Privacy Policy

Effective date: 22 September 2026. Updated 22 September 2026 to describe our use of Google Analytics (sections 3.2, 4, 5 and 7).

This Privacy Policy explains how Ardent Research Solutions (Pvt.) Ltd. (“ARS”, “we”, “us” or “our”) collects, uses, discloses and protects personal data in connection with the website at www.arspakistan.pk and its pages (the “Website”), and in connection with any enquiry you send us. It should be read together with our Terms of Use.

1.Who we are

Ardent Research Solutions (Pvt.) Ltd. is a private limited company incorporated in Pakistan, with its office at 48 Nazim-ud-din Road, F-7/4, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan. ARS is a research and advisory company. For the purposes of this Policy, ARS decides why and how the personal data described below is processed, and is responsible for it.

Questions about this Policy, or requests to exercise any of the rights described in section 10, may be sent to [email protected] or by post to the address above, marked for the attention of the Director.

2.Scope of this Policy

This Policy applies to personal data we collect through the Website, including its contact form, and through correspondence you send to us by email or telephone as a result of visiting it.

This Policy does not apply to:

1. personal data processed in the course of a client engagement, which is governed by the terms of that engagement;
2. websites, platforms and services operated by third parties, including those to which the Website links or through which you choose to share our publications; or
3. biographical information about ARS authors, advisers and advisory board members published on the Website, which is published with the knowledge and agreement of the individual concerned.

3.Personal data we collect

3.1  Information you give us

When you submit the contact form, we collect your name, contact number and email address, which are required, and, if you choose to provide them, the name of your company or organisation and your comments. When you write to us or call us, we collect the information you choose to include in that communication, such as your name, contact details, job title and the substance of your enquiry.

3.2  Information collected automatically

The Website uses Google Analytics 4, a web analytics service provided by Google LLC and, for visitors in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, Google Ireland Limited (“Google”). When a page loads, a script is fetched from Google’s servers and first-party cookies (named _ga and _ga_*) are set in your browser so that repeat visits can be distinguished from new ones. Google Analytics collects information such as the pages viewed, the time spent on them, scrolling, clicks on links to other websites, file downloads, the referring website, approximate location (country and city, derived from your IP address), and the type of device, operating system and browser used. Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses. We receive this information only in aggregated reports; we do not use it, or combine it with other data, to identify individual visitors, and we have not enabled Google’s advertising features, remarketing or Google signals.

You can prevent Google Analytics from collecting information about your visits by blocking or deleting cookies in your browser settings, or by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on available at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. The Website works in the same way whether or not you do so. Apart from Google Analytics, the Website does not use advertising, tracking pixels, device fingerprinting, session recording or similar technologies, and it does not load fonts, scripts or other content from other third-party services when you browse it.

The Website is hosted by a third-party hosting provider. When any page is requested, the hosting provider records the visitor’s internet protocol (IP) address for security purposes, and its servers may log related technical information such as the date and time of the request, the page requested and the type of browser used. These records are held by the hosting provider under its own privacy terms. ARS does not receive them in the ordinary course and does not use them to identify visitors.

3.3  Information we ask you not to send

We do not ask for, and ask you not to send us through the Website or by unsolicited email, sensitive personal data (such as information about health, religious or political beliefs, ethnicity or finances), national identity card, passport or financial account numbers, or confidential or legally privileged information. If an enquiry requires such information, we will agree a secure means of providing it with you in advance.

3.4  Children

The Website is intended for professional and adult audiences. It is not directed at anyone under the age of 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you believe that a person under 18 has sent us personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.

4.How we use personal data and why

We use the personal data described in section 3 only to:

1. respond to your enquiry and communicate with you about it;
2. consider, prepare and discuss a proposal for research or advisory services that you have asked about, and take the steps needed before entering into an engagement with you;
3. keep an appropriate record of our correspondence and business dealings;
4. understand, in aggregate, how the Website and our publications are used, so that we can improve them;
5. keep the Website and our systems secure, and detect and prevent spam, fraud and misuse; and
6. comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, respond to lawful requests from public authorities, and establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

We rely on the following grounds for this processing: the steps needed to consider and enter into an engagement at your request; our legitimate interest in running and protecting our business and responding to people who contact us, balanced against your interests and rights; compliance with a legal obligation; and, where we ask for it, your consent. Where the law of the country in which you are located requires a specific lawful basis for processing, these are the bases on which we rely.

We will not add you to a mailing list or send you publication updates or marketing communications unless you have asked us to or have given your consent separately. You may withdraw consent at any time.

