The Destination Management Company
of Qatar Airways
Privacy Policy
1. OVERVIEW
1.1 Discover Qatar is committed to protecting your personal data and your right to privacy.
1.2 This privacy notice (together with our Terms and Conditions, our Cookie Policy and any other documents referred to herein) sets out the basis on which we process Personal Data (“Privacy Notice”). By "Personal Data" we mean any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.
1.3 The latest version of our Privacy Notice can be found on our website www.discoverqatar.qa (“Website”). If we change this Privacy Notice, we will inform you about the changes by publishing the updated version on our Website. Subject to applicable laws, the English version of this Privacy Notice will prevail over any version of this Privacy Notice translated in another language.
1.4 The data controller is Discover Qatar W.L.L., a Qatari Company with Limited Liability with its registered office at Qatar Airways Tower, PO Box 22550, Doha, State of Qatar ("Discover Qatar", "we", or "us").
2. WHEN DOES THIS PRIVACY NOTICE APPLY?
2.1 This Privacy Notice applies to the processing performed by Discover Qatar of Personal Data in connection with your relationship with us as a customer or potential customer of our destination management company, when you interact with us to book services provided by us or others acting our behalf or when you use our Website.
3. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR PERSONAL DATA?
3.1 Discover Qatar is responsible for the processing of all Personal Data described in this Privacy Notice. In this Privacy Notice we explain what Personal Data we process and for what purposes, and to which persons or entities the Personal Data will be provided.
3.2 Our Website may contain links to enable you to visit third-party websites, mobile sites and mobile applications. Please note that we do not have any control over them and are not responsible or liable for the data protection and privacy of any information that you provide whilst visiting those sites. Third-party websites, mobile sites and mobile applications are governed by their own privacy policies, not this Privacy Notice.
4. HOW WE COLLECT AND RECEIVE PERSONAL DATA
4.1 The sources from which we collect Personal Data depend on, among other things, our relationship or interaction with you.
4.2 We may collect and receive Personal Data directly from you, your authorised representative(s), other individuals acting on your behalf (e.g. your travel agent), third parties that provide data to support activities (e.g. fraud prevention, underwriting, and marketing) or that assist us in providing services to you (e.g. travel agents, or our authorised agents), including when you:
(a) use any of our services, including when you travel or book any of our products or services with us or use airports where Qatar Airways operate or any facilities within those airports, such as Qatar Airways lounge facilities;
(b) use or access our Website, particularly when completing the “customer details” section during the course of a booking, even if you do not complete the booking;
(c) communicate with us by email, telephone, in writing, through our customer services pages, instant messaging, in person, reservations offices, or social media platforms.
4.3 We may also collect your Personal Data through our Website and other channels, including Discover Qatar’s airport desks and third-party providers or subcontractors, where you have provided your Personal Data to them or where we subcontract them to assist us in providing services to you (e.g., transfers or special requests).
4.4 Where you disclose Personal Data on behalf of another person, you are responsible for ensuring that the individual whose Personal Data is supplied to Discover Qatar has authorised the disclosure, is informed of and, where appropriate, consents to our processing of their Personal Data in accordance with this Privacy Notice. Where you disclose a child’s Personal Data, you should do so only as the parent or legal guardian of that child, by providing consent to process that child’s Personal Data and/or entering into any relevant contracts on behalf of that child.
5. WHY DO WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA?
5.1 For the performance of our contract with you
(i) What does this mean?
When you travel with us, book any of our products and services or request ancillary or other services, we process your Personal Data (including PNR) in connection with the services we offer you, such as
(a) making a reservation, facilitating your bookings and travel arrangements;
(b) administering your booking and providing you with benefits from our Privilege Club Programme or Beyond Business by Qatar Airways (Frequent Flyer Programmes – “FFPs”);
(c) delivery of our products and services that you have requested through us, other Qatar Airways group companies or other third-party service providers, informational emails regarding the relevant products or service and administering Al Maha Meet and Greet Services;
(d) facilitating access to Qatar Airways lounges.
We may send you reminders about incomplete bookings (i.e. cart recovery) and customer services emails to facilitate your booking completion. We also use your Personal Data in order to deliver products or services that we have agreed to provide to you.
Discover Qatar may also disclose your Personal Data to your authorised representative(s) for the purpose of the relevant transaction or enquiry. In particular, each of the passengers who are grouped under the same booking reference or Passenger Name Record (“PNR”) number shall be deemed to be authorised representatives of each of the other passengers under the same booking reference number.
By using our services, our Website and by providing any Personal Data to us, you agree to your Personal Data being sent to and processed in countries outside of your country of residence, and for individual’s resident in the European Economic Area (“EEA”), this includes transfers outside of the EEA. Some of these countries may not have data protection laws the provide an equivalent level of data protection as the laws in your country of residence.
When you make a booking, you will be provided with a booking reference number. Disclosing your booking reference number with your surname to other persons may allow them to access your booking details.
(ii) What are our lawful bases for doing this?
We will process your Personal Data to the extent that it is necessary for the performance of any contracts that you have with the Discover Qatar, Qatar Airways group of companies, or with our third-party service providers. We will also process your Personal Data on the basis of our legitimate interests in offering a wide variety of services to you to enhance your travel experience. If you provide Personal Data on behalf of someone else (e.g., making a booking on behalf of and adult or child), you enter into a contract on behalf of that adult or child.
(iii) What Personal Data do we use for this purpose?
We process Personal Data such as name and date of birth, gender, contact details, passport details, nationality, your itinerary, payment information, order history, FFP membership number, associated membership details and any other data that you have provided in the booking process.
5.2 When you interact with Discover Qatar (online or offline)
(A) For answering your questions or responding to your complaints or requests
(i) What does this mean?
If you get in touch with us in person, by email, by telephone, live chat or other channels offered on our customer care services pages or social media your Personal Data is processed to address your questions, complaints or requests (e.g., to assist you in processing a transaction or to provide technical assistance).
(ii) What are our legal grounds for doing this?
We will process your Personal Data based on the performance of contract with you or in our legitimate interest in providing customer care.
(iii) Which Personal Data do we use for this purpose?
We process your Personal Data such as name, PNR number, contact details, passport number, gender, date of travel, origin, ticket number, frequent flyer number, country of residence, special requests such as wheelchair assistance and all other Personal Data necessary to answer your question. We may process special categories of Personal Data, such as health information (if needed). Subject to applicable laws, we may monitor or record your phone conversations for training and customer service purposes, to comply with relevant legal obligations and to make and defend claims. If you visit one of our Reservations Desks and Offices or a Qatar Airways Lounge, you may be monitored by closed circuit television (“CCTV”) for security purposes.
(B) When we connect via social media
(i) What does this mean?
Discover Qatar is active on social media platforms. When you contact us via social media, “share”, “like” content appearing on social media platforms or follow us, we will use Personal Data you supply in order to respond to your messages or comments and to enable you to share our content.
(ii) What are our legal grounds for doing this?
We will process your Personal Data based on the performance of our contract with you or in our legitimate interest in providing customer care or promoting our business and initiatives.
(iii) Which Personal Data do we use for this purpose?
Depending on the social media platform you chose and the information that you have provided to that platform, we will use Personal Data which is supplied by social media platforms, including your name, email address, language preference, profile picture, gender and the other Personal Data based on your social media account or privacy settings.
Depending on the social media platform you chosen to interact with us, we will use relevant Personal Data included in your message or comments to respond to you or assist you further.
(C) For development and improvement of our products and services
(i) What does this mean?
It is important for us to continue to provide you with our services and uphold the Discover Qatar brand. We use your Personal Data so that we can assess, analyse and improve our services. For this purpose, we keep track of how often you read our newsletters, visit our Website, engage with direct communication such as emails, notifications, SMS and instant messages, and what services you purchase through our Website. We use analytics tools (including cookies, web beacons and other tracking technologies) to optimise the efficiency, design and quality of our Website. These tools allow us to, for example, identify and repair technical errors such as broken links that impair the Website’s functionality. Further information regarding tracking technologies is set out in section 6 (below).
We also regularly use surveys to find out whether you are satisfied with our services and experiences and conduct studies to help enhance customer experience. These surveys are conducted through our Website, email or by phone. We use your responses to surveys for quality assessments and to improve the customer experience.
(ii) What are our legal grounds for doing this?
We will process your Personal Data based on your consent, where you have provided this consent at the time of responding to a survey, or our legitimate business interests in assessing and improving our services.
