Privacy Policy

Last updated: 10 October 2026

This privacy policy explains what personal data the office of Eskander Gerges, Chartered Accountant (محاسب قانوني) and tax expert, collects through eskander-gerges.com and in client work, why we collect it, who receives it and how long we keep it. It covers the website in all four of its languages, the forms and tools on it, and the WhatsApp, phone and email contact it leads to. The office is at Office 314, Al Azizia Mall, Ras Kennedy, Al Salam Road, Sharm El Sheikh, South Sinai, Egypt. "We", "us" and "the office" mean that office.

In short:

• You can read every guide and use every tool without telling us who you are.
• If you send a form, we use your name, phone number and message to answer your request, and for nothing else.
• Analytics cookies are set only if you click "Accept analytics". We use no advertising cookies or pixels, and we do not sell or rent personal data.
• A client file goes only to the authorities and professionals the work needs: the Egyptian Tax Authority (ETA), GAFI or, in Sharm El Sheikh and Dahab, the security approvals that Decree 128/2022 requires.
• You can ask what we hold about you, have it corrected or ask us to delete it, on WhatsApp or by email.

How you may use the website itself is set out in our terms of use.

Who is responsible for your data

The office of Eskander Gerges decides what personal data is collected through this website and in our client work, and how it is used. For any question about this policy, or to make a request about your data, contact us:

• WhatsApp: +20 10 3349 3011
• Phone: +20 12 8449 9230 or +20 10 3349 3011
• Email: info@eskander-gerges.com
• In person: Office 314, Al Azizia Mall, Sharm El Sheikh, open 09:00–23:00 every day

We answer in Arabic, English, Italian or Russian.

For some files we work with partner accounting offices and lawyers elsewhere in Egypt. They do not receive what you send through this website. If part of your file is handled in Cairo, your engagement letter says so, and we pass on only the documents that part of the work needs.

What you can do without giving us any data

You can read every page, switch languages and use every tool without an account and without giving a name, phone number or email address. The free tools run inside your browser: the answers you click and the result you see stay there. They reach us only if you choose to send the short form under the tool, for example to receive the itemised quote that follows the company setup cost estimator.

What we collect when you contact us

Forms on this site

Our forms, including the quote request and the short form under each tool, ask for:

• your name and a phone or WhatsApp number (required);
• an email address (optional);
• the service you are asking about and a short message (optional);
• a tick in the box confirming that you agree to be contacted about your request. Without it the form is not sent.

Along with the form, the site sends a few details you do not type yourself:

• the page you sent it from and the language of that page;
• if you sent it from a tool, the answers you gave in the tool and the result it showed you;
• how you reached the site, both on your first visit and on this one: the website that sent you, the campaign tags in the link you followed (such as utm tags or an advertising click identifier), the page you landed on and the date. These are recorded only when you arrived from another website or a tagged link.

A sent form reaches the office twice: as an email to our office mailbox, and in an enquiry inbox inside the website's administration area. If you gave an email address, you also receive one automatic confirmation email. We do not add you to a mailing list.

WhatsApp, phone and email

The WhatsApp buttons on this site open a chat with our office number. The first message is prefilled with the title of the page you came from, so we know what you were reading. It contains no personal data until you add some. Once you write, we see your number, your WhatsApp profile name and whatever you send. WhatsApp is run by WhatsApp (Meta) under its own terms and privacy policy. When you call or email us, your phone or email provider's terms apply in the same way.

Technical data

Like every web server, ours records technical logs (IP address, browser type, the page requested and the time) for security and troubleshooting. To stop automated spam, the form also counts how often it is sent from the same connection. For that it keeps a scrambled (hashed) form of your IP address next to a counter and deletes both automatically after 10 minutes. Your IP address is not saved with your enquiry.

Cookies and browser storage

We keep cookies to a minimum. Analytics cookies are set only after you accept them, as the next section explains. Without that choice, the site uses only the following:

Name	Where it is kept	What it does	How long
pll_language	cookie	Set by the multilingual system to remember the language you read in	up to one year
eg_consent	browser storage	Remembers your answer to the cookie banner	until you clear your browser data
eg_first	browser storage	How you first reached the site (referring website, campaign tags, landing page, date)	until you clear your browser data
eg_last	tab storage	The same details for the current visit	until you close the tab
eg_views, eg_pop_shown, eg_engaged	tab storage	Count the pages viewed in this visit and stop the "Start your project in Sharm" box from repeating	until you close the tab
eg_pop_closed, eg_pop_dismissals, eg_wa_at, eg_lead_sent	browser storage	Remember when you closed that box, clicked WhatsApp or sent a form, so the box does not keep coming back	until you clear your browser data

Browser storage stays on your device. Apart from the arrival details that travel with a form you choose to send, none of it reaches us. You can delete all of it at any time in your browser settings, and the site still works without it.

