Yalla Nihao is an Arabic guide for traders and travellers going to China. We respect your privacy, and we designed the app to work without collecting your personal data. This policy explains what happens to any information the app handles.
This is a translation. If it differs from the Arabic version, the Arabic version prevails.
Summary
- The app does not need an account: you can use all of it as a guest, without giving us your name, email address or phone number.
- There is currently no sign-in in the app.
- We do not collect any personal data. The only thing that may be stored with us is an anonymous "notification token" used to deliver news to your device, and it does not reveal who you are.
- The app contains no analytics, tracking or advertising tools, and does not use the advertising identifier (IDFA).
- We do not sell any data or share it with advertisers or data brokers.
Permissions and how they are used
The app asks for the following permissions only when they are needed. You can refuse or revoke them at any time in iPhone Settings → Yalla Nihao, and the rest of the app keeps working.
Location
Used to calculate prayer times and the Qibla direction for where you are; the calculation happens on your device. To find the name of your city and its time zone, your approximate location is sent to Apple's maps service. Your location is not stored and is not sent to us. You can choose your city manually in Settings instead.
On the Home screen, if you tap "Find my city" and allow location, a card shows your current city or the nearest one. The city is worked out on your device, and to know whether you are inside China your approximate location is sent to Apple's maps service. Neither your location nor your city is stored.
In the Transport guide, if you choose "My current location" as the starting point, the metro route is calculated on your device and your location is not sent to anyone; when Amap (高德) maps are enabled, it is sent to Amap only to calculate the route. We do not store your location.
Microphone and speech recognition
Used only by the voice translator, and only when you press the record button. The audio is sent to Apple's speech recognition service to turn it into text, and the temporary recording is deleted from your device as soon as this is done. We do not receive your voice or the resulting text.
Notifications
Exchange rate: these notifications are scheduled on your device, and nothing about you is sent to create them.
Chinese public holidays: a reminder three days before each official Chinese holiday, scheduled on your device from the holiday list inside the app. Nothing about you is sent to create it.
News: the app checks for new stories on your device. To deliver a story as soon as it is published, even when the app is closed, the app may obtain from Apple a "notification token" specific to this app on your device and store it on a small server we run on Cloudflare, so that we can send you news through Apple's notification service. This token:
- does not reveal who you are, and is not linked to your name, number, email or location;
- is stored with no other data, and is used only to send news;
- stops being used when you delete the app, and is removed from our server automatically at the next send.
You can turn notifications off at any time in iPhone Settings → Yalla Nihao → Notifications.
Transport guide
The app calculates your metro route on your device from the metro network maps stored in it (from OpenStreetMap), with no internet. When you type the name of a place or an address, what you typed is sent to Apple's maps service only to find its location.
When Amap (高德地图) maps are enabled, the app uses Amap's official library to calculate metro and bus routes. When you search for a place or ask for a route, Amap receives what you typed, the start and end points, and technical information about the device that the library needs to work (such as device model, system and network state), under Amap's privacy policy. The library used does not collect the advertising identifier (IDFA). We do not store your trips or your searches.
Text translation
Text is translated by Apple's translation service built into iOS, and does not pass through us.
What is stored on your device only
- The city you choose manually for prayer times.
- A flag showing that you have passed the welcome screen, so it is not shown again.
- The IDs of news stories you have been notified about, so the same notification is not repeated.
- A flag showing whether the notification token above has been registered.
This information does not leave your device (apart from the notification token described above), and is deleted completely when you delete the app.
External services the app connects to
To show its content, the app fetches public information from the following. As with any internet connection, these services receive your device's IP address and basic technical information under their own policies:
- Bank of China (boc.cn): the US dollar to yuan exchange rate.
- GitHub: the news, the exhibitions list and the shipping prices published in the app.
- Sina Finance (新浪财经): gold, oil, steel and paper prices on the "Markets" page.
- Amap (高德地图): place search and metro and bus routes in the "Transport guide", when enabled.
- Apple Maps: finding a place you type in the "Transport guide".
- Open-Meteo: weather for the cities shown. Only the fixed location of the city centre is sent, not your location.
- holiday-cn via jsDelivr and GitHub: the official Chinese public holiday calendar as announced by the State Council. Only the file for the year is requested, and no data about you is sent.
- Unsplash and news sources: the images shown.
- Apple: maps, speech recognition, translation and notifications, under Apple's privacy policy.
- Cloudflare: the server that stores the notification token, under Cloudflare's privacy policy.
Links you open from the app, such as WhatsApp, Apple Maps, hotel and exhibition websites, Baidu search, flight search on Trip.com and Skyscanner, and the App Store, are subject to those services' privacy policies. When you search for a flight, the site you choose receives only the two cities, the dates and the number of travellers; booking and payment happen with that site directly and do not pass through the app.
The arrival card opens the official website of China's National Immigration Administration (s.nia.gov.cn) in Safari inside the app. Any passport details and photo you enter there go directly to that authority under its policy, and do not reach the app or us.
Contacting us on WhatsApp
When you message us on WhatsApp you send the message from your own WhatsApp account, so we see your number and the content of your message. We use them only to reply to you and to provide the service you ask for, and we do not share them with anyone else. The conversation stays in WhatsApp, and you can ask us to delete it at any time.
Children's privacy
The app is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect any data from them.
Your rights
- You can revoke any permission at any time in iPhone Settings → Yalla Nihao.
- You can delete everything the app has stored on your device by deleting the app.
- We do not keep data that identifies you. The notification token is anonymous, so we cannot link it to you, and it is removed automatically when you delete the app. You can ask us to delete WhatsApp conversations at any time.
Connection security
The app connects to the services listed above over encrypted connections (HTTPS).
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy when new features are added. We will show the updated version in the app with the date of the last update, and if the way we handle data changes materially we will let you know inside the app.
Contact us
For any privacy question: WhatsApp +964 770 888 1117