(iii) Which Personal Data do we use for this purpose?
For these purposes, we may use your name, date of birth, contact details, payment and credit information and any correspondence with us. In addition, we use the Personal Data you entered into the Website and/or the WhatsApp chat or based on the functionalities of the Website and the technical data from your device such as its IP-address (including approximate location), the pages you visited on our Websites, your clicks, user inputs, scrolling, access times, visit duration and pages viewed. If you choose to participate in our surveys, we can ask you to provide us with Personal Data, such as age group, gender and preferences in terms of choice of products and services.
5.3 In the event of an emergency
(i) What does this mean?
In the event of an emergency during your travel journey, Discover Qatar will be required to provide emergency assistance on the ground, communicate with your next of kin and share your Personal Data and that of your emergency contact or next of kin with response and government agencies for the purpose of providing emergency assistance.
(ii) What are our legal grounds for doing this?
We will process your Personal Data and that of your next of kind based on the protection of your vital interests and our legal obligation to comply with the applicable laws.
(iii) Which Personal Data do we use for this purpose?
For this purpose, we process your name, address, telephone number, gender, nationality, passport number and the Personal Data of the emergency contact that you named while making your booking and, in relation to your next of kin, their names, addresses and contact details.
5.4 Your choices
(A) If you participate in Contests, to manage your participation
(i) What does this mean?
If you give us your consent to do so, we can send you emails with invitations to participate in prize contests and/or competitions (collectively “Contests”). If you choose to participate in any Contest, we need your Personal Data to allow you to participate, to administer the Contest, where you are a winner to inform you of this, to process the delivery of and distribution of the prizes and to measure the response to Contests.
(ii) What are our legal grounds for doing this?
We will process your Personal Data for our legitimate interest in carrying out and administering the Contests. If you decline to provide this information, we will not be able to register or enter you into the relevant Contest or award you a prize, if you have been successful.
(iii) Which Personal Data do we use for this purpose?
We may process your name, address, email address, passport copy, country and proof of residence, age verification documentation, personal identification documentation, Privilege Club number, signature and your entries in the Contest. In accordance with the terms and conditions of the relevant Contest we may also share your Personal Data with third party sponsors of prizes in order to administer the prizes to you.
(B) If you subscribe to our mailing list, electronic communications or to push notifications via our Website
(i) What does this mean?
If you give us your consent to do so, we will inform you about our special offers, news and marketing communications via the channel or email address that you have provided.
(ii) What are our legal grounds for doing this?
We process your Personal Data based on your consent or, in some cases, our legitimate interest in providing you with regular updates relating to our products and services.
(iii) Which Personal Data do we use for this purpose?
We process your name and email address, your preferences and interests, (including those that you have actively shared with us, but also those inferred through your registered interactions with Discover Qatar Website and WhatsApp chat - please see our Cookie Policy for more information), shopping history (both online , and offline when making an offline purchase), and the links you click on in our emails, notifications, SMS and instant messages.
(iv) Profiling
We may offer you personalised content and marketing based on the profiling of your Personal Data. Profiling is a form of automated processing of your information to evaluate, analyse or predict your preferences and behaviour.
5.5 For management of our business
(i) What does this mean?
We process your Personal Data to help us analyse the performance and organisation of our business including internal management, compliance with internal policies and procedures. We also process your Personal Data for finance and accounting, archiving and insurance purposes, legal and business consulting and in the context of dispute resolution.
(ii) What are our legal grounds for doing this?
We will process your Personal Data based on our legitimate business interests in maintaining the expected service levels to you.
(iii) Which Personal Data do we use for this purpose?
For this purpose, we process your contact details, such as your physical and email address, personal details, such as your name and date of birth, payment and credit information, order history, correspondence with Discover Qatar, data generated during the performance of the agreement between you and Discover Qatar and the information you provide when responding to our surveys.
5.6 Advertising
We use advertising platforms like Google Ads, Google Marketing Platform, Meta, and may use other advertising platforms to serve online advertising promoting our products and services both in search engines, other websites and networks. Some of these activities are done through remarketing, where we display advertisements that we think will be useful. To do so, our site uses tracking scripts from Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook and may use tracking pixels and scripts from other third parties to collect information about your use of our Website in order to display remarketing advertisement relevant to your interests and/or to measure the success of our advertising campaigns. These third-party tracking pixels and scripts may set cookies on your browser and use various tracking technologies. We also use Personal Data like email addresses to show you useful advertisements.
