Maintaining the privacy of your information is a high priority to VFS GLOBAL. This internet privacy Policy (the “Policy”) summarizes what personally identifiable information we may collect from you, and how we might use this information. The Policy describes how we protect your privacy when we collect personal information on VFS GLOBAL’s website (“Web site”). As used in the Policy, the term “Personal Information” means and includes all information given and/or provided by you on the Website, information that identifies you personally, alone or in combination with other information available to VFS GLOBAL. By continuing to use this Website and by providing Personal Information, you consent to this Policy. You are advised to read the entire Policy carefully before providing any Personal Information in the Website. We also suggest to review the Policy periodically to remain aware of the current policies and practices.

Your personal information

When you use services provided on our Website, you will be asked to provide certain personal identifiable information such as your name, photograph, address, telephone numbers, fax numbers, email address and/or debit / credit card details including billing address, passport number, passport information, date of birth, birth certificate, income, citizenship status, marital status, employment details, criminal and educational background information and nationality.

Such personal information may be collected, used or disclosed in order to facilitate the processing of visa application(s) and/or request(s) including but not limited to for the following purposes:

• Process applications received for requests for various categories of visa, permit and travel documents etc. and perform various tasks/ functions related thereto;
• Respond to various inquiries on the visa application submission process in general;
• Respond to various inquiries regarding status of application made with VFS GLOBAL;
• Provide/ offer any other services as per requirements of the respective Governments /Diplomatic Missions;
• In order to conduct customer satisfaction surveys;
• To meet our legal compliance obligations;
• For crime prevention and detection; &
• For other purposes in connection with your visa application.

Provision of personal information is voluntary. Please note, however, that a refusal to provide personal information may limit or affect ability of VFS GLOBAL to provide the requested services. As mandated by the Diplomatic Mission/s, VFS GLOBAL may (by itself of through third party service providers/ vendors) provide various facilities for inquiries related visa application process in general and/ or status of visa applications submitted through VFS GLOBAL such as call center, online tracking, e-mail etc.

• Inquiry about general visa application process:
  Users making inquiries as regards visa application process in general, need not provide any personal information.
• Inquiry about status of submitted visa application/s:
  Users making inquiries as regards status of visa application submitted through VFS GLOBAL can quote application reference number to receive an update on the status of their visa, permit or travel document applications.
  The users may be requested to provide personal information such as given name or family name or date of birth or phone number or street address or email address or application date etc. or combination of such information for verification/ authentication purposes.
• Users making inquiries as regards visa application process however should not ask or reveal the passport number or personal information while interacting via email with VFS GLOBAL and/or its third party service providers/ vendors. Instead use of application reference number is recommended. VFS GLOBAL shall not be obliged to respond to e-mails containing personal information. In case any personal information is disclosed, the same shall be at the sole risk of the Users/ applicants and VFS GLOBAL will not be in any manner responsible for any events of misuse etc.

For the quality control purposes the interaction/s with user/s may be recorded. In such cases the user/s will be informed of this practice and purpose at the start of any such interaction. Unless a different requirement is mandated by the respective Diplomatic Mission/s, such recordings will be purged after a stipulated period as mandated by the Diplomatic Mission from the date of such interaction/s.

We may combine personal identifiable information from Visa Application Form and Itinerary details with personal information collected through cookies and other means as stated herein below:

Cookies are files or pieces of information that may be stored on system or internet enabled devices of the User, when the User visits the website/s of VFS GLOBAL. VFS GLOBAL uses cookies to make the website/s simpler to use. VFS GLOBAL cannot identify the User personally from this information.

• VFS GLOBAL website offers certain features that are only available through the use of cookies.
• The cookies help website users and maintain their signed-in status.
• Most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted from website user’s hard drive at the end of a session when the applicant/user exits the website. However “Persistent cookies” remain in place across multiple visits to our websites.
• Applicant/ website user may encounter cookies from any links of third parties on certain pages of the website that VFS GLOBAL does not control.
• VFS Global may aggregate personal information and remove any identifying elements in order to analyze patterns, efforts, to analyze Web site use, to improve our content and product offerings, and to customize our Web site’s content, layout and services.
• VFS Global gathers certain usage information like the number and frequency of visitors to this Web site. This information may include which URL you just came from, which URL you next go to, what browser you are using, and your IP address. VFS Global only use such data in the aggregate. This collective data helps us to determine how much our customers use parts of the Web site, and do internal research on our users’ demographics, interests, and behavior to better understand and serve you.

Once a User accesses the website/s of VFS GLOBAL, User consents to use of cookies by VFS GLOBAL. If User does not agree to use of cookies, User should not use website/s of VFS GLOBAL. If the cookies are disabled, it may impact the User experience on website/s of VFS GLOBAL.

Disclosure of your personal information

VFS GLOBAL may share your personal identifiable information to third party service providers and processors with access to your personal information. These services providers may include: credit card verification providers, our data warehouse and customer relationship management Centre, internet service providers who administer our web page and provide internet services and host our facilities and to other authorities public and private arising out of processing your visa application and/or your visa approval. VFS GLOBAL only shares your personal information to the extent required for the performance of such services.

VFS GLOBAL may share your personal identifiable information with our partners, affiliates and also selected third party providers of visa related benefits and services, who in turn may contact you directly using your personal identifiable information in order to provide you with details of additional benefits and services which may be of interest to you. Where we do so, we require those partners, affiliates and/or third parties to have appropriate measures in place to protect your personal identifiable information and comply with all applicable legislation and rules.

VFS GLOBAL may also disclose your personal identifiable information as permitted or required by law. For example, VFS GLOBAL will disclose personal information to those governmental bodies who have authority to obtain it, in order to comply with a warrant or subpoena issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, and to comply with record production requirements.

In the event of a sale of all or substantially all of the assets of VFS GLOBAL, VFS GLOBAL may transfer personal information in its control to a third party purchaser that agrees to use personal information for the same reasons identified in this Privacy Policy.

We shall be entitled to pass on your Personal Information;

1. to anyone to whom we transfer or may transfer our rights and duties under our agreement with you;
2. to customs and/or immigration departments or other regulatory authorities in your country of departure and/or destination in order to comply with the law in those countries;
3. If we have a duty to do so or if the law allows us to do so;
4. to our employees, agent, representatives to do any of the above on our behalf, now or in the future.

If you choose not to provide certain personal information we request, you will still be able to visit our Web site but you may be unable to access certain options or services.

We make no warranty, express, implied or otherwise as to the privacy and data security practices of the third parties, our partners and affiliates. We will however make reasonable endeavors to ensure that such third parties, partners and affiliates exercise reasonable care in handling your personal identifiable information in accordance with industry norms and standards.

Retention & Destruction of Personal Information:

For the purposes of assisting the Applicants should they contact VFS GLOBAL with follow-up queries, Applicant personal information may be retained in electronic form, for such period as specified by the respective Governments/ Diplomatic Missions.

VFS GLOBAL performs secure disposal or destruction of personal information on the equipment or devices used for storing personal information. When disposing of equipment or devices used for storing personal information (such as, computers, diskettes etc.), VFS GLOBAL takes appropriate measures such as to removal or deletion of any stored information to prevent access by unauthorized parