Privacy policy

Last updated 11 September 2026

1. Who we are

This policy explains how African Market Intelligence (AMI) and the AMI Deal Room collect, use and protect personal information. AMI is a service of African Business Trade Association Limited (“ABTA”, “we”, “us”), the data controller for personal information collected through ami.abta.africa.

We are a company registered in England and Wales, United Kingdom (company number 16401954). Registered office: Fifth Floor, 167–169 Great Portland Street, London, England, W1W 5PF.

2. Information we collect

• Account details: your name, email address and password. Passwords are held by our sign-in provider in a form we cannot read.
• Membership and organisation details: for AMI Deal Room members, your organisation’s name, country of registration, registration number and type, your job title, your phone number if you give it, and your confirmation that you can act for your organisation.
• Payments: membership status, payment dates and billing details. Card payments are processed by our payment processor. We do not receive or store full card numbers.
• Agreement records: when you accept the AMI Deal Room agreements, we record the version accepted, the date and time, your email address, your IP address and your browser details.
• Verification and sanctions checks: the results of checks on your organisation, its directors and beneficial owners, including sanctions screening.
• AMI Deal Room activity: requests to be introduced (including why an opportunity fits your mandate, your investor type and investment range), opportunities you submit, documents you upload, questions you send to ABTA, opportunities you save and your email alert settings.
• Usage data: pages visited and articles read, collected through standard server logs, and IP addresses used to protect our services from misuse.
• Communications: messages you send us by email or through forms.

3. How we use your information

• to provide AMI and the AMI Deal Room, including your account and membership
• to take payments and manage renewals
• to verify organisations and screen them against sanctions lists before any introduction
• to review opportunities and requests, and to make introductions
• to send the AMI Brief, newsletters and AMI Deal Room email alerts you have opted into
• to respond to enquiries and provide support
• to keep our services secure and prevent misuse
• to meet our legal and regulatory obligations

4. Our legal bases

• Contract: to provide your account, membership and the services you have signed up for.
• Legal obligation: to carry out sanctions checks and keep the records the law requires.
• Legitimate interests: to screen requests and listings, keep our services secure and improve AMI.
• Consent: to send newsletters and email alerts. You can withdraw consent at any time.

5. Introductions in the AMI Deal Room

Opportunities are listed without identifying the parties. If ABTA introduces you to another party, we share your name, organisation and contact details with that party in an Introduction Notice, and share theirs with you. We do this only after screening and verification.

6. Automated checks

We use AI tools to check text submitted to the AMI Deal Room, for example to flag possible spam or details that could identify a business in an anonymised summary. These checks support ABTA staff when they review submissions. They do not make decisions about you.

7. Who we share information with

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only as described in this policy and with service providers that process it for us:

• cloud hosting and database providers – storing account and membership information, sign-in and uploaded documents
• payment processors – taking and managing membership payments
• email delivery providers – sending account emails, alerts and Introduction Notices
• AI tool providers – automated text checks
• website hosting providers – hosting ami.abta.africa

We may also share information with our professional advisers, and with regulators, law enforcement agencies or courts where the law requires it.

8. International transfers

Some of our service providers store or process information outside the UK, including in the United States. Where they do, we rely on the safeguards required by UK data protection law.

9. How long we keep information

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy, including to meet legal, tax and accounting requirements and to deal with disputes. Records of agreements you accept are kept for as long as the agreement applies and for as long afterwards as we may need them to establish or defend legal claims.

10. Advertising

AMI carries advertising and does not share personal data with advertising networks or data brokers.

11. Browser storage

The AMI Deal Room uses your browser’s storage to keep you signed in and to remember your progress on forms.

12. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• access the personal information we hold about you
• correct inaccurate information
• ask us to delete your information
• ask us to restrict or stop using your information
• receive your information in a portable format
• withdraw your consent where we rely on it

To use these rights, email us. Some rights have exceptions, for example where we must keep records by law.

13. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we use your information, please contact us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

14. Contact

Privacy enquiries: ami@abta.africa

15. Changes to this policy

We will update this page when our use of personal information changes. The date at the top shows when it was last updated.