The information collected by Google, Microsoft, Meta, and other third parties through their tracking pixels and scripts is stored and processed by them and is subject to their own policies and practices. We encourage you to familiarise yourself with their privacy policies and terms of use. For information on your rights and choices regarding tracking and online advertising, including how to block or opt-out of such tracking.
For advertising purposes, we use Personal Data to generate a "lookalike audience" or “similar audience” through advertising platforms such as Google or Meta. This allows us to target advertisements on their networks to potential customers who appear to have shared interests or similar demographics to our existing customers, based on the platforms' own data. We do not have access to the identity of anybody in the lookalike audience, unless they choose to click on the advertisement. If you wish to opt out of "similar audiences" in Google, you can do so through your Ads Settings and for Facebook and Instagram you can visit your account and follow the steps.
5.7 Our Legitimate Interests
Where we rely on legitimate interests as a basis for processing your Personal Data, we have considered your interests, rights and freedoms and carry out a ‘balancing test’ to ensure that our processing is necessary and that your fundamental rights of privacy are not outweighed by our legitimate interests. You have the right to object to our processing of your Personal Data and can find out more information about our legitimate interests by contacting us using the details below.
6. COOKIES AND OUR POLICY ON "DO NOT TRACK" SIGNALS
Cookies are small files of information which save and retrieve information about your visit to our Website – for example, how you entered our Website, how you navigated through the Website and what information was of interest to you. Read more about how we use cookies in our Cookie Statement which is available on our Website. At this time, we do not respond to browser ‘do not track’ signals, as we await for a uniform standard put forth by regulators or the privacy industry. Do Not Track is a preference you can set in your web browser to inform websites that you do not want to be tracked. You can enable or disable Do Not Track by visiting the preferences or settings page of your web browser. We use session replay tools to record users’ interactions on our Website and Mobile App. This helps us improve them. You can accept all cookies, customise your settings, or learn more in our Cookie Policy.
7. WHO HAS ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL DATA?
7.1 Access to your Personal Data within Qatar Airways Group and data transfers
As a global organisation headquartered in the State of Qatar, Personal Data may be transferred internationally, throughout Qatar Airways Group, to offer you a complete package of services and ancillary or complementary products and for business or administrative purposes.
In order to deliver products and services we have agreed to provide to you, we may send Personal Data to Qatar Airways Group’s entities located in countries whose data protection laws may not be as extensive as those in the European Economic Area (“EEA”). If necessary, Discover Qatar will ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to comply with the requirements for the international transfer of personal data under applicable data protection and privacy laws. Discover Qatar’s employees are authorised to access Personal Data only if needed to serve the applicable purpose and to perform their jobs.
7.2 Access to Your Personal Data by Third Parties
Discover Qatar may transfer your Personal Data to third parties and to countries outside of your country of residence from time to time, including outside of the EEA. We may be required to disclose certain of your Personal Data in the following cases:
(a) to customs, border control, security, anti-terrorism and immigration authorities, which require by law access to booking and travel itinerary information, including Advanced Passenger Information (“API”) and Passenger Name Records (“PNR”), for all passengers;
(b) to third parties (to deliver products and services agreed to be provided to you), partners connected with Discover Qatar, partners connected with our Privilege Club (if you are a member), other service providers including those who are acting as our agent or sub-contractor, including hoteliers, insurance companies, ground handling service providers, medical assistance providers, credit card and credit reference agencies, data analytics service providers, including session replay technology provider, data processing service providers and our legal and other professional advisors;
(c) to third parties in connection with financing, securitisation, insuring, restructuring, assignment or other disposal of all or part of our business or assets or in relation to defence of claims;
(d) to official authorities, including law enforcement, governmental and regulatory authorities, including health authorities: (i) if we believe disclosure is required by any applicable law or regulation; (ii) to protect and defend our rights, or the rights or safety of third parties or (iii) where it is in our legitimate interest to co-operate and share information with such authorities; and
(e) where you have made a travel booking, to customers under the same booking as you.
