Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

Albanian Dentistry ("we", "us", "our") is a dental tourism recommendation and advisory agency operating from Albania. We help international patients connect with independent third-party dental clinics and professionals in Albania. We are not a clinic or medical provider and do not perform any medical procedures.

We act only as an introducer and advisory service. We are not your agent, we are not the clinic's medical representative, and we do not arrange, provide, or sell medical treatment.

Our service is free of charge to you. We operate a referral model whereby the clinic pays us a fee upon a completed dental procedure by a patient we have introduced. This fee is paid entirely by the clinic, not by you, does not affect the price you pay for treatment, and does not change how we handle your personal data.

2. Data We Collect

We may collect and process the following categories of personal data when you use our website or contact us:

• Contact details — name, email address, phone number, country of residence.
• Communication content — messages you send via forms, email, or WhatsApp.
• Health and dental information (special category data) — dental history, X-rays, photographs, or treatment interests that you voluntarily share with us for the purpose of obtaining an assessment or quote from a clinic. We only process this data with your explicit consent.
• Technical data — IP address, browser type, device information, and pages visited, collected via cookies and analytics tools.

3. Legal Basis for Processing

We process different categories of data on different legal bases:

• Contact and communication data — processed on the basis of our legitimate interests in responding to enquiries and operating our advisory service, or to perform a contract or pre-contractual steps at your request.
• Health and dental information (special category data) — processed only on the basis of your explicit consent (Article 9(2)(a) GDPR and equivalent provisions). You are not required to provide this data. If you choose to share it, you are consenting to us forwarding it to the relevant clinic for assessment purposes. You may withdraw consent at any time by contacting us.
• Technical and analytics data — processed on the basis of your consent to cookies where required, or our legitimate interests in maintaining and improving the website.
• Compliance with legal obligations — where we are required to process data to comply with applicable law.

4. How We Use Your Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

• To respond to your enquiries and provide dental tourism information and advice.
• To introduce you to independent clinics and dentists in Albania, where requested and with your consent.
• To help clinics prepare indicative treatment plans or quotes based on information you explicitly share with us for that purpose.
• To improve our website, content, and user experience.
• To comply with legal obligations and respond to lawful requests from authorities.

5. Cookies

Our website uses cookies and similar tracking technologies, including Google Analytics (GA4), to understand how visitors use the site. Where required by applicable law, non-essential analytics cookies are not loaded unless and until you accept them through our cookie consent banner.

If you reject analytics cookies, only strictly necessary site functions remain active. You can review the details in our Cookies Policy and revisit your cookie choice from that page.

6. Sharing Your Data

We may share your personal data with:

• Independent third-party dental clinics and healthcare professionals in Albania, only when you explicitly ask us to connect you or request a quote, and after providing your consent for any health data shared.
• Service providers who help us operate the website, email services, hosting, or analytics, under appropriate data protection agreements.
• Public authorities, regulators, or law enforcement agencies when required by law.

We do not sell your personal data to any third party.

7. International Transfers

Albania has been recognised as providing an adequate level of data protection by the European Commission. Where we transfer your personal data to other countries (for example, to service providers operating outside Albania), we rely on one or more of the following transfer mechanisms:

• An adequacy decision by the European Commission or relevant authority in your jurisdiction.
• Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) approved by the European Commission or equivalent.
• Your explicit consent, where no other mechanism is available and where we inform you of the risks.

8. Data Retention

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this policy. Our standard retention periods are:

• Enquiry and communication records — up to 2 years from last contact, unless you request earlier deletion.
• Health and dental information shared for clinic assessment — deleted or returned promptly once the assessment or introduction process is complete, and no later than 12 months from the date of sharing, unless you request earlier deletion.
• Financial and legal records — up to 7 years where required by applicable accounting or tax law.
• Analytics and technical data — as determined by the relevant service provider's settings (e.g. Google Analytics data retention settings).

When data is no longer needed, we will delete or anonymise it in a secure manner.

9. Your Rights

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Request deletion of your personal data, where legally permitted.
• Object to or restrict certain types of processing.
• Withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent (including explicit consent for health data), without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
• Receive your data in a portable format (data portability), where applicable.
• Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. If you are based in the UK, you may contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk. If you are based in an EU Member State, you may contact your national data protection authority. If you are based in Albania, you may contact the Commissioner for the Right to Information and Personal Data Protection at idp.al.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details on our Contact page. We may need to verify your identity before responding to your request.

10. Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, or misuse. However, no internet transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. You should take care when sharing sensitive medical information over the internet.

11. Third-Party Websites

Our website may contain links to third-party websites or services (including clinics and partners). We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those third parties. We recommend that you review their privacy policies before providing any personal information.

12. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Your continued use of the website after changes are published constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy.

13. Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal data, please contact us using the details on our Contact page.