

3. Legal bases for using your information

Pakistani law requires that personal data be processed lawfully, fairly and for a specified purpose. For visitors from the European Union, United Kingdom and similar jurisdictions, we also rely on the following recognised legal bases:

4. How we use your information

1. To fulfil orders — confirming your order by phone or WhatsApp, packing and dispatching your Water Ka Doctor, sharing your address and phone number with the courier, and collecting cash on delivery where chosen.
2. To provide services — scheduling water-quality tests, installations and annual care visits, preparing your test report, and reminding you when your membrane is approaching its 2-year / 10,000-litre usage life.
3. To give support — explaining how to backwash the filter, troubleshooting low flow, handling warranty claims and returns.
4. To answer pre-sale questions — for example whether Water Ka Doctor is suitable for your water. Because the purifier does not reduce TDS, we may ask about salinity or taste before recommending it.
5. To coordinate community and relief projects — quotations, logistics and training for schools, villages, NGOs and disaster-response teams.
6. To improve our website and products — using aggregated, consented analytics to understand which pages are useful and where visitors get stuck.
7. To keep things secure — detecting and blocking spam orders, brute-force login attempts and malicious traffic.
8. To send updates you asked for — newsletter articles on safe water, offers and product news, only if you opted in. Every email has an unsubscribe link.
9. To comply with the law — tax records, responding to lawful requests from authorities, and defending legal claims.

We do not use your data for automated decision-making that has legal or similarly significant effects on you, and we do not build advertising profiles about you.

5. Orders, WooCommerce and your customer account

Our shop runs on WordPress with the WooCommerce plugin, hosted on our own server. When you place an order, WooCommerce stores the order details in our database: the items, prices, your billing and shipping details, your selected payment method, order notes and the order status history (for example “processing”, “dispatched”, “completed”).

WooCommerce uses a session cookie and a cart cookie so that items stay in your basket as you move between pages. If you check out as a guest, your order is still stored so that we can deliver it and honour warranty and returns, but no login is created. If you create an account, you can view your past orders and update your addresses at any time from the “My Account” page, and you can ask us to delete the account (see section 11).

Prices are shown and charged in US Dollars (USD). We do not store payment-card numbers on our server.

6. Payment methods and payment processors

Depending on what is enabled at checkout at the time of your order, you may pay by:

• Cash on Delivery (COD) — the courier collects payment at your door and remits it to us. The courier receives your name, address, phone number and the amount due.
• Direct bank transfer — you transfer to our business account and share the transaction reference. We see the sender name, amount and reference that appear on our bank statement.
• JazzCash and Easypaisa — mobile-wallet or account payments are processed by those providers under their own terms and privacy notices. We receive a payment confirmation and transaction ID, not your wallet PIN or full account details.
• Card payments, if offered through a payment gateway — card details are entered on, or securely passed to, the gateway’s systems. They are not stored by PAKVITAE.

For institutional and NGO orders we may issue a pro-forma invoice and accept payment by cheque or bank transfer; in that case we hold the organisation’s billing contact and tax details as required for invoicing.

7. Who we share your information with

We never sell, rent or trade your personal data. We share it only with the following categories of recipients, and only what each one needs:

If PAKVITAE is ever involved in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, customer data may be transferred to the new owner, who must continue to protect it under terms at least as protective as this policy. We will tell you before that happens.

8. International transfers

We are based in Pakistan and most of your data is processed in Pakistan. Some of our service providers — for example our hosting company, email provider, Wordfence, CookieYes and WhatsApp — may store or process data on servers in other countries, including the United States and member states of the European Union. Where data leaves Pakistan, we choose reputable providers that apply recognised security standards and, where available, contractual safeguards such as Standard Contractual Clauses. If you are visiting from the EU or UK, please be aware that Pakistan has not received an “adequacy decision”, and that by sending us an enquiry or order your data will be processed in Pakistan so that we can respond to you.