Organisations that are based outside of the EEA may not be subject to the same level of controls in regard to data protection as exist within the EEA. When third parties are given access to your Personal Data, we will take the required contractual, technical and organisational measures to ensure that your Personal Data is only processed if necessary for the relevant purpose. We use reasonable efforts to ensure that third parties will only process your Personal Data in accordance with applicable law. For transfers of personal data to countries outside the EEA, Qatar Airways may use the Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission as safeguards.
7.3 The use of your Personal Data by Third Party data processors
When a third-party processes your Personal Data based on Discover Qatar’s instructions, it acts as a data processor. We enter into an agreement with the relative data processor for the processing of your Personal Data. In this agreement, we include obligations to ensure that your Personal Data is processed by the data processor solely to provide products and/or services to us and the ensure that the data processor has adequate safeguards in place and complies with the applicable data protection laws.
8. HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR DATA SAFE?
(a) Safeguards
Discover Qatar has taken adequate safeguards to ensure the confidentiality and security of your Personal Data. We are committed to ensuring that your Personal Data is secure. In an effort to prevent unauthorised access to, or disclosure of, your Personal Data, we have put in place physical, technical and administrative measures to safeguard your Personal Data against accidental or unlawful destruction or accidental loss, damage, alteration, unauthorised disclosure or access, as well as all other forms of unlawful processing or further processing. In order to protect the security of your information, where necessary, we use encryption technology when collecting or transferring Personal Data.
Although we use reasonable efforts to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Data transmitted to our Website or Mobile App via internet or similar connection.
(b) Children
Due to the nature of our services as a Destination Management Company, we may collect travel information, which may include Personal Data of persons below age 18 (“Children”), when it is required to comply with the law or as otherwise required to provide transportation needs and services. We do not address our Website or services to Children or knowingly collect Personal Data directly from Children. We are not able to identify the age of persons who access and use our Website or Mobile App or subscribe to our newsletters. If you are a parent or a guardian of a child who has provided Personal Data without your knowledge and consent, you may request us to unsubscribe the child.
(c) Retention
We will retain Personal Data for as long as required by relevant laws or as it is necessary to fulfil the specified purpose for which it was collected and the business requirements of Discover Qatar, as described in this Privacy Notice and in line with our data retention policy. For example, we retain Personal Data related to transactions with customers for ten (10) years to comply with local laws. When erasing Personal Data, we will take commercially reasonable and technically possible measures to make the Personal Data irrecoverable or irreproducible, in accordance with applicable laws.
9. YOUR RIGHTS
You can exercise your rights to access, rectification, erasure, restrict processing, data portability, objection or rights in relation to automated individual decision-making, including profiling, in relation to the Personal Data that Discover Qatar processes at any time by sending a request via a dedicated ‘subject access request’ portal on the Contact Us page of our Website. You may have other privacy rights, including rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), depending upon your country of residence.
Before proceeding with your request, we will verify your identity to ensure that we provide the requested information to the data subject to whom it pertains. If you have authorised an agent to make a request on your behalf, we require that you or your authorised agent provide us with a copy of the written permission to submit such a request on your behalf.
We will not charge a fee to respond to your request, unless the request may be deemed as manifestly unfounded or excessive. Upon request, we can provide you with a list of third party personal information handlers under the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China.
If you feel that we do not comply with applicable privacy rules you have the right to lodge a complaint with a competent data protection authority.
If you no longer want to receive our newsletters, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email containing our newsletter. In addition, you can raise an unsubscribe request by emailing or by calling our Customer Care Centre or sending us a request by post to the following address:
Qatar Airways Group
Qatar Airways Tower 1,
PO Box 22550,
Doha, State of Qatar.
When raising a request to unsubscribe by e-mail, call or post, it may take up to 30 working days to process your request and to update our systems to remove your email address from our mailing list.
10. HOW TO CONTACT US OR LODGE A COMPLAINT
Should you have any questions about the processing of your Personal Data or this Privacy Notice, please contact:
Qatar Airways Group, Q.C.S.C.
Qatar Airways Tower 1,
PO Box 22550,
Doha, State of Qatar.
Attention: Data Protection Officer
If you have any concerns about our use of your Personal Data, you can send an email to our Data Protection Officer here. You can also complain to the competent supervisory authority, if you are unhappy with how we have used your Personal Data.
Revised February 2026