Correction & Removal Policy

1. Three separate routes

We provide three distinct actions on every listing:

• Claim this listing — for owners or authorised representatives who want to manage the profile (see the Claim & Ownership Verification Policy);
• Report incorrect information — anyone may flag a wrong name, address, category, hours or status;
• Request removal — anyone may submit a removal request; it will be approved where the requester is the owner, an authorised representative, an affected data subject, a rights holder, or provides another valid legal or factual basis (see section 2).

A person must never be forced to claim a listing in order to correct or remove it. Legal complaints and safety reports can be submitted through the correction or removal routes, or directly to legal@bookify.mt.

2. Who may have a listing removed

Anyone may submit a correction, legal complaint or safety report. A removal request will be approved where the requester is:

• the owner of the business, or an authorised representative;
• an affected data subject, for example on privacy or safety grounds;
• a rights holder, for example holding a trade mark, trade name or copyright; or
• a person providing another valid legal or factual basis for removal, for example that the business is closed, that the wrong business is listed, that the listing is a duplicate, or a court or regulatory restriction.

A competitor or unrelated person may report a concern about a listing, and the report will be reviewed, but such a report does not by itself remove another business’s listing.

Where the requester’s relationship or basis is not clear, we may ask for supporting evidence — for example correspondence from the business’s official email domain, confirmation from an official social account, a matching business phone number, business-registration or domain evidence, or a documented legal basis such as a court order or registration. Removal requests made on data-protection grounds are treated as data-subject requests (see section 9).

3. What a request includes

• Listing URL or reference;
• Requester name;
• Relationship to the business;
• The requested action (correction or removal);
• The disputed field and the corrected information (for corrections);
• The reason for the request;
• Optional supporting evidence;
• A contact email or phone for our response.

4. Response targets

These targets are operational commitments and are not a replacement for statutory deadlines under the GDPR or Maltese law.

5. Temporary hiding

We hide or limit a listing pending review where there is a credible allegation of: exposure of a private residential address; impersonation; serious inaccuracy; a safety risk; unlawful content; incorrect business identity; a closed business presented as active; or a court or regulatory restriction.

6. What a completed removal does

• Changes the public status of the listing;
• Removes the listing URL and returns a “removed” response;
• Removes the listing from our sitemap and internal search;
• Removes any structured data;
• Invalidates cached copies where we control them;
• Requests removal from search-engine caches where appropriate;
• Removes any associated images; and
• Retains only a minimal suppression record (see section 6).

7. Suppression records

After a removal we keep only what is reasonably required to avoid accidentally republishing the business: a normalised business name, a limited location identifier, the previous listing ID, the request date, the requester’s verification status, a suppression reason category, and a review date.

We do not retain all previously published data indefinitely merely because a listing was removed.

8. Re-publication

A suppressed business is never republished automatically. Re-publication requires a request from an authorised representative, or a documented legal and factual review, the removal of the suppression flag by an authorised administrator, and an audit record.

9. Data-protection rights

Where a removal request is based on data-protection grounds, it is treated as a data-subject request and handled under section 14 of our Website Privacy Policy and our Data-Subject Rights Guide. You may also complain to the Information and Data Protection Commissioner (idpc.org.mt).

10. Contact

Send corrections and removal requests to legal@bookify.mt with the listing URL and the details in section 2, or use the form on the listing page. Bookify Malta, Gcoe, Triq il-Mithna, Qala, Gozo, Malta.