9. How long we keep your information

We keep personal data only as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected for, and then delete or anonymise it.

10. How we protect your information

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your data, including:

• HTTPS encryption on every page of pakvitae.org;
• the Wordfence web application firewall and malware scanner, login rate-limiting and two-factor authentication for administrators;
• WP Hide & Security Enhancer settings that hide default WordPress paths and reduce automated attacks;
• a non-default database table prefix and regular, encrypted backups;
• keeping WordPress, WooCommerce and all plugins up to date;
• limiting staff access to order data on a need-to-know basis, and keeping WhatsApp support on a dedicated business device.

No system is completely secure. If we become aware of a personal-data breach that is likely to put you at risk, we will notify you and, where required, the relevant authority without undue delay.

11. Your rights

11.1 Everyone

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• access the personal data we hold about you and receive a copy;
• correct inaccurate or incomplete data (for example a changed address);
• delete your data, subject to records we must keep by law (such as invoices);
• stop marketing — unsubscribe from emails or tell us on WhatsApp to stop promotional messages;
• withdraw consent to cookies at any time via the cookie settings link in the footer.

11.2 Pakistan

We respect the privacy protections of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016 (PECA), including the prohibition on unauthorised access to, copying or transmission of personal information, and the constitutional right to privacy under Article 14 of the Constitution of Pakistan. We are also preparing for Pakistan’s proposed Personal Data Protection legislation, which is expected to introduce consent, purpose-limitation, data-subject-rights and breach-notification requirements; we already follow those principles in this policy.

11.3 European Union and United Kingdom (GDPR / UK GDPR)

If the GDPR applies to you, you also have the right to restrict or object to processing based on legitimate interests, the right to data portability, and the right to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority.

11.4 California and other US states (CCPA/CPRA and similar)

California residents have the right to know what categories of personal information we collect and why, to request deletion and correction, and not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. We do not sell or “share” personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising as those terms are defined under the CCPA.

12. How to exercise your rights

Email [email protected] with the subject line “Privacy request”, or write to us at the postal address in section 1. Tell us what you would like us to do and give us the phone number or email address you used with us so we can find your records. To protect you, we may ask you to verify your identity — for example by confirming an order number or replying from the same WhatsApp number.

We aim to respond within 30 days. There is no charge for a reasonable request. If we cannot do what you ask (for example because we must keep an invoice by law), we will explain why.

13. Children’s privacy

Our shop is intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 18 through the website. Our school and community water projects may involve photographs of children; we take such photographs only with permission from the school or community leadership, and we do not publish children’s full names. If you believe a child has sent us personal data, or you would like a project photo removed, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

14. Search engines, AI systems and public content

Our public pages — product information, articles, FAQs and project stories — are made available to search engines and AI assistants (for example through our llms.txt file and XML sitemap) so that people looking for safe-water information can find us. These public pages contain no personal customer data. Customer accounts, checkout, cart and order pages are excluded from indexing. Product reviews you choose to publish are public and may therefore be read by search engines and AI crawlers; if you would rather your review were removed, just ask.

15. Links and embedded content

Pages may link to our Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube profiles or to outside sources such as WHO or PCRWR. Videos are loaded only when you click play; until then no connection is made to YouTube. Once you leave our site or start an embedded video, the other service’s privacy policy applies.

16. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when our services, suppliers or the law change. The “last updated” date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised. If changes are significant — for example a new category of data or a new type of recipient — we will put a notice on the website and, where we have your email address and the change affects you, tell you directly.

17. Contact us

Questions or concerns about your privacy are always welcome. Contact PAKVITAE at [email protected], call or WhatsApp 0304-1110227 (Mon–Sat, 10am–6pm), or write to Block 20, Gulistan-e-Johar, Karachi, Sindh 74200, Pakistan. You can also use our contact form. Related pages: Cookie Policy, Terms & Conditions.