Privacy policy

1. Who we are

Darb (darb.co.il) is operated by Noor Alden Mousa, the founder of Darb, in Israel. He is responsible for the information described here (the database owner under the Protection of Privacy Law). Contact: founder@darb.co.il.

This policy follows the Protection of Privacy Law, 5741-1981, including Amendment 13, in force since August 2025, and the Privacy Protection (Data Security) Regulations, 5777-2017.

2. No accounts for visitors

You do not need to sign up or sign in to use Darb. We do not ask for your name, phone number or email to search or browse. You are under no legal obligation to give us any information, and you only share what you choose to send, for example when you write to us.

3. What the site handles

• Searches: when you search, we keep a record of the search text (up to 200 characters), the language, how the search was understood, how many results came back and, if you open a result within 24 hours, which one. The record does not include your IP address, device details, location or any account. We use it to improve search and to see which places and businesses people look for and do not find.
• Location for "Near me": only if you press "Near me" or sort by distance, and allow it in your browser. Your position is rounded to about 110 metres and sent in the body of the request to find nearby places and businesses. It is used for that request only, and it is not stored or logged.
• IP address for rate limits: to protect the service from abuse, your IP address is used to count requests per minute. The API counts a hash of the address made with a secret key, not the address itself, and the count is deleted after about a minute. The web server may hold the address in memory for a short time for the same purpose. It is never saved in the search record.
• Technical logs: as with any website, our hosting providers process the technical details of each request (such as IP address, browser and time) to deliver pages and keep them secure, under their own terms.
• Email you send us: if you write to us, we keep the message and your address to answer you, for as long as that requires.

Please do not type personal details, such as names, ID numbers or phone numbers, into the search box.

4. Cookies and browser storage

Public pages do not set cookies, do not use your browser's local storage and do not run analytics, advertising or tracking tools. Fonts are served from our own site, and map tiles load from our own map server (tiles.darb.co.il, on Cloudflare).

Cookies are used only in the Darb staff admin area (/admin), for sign-in through Clerk.

5. Why we use information

• To run search and show results.
• To find places near you, when you ask.
• To protect against abuse and keep the service secure.
• To improve the quality of search and of the directory.
• To answer your messages.

We do not sell information, use it for advertising or build profiles of visitors.

6. Legal basis and consent

Using search and the map is voluntary. Your location is used only with your permission in the browser, and you can withdraw it at any time in your browser settings. The rest of the processing is needed to provide the service you asked for and to keep it secure, as this policy describes.

7. Service providers and transfers abroad

We use these providers to run the service, and some of them operate outside Israel. Each receives only what it needs:

• Vercel: hosts the website.
• Railway: runs the API and its Redis cache, in the European Union.
• Neon: hosts the database, in Frankfurt, Germany.
• Cloudflare: map tiles (R2 storage) and, once the domain moves, DNS.
• Anthropic (Claude): receives the search text, its language and a list of matching categories and places, to understand what you are looking for. The answer is cached for up to 7 days by search text, with no detail about you.
• Voyage AI: receives the search text to compute a numeric representation (an embedding) that helps rank results.
• Clerk: sign-in for Darb staff to the admin area only.
• Map data: © OpenStreetMap contributors, through Protomaps.

Information is transferred abroad, including to the European Union and the United States, in line with the Privacy Protection (Transfer of Data to Databases Abroad) Regulations, 5761-2001. We choose providers that commit to protecting information.

8. How long we keep it

• Search records are deleted automatically after 90 days.
• Rate limit counts are deleted after about a minute.
• Your location is not stored at all.
• The cached understanding of a search, which holds no detail about you, is kept for up to 7 days.
• Emails are kept for as long as they are needed to deal with them.

9. Security

Information is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Access to the database and the admin area is limited to authorised staff who sign in. Keys and secrets are kept out of the code. IP addresses are hashed with a secret key before they are counted. Pages are sent with security headers, including a Content Security Policy (CSP).

We follow the Data Security Regulations at the level suited to the database. No system is perfectly secure, and if a serious security incident happens, we will act as the law requires.

10. Your rights

Under section 13 of the Protection of Privacy Law, you may see information about you held in our database. Under section 14, you may ask us to correct or delete information that is not correct, complete, clear or up to date.

Send your request to founder@darb.co.il, and we will answer within the times set by law. Search records hold no identifying details, so we usually cannot link a record to a particular person. If that is the case, we will tell you.

You may also contact the Privacy Protection Authority.

11. Business listings

Business pages show public business information, such as name, address, phone number, opening hours, links and category. If you own or represent a business listed on Darb and want details corrected or removed, write to us.

12. Children

Darb is a general directory with no accounts, and we do not knowingly collect information about children. If a parent believes a child has sent us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy. The date at the top of the page shows when it was last updated, and we will point out any significant change on this page.

14. Contact

For any privacy question: Noor Alden Mousa, founder@darb.co.il.