5.Who we share personal data with

We share personal data only as described in this section. We use the following service providers, each of which processes personal data on our behalf for the purpose stated and under its own published privacy and security terms:

1. a contact form processing service, which receives contact form submissions and delivers them to our mailbox, and which may retain its own copy of submission data for up to three years;
2. an email service provider, which provides the mailbox for [email protected] and on whose systems our correspondence is stored;
3. a website hosting provider, which hosts the Website as described in section 3.2; and
4. Google, which provides the Google Analytics service described in section 3.2 and processes the related data under its own terms and privacy policy, available at policies.google.com/privacy.

We may also disclose personal data:

1. to our professional advisers, such as lawyers, auditors and accountants, where reasonably necessary and subject to duties of confidentiality;
2. to a court, regulator, law enforcement agency or other public authority, where we are required to do so by law or by a lawful order, including under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016, or where disclosure is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; and
3. to a prospective or actual purchaser, successor or merger partner in the event of a sale, reorganisation or transfer of all or part of our business, subject to that party using the data only in accordance with this Policy.

We do not sell, rent or trade personal data, and we do not disclose it to any third party for that party’s own marketing.

6.International transfers

Our service providers operate servers outside Pakistan, and personal data you send us will therefore be transferred to, stored in and processed in countries other than your own. Those countries may not provide the same level of protection for personal data as the country in which you are located. We use established providers that publish security and data protection commitments, and where the law applicable to a transfer requires specific safeguards, we will rely on the safeguards offered by the provider concerned or take other steps that the law requires.

7.How long we keep personal data

We keep an enquiry and our related correspondence for as long as we need it to deal with the enquiry and, after that, for no longer than 24 months from our last contact with you, after which we delete it or retain it only in anonymised form.

Google Analytics data linked to cookies is kept for 14 months and then deleted automatically; aggregated reports that do not relate to any individual visitor may be kept for longer. The _ga cookies expire after two years unless you delete them sooner.

There are three exceptions to the 24-month period above. Where an enquiry leads to an engagement, the related records are kept for the period that the engagement terms provide or that the law requires, including the record keeping requirements of the Companies Act, 2017 and the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001. Where records are needed in connection with an actual or reasonably anticipated legal claim, they are kept until the claim is resolved. And where a service provider holds its own copy of a submission, that copy is kept under the provider’s retention policy; we delete our copies held with providers once we no longer need them, to the extent the provider allows us to do so.

8.How we protect personal data

The Website is served over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, and contact form submissions are transmitted over an encrypted connection. Access to our mailbox and to the service providers listed in section 5 is restricted to the personnel who need it and is protected by account security controls. We ask anyone who handles personal data on our behalf to keep it confidential.

No method of transmission over the internet or of electronic storage is completely secure, and ordinary email is not encrypted from end to end. While we take reasonable steps to protect personal data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. Please take this into account when deciding what to send us.

9.Third-party websites and sharing tools

Our publication pages offer a share button. Nothing is sent to any third party when a page loads or when you open the share menu. On some phones and tablets the share button opens your device’s own share menu instead. If you choose to share a publication using WhatsApp, LinkedIn or X, you are taken to that service, which will receive the page address and information about you under its own privacy terms. The email option opens your own email program, and the copy link option operates entirely within your browser.

The Website and our publications also link to external websites, including the sources we cite. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of those websites, and we encourage you to read their privacy notices.

10.Your rights

Subject to the law that applies to you, you may ask us to:

1. confirm whether we hold personal data about you and provide a copy of it;
2. correct personal data that is inaccurate or incomplete;
3. delete personal data that we no longer have a lawful reason to keep;
4. restrict our use of your personal data, or object to our use of it on the basis of our legitimate interests;
5. provide personal data you gave us in a structured, commonly used format, where this right applies; and
6. withdraw any consent you have given, without affecting the lawfulness of anything we did before you withdrew it.

To make a request, contact us using the details in section 1. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request. We aim to respond within 30 days and do not charge a fee, unless a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive. We may decline a request, in whole or in part, where the law permits or requires us to do so, and will explain why.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may have the right to complain to the data protection authority in the country in which you live or work. We would, however, appreciate the chance to address your concern first.

11.Legal framework

ARS is established in Pakistan, and this Policy has been prepared with regard to the laws of Pakistan, including the right to privacy protected by Article 14 of the Constitution and the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, 2016. At the date of this Policy, Pakistan has not enacted comprehensive data protection legislation. We nonetheless apply the principles of lawfulness, fairness, transparency, purpose limitation, data minimisation, accuracy, storage limitation and security to all personal data we handle, and we will review this Policy when such legislation comes into force.

12.Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time to reflect changes in the Website, our service providers, our practices or the law. The current version will always be published on this page with its effective date. If we make a material change to how we use personal data, we will say so prominently on the Website before the change takes effect.

13.Contact

Ardent Research Solutions (Pvt.) Ltd.
48 Nazim-ud-din Road, F-7/4, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Email: [email protected]