Analytics, only if you accept

When analytics is switched on, a banner asks for your choice on your first visit. "Decline" is as easy to click as "Accept analytics", and the "Cookie settings" link at the foot of every page lets you change your mind at any time.

If you accept:

• Google Analytics counts which pages are read, in which language and how visitors arrived, and records events such as a WhatsApp click, a form being sent or a tool being completed.
• Microsoft Clarity shows how pages are used, as heatmaps and session recordings of clicks, scrolling and mouse movement. It is set to mask what you type into form fields.

These events carry the page, the language and the service, tool or tool result concerned. They never include your name, phone number, email address or message. We use the reports to see which guides help readers and where a page or a form confuses them.

If you decline, Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity set no cookies. Both are loaded through Google Tag Manager, which is fetched from Google's servers on every page but sets no analytics cookies by itself.

We use no advertising cookies, remarketing lists or social-media pixels. If that changes, we will update this policy and the cookie banner first.

Other services on our pages

• Map. The map at the foot of our pages is embedded from Google Maps. It loads when you scroll down to it, and Google then receives your IP address and may set its own cookies under Google's privacy policy. The "Directions" buttons open Google Maps in a new tab.
• Spam check. Where a form shows a Cloudflare security check, Cloudflare receives your IP address and technical signals from your browser to tell a person from an automated program.
• Hosting and email. The website runs on a hosting provider's servers, which hold the site, its enquiry inbox and backups. Our office email runs on Microsoft 365.
• Fonts are served from our own site, not from an outside font service.

Each of these providers handles data under its own terms and privacy policy.

Data we handle when you become a client

Once we agree the work in an engagement letter, we need more than a contact form. Depending on the work, a client file can contain:

• passports, residence permits and ID cards of owners, managers and family members;
• company documents: contracts, articles, Commercial Register extracts, the tax card and letters from authorities;
• financial records: invoices, e-receipts, bank statements, books, returns and financial statements;
• payroll data for your staff: names, wages, contracts, social-insurance details and work permits;
• property documents: sale or usufruct contracts and built-property tax notices.

We use these documents to do the work set out in the engagement letter and to meet the obligations Egyptian law places on you and on us. We treat everything about your affairs as confidential. We do not use client data for marketing, and we never show one client's data to another.

Your staff's data. When you give us payroll or permit data about your employees, we handle it on your instructions to run your payroll and filings. Please let your staff know that their details go to your accountant and to the authorities that payroll and permits involve.

Sending documents. Please do not send passport copies, bank details or passwords through the website form or in a first message. Once we take on your file, we tell you which documents we need and how to send them. Paper documents you hand in at Office 314 are kept in your client file.

Who receives your data

We do not sell, rent or trade personal data. We share it only in these cases:

• Within the office: Eskander Gerges and the staff who handle enquiries and client files.
• Service providers that run the website and our communications: the hosting provider, Microsoft 365 for email, WhatsApp and, if you accept analytics, Google and Microsoft. The web developer who maintains the site on our instructions may see stored enquiries when technical work requires it.
• Authorities and professionals your file needs, on your instructions: the ETA, GAFI and the Commercial Registry, the Social Insurance office, the labour office, the passport and immigration authorities, the Ministry of Tourism, the Real Estate Tax Authority, banks, notaries, translation offices, the company's auditor and, where a legal opinion is needed, a lawyer. The next section covers the offices specific to South Sinai.
• When the law requires it: if an Egyptian authority or court lawfully requires us to disclose information, we disclose what the requirement covers and nothing more.

In Sharm El Sheikh and South Sinai: where a local file goes

A file here passes through offices that a Cairo file never sees. As of October 2026:

• Decree 128/2022 areas. Sharm El Sheikh, Dahab and the Gulf of Aqaba tourism sector, within the maps attached to Presidential Decree 128/2022, have been under that decree since 1 April 2022. A non-Egyptian investment project there must be an Egyptian JSC, and any change of founders, shareholdings or articles needs the approval of the Ministries of Defence and Interior and General Intelligence, plus GAFI or FRA approval. Every ownership, usufruct or other real-estate dealing there needs the same prior security approval, for Egyptians and foreigners alike. These applications name the people involved, so their details go to those bodies with the file. Our page on company formation in Sharm El Sheikh and South Sinai explains the rules.
• Company files at GAFI. GAFI's file includes security-inquiry forms for every foreign founder and manager (GAFI Investor Service Centre Guide 2026).
• The rest of South Sinai. In El Tor and Saint Catherine, Law 14/2012 still applies, and a project needs a Sinai Development Agency licence before it starts, so the agency receives the project file.
• Payroll. Universal Health Insurance is live in South Sinai (Universal Health Insurance Authority), so when we run your payroll, staff details and wages go to that authority as well as to Social Insurance.
• Tourism and diving staff. Hotels, tourist restaurants and cafés, tourism companies and diving centres need a Ministry of Tourism approval for foreign staff on top of the labour permit. A resident foreign dive professional also needs a CDWS card, handled by the CDWS South Sinai office at 2 Zoo Street, Hadaba. Under Labour Law 14/2025, foreigners who are exempt from a permit must still be notified within 7 days of starting and of ending work. More on work permits.
• Residence files. Appointments are booked on eres.moi.gov.eg, and in Sharm, Google Maps lists the Police Complex as the passport and visa office. A residence file carries your passport details and those of any family members included in it.
• E-receipts. Since 1 November 2022, every income-tax and VAT taxpayer in the Sharm El Sheikh area selling to consumers must issue e-receipts (ETA Decision 484/2022). Each receipt goes to the ETA's system. That is how the system works, not a choice we make for you.

Data outside Egypt

Several of the services named above, such as Microsoft 365, WhatsApp, Google and Cloudflare, process data on servers outside Egypt under their own terms. We give each of them only what its part of the work needs.

How long we keep your data

• Enquiries that do not lead to an engagement: up to two years after our last exchange, so that we have the context if you come back. Then we delete the form, the emails and the WhatsApp chat. You can ask us to delete them sooner.
• Client files: for the whole engagement and afterwards for as long as the tax years we worked on can be reopened. As of October 2026 the tax limitation period is 5 years, or 6 in cases of evasion (PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries). We keep records longer where another law requires it or an inspection or dispute is still open.
• Server logs and backups: for a limited period set by our hosting provider. When we delete an enquiry, its copies in backups disappear as those backups expire.
• The spam counter: 10 minutes.
• Cookies and browser storage: as shown in the table above.
• Analytics data: under the retention settings of our Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity accounts.

When an engagement ends, you can ask for your original documents and a copy of the books and returns we prepared for you.

How we protect your data

• The website runs over an encrypted HTTPS connection.
• The enquiry inbox can be opened only by signed-in office users with the right permissions.
• Forms are protected against automated abuse by a hidden trap field, a time check, a limit on repeated sends and, where shown, the Cloudflare check.
• Inside the office, client documents are shared only with the people working on that file.

No system is perfectly secure. If we learn of a security problem that affects your data, we tell you and explain what we are doing about it.

Your choices and requests

At any time you can:

• ask what personal data we hold about you and receive a copy;
• ask us to correct anything that is wrong or out of date;
• ask us to delete your data, unless the law requires us to keep it, as it does for client tax records during the limitation period;
• tell us to stop contacting you about an enquiry;
• refuse or withdraw analytics consent with the "Cookie settings" link at the foot of every page;
• clear the cookies and browser storage this site uses, in your browser settings.

Send your request on WhatsApp to +20 10 3349 3011 or by email to info@eskander-gerges.com. We confirm that we have it the same day during office hours. Before we hand over or delete anything, we check that the request comes from you, usually by answering on the number or address we already hold.

This policy applies in the same way wherever you write from, whether that is Sharm El Sheikh, Italy, Russia or the Gulf. It does not limit any right the law of your own country gives you.

Children

This website is meant for adults and businesses, and we do not knowingly collect data from children through it. Where a residence or family file includes a child, we receive the child's documents from a parent or guardian and use them only for that file.

Fraud and impersonation

We never ask you to pay into a personal account, and every payment receives an official receipt. If someone contacts you in our name from a number or address not listed on this page, or asks for money or documents without an engagement letter, call us on +20 10 3349 3011 before you reply.

Changes to this policy

We update this policy when the website, the services on it or the way we work changes. The date at the top shows the current version. If a change affects how we use data you have already given us, we tell you directly.

Questions about this privacy policy

Message us on WhatsApp at +20 10 3349 3011, email info@eskander-gerges.com or use the contact page. We reply the same day during office hours, 09:00–23:00 every day, in Arabic, English, Italian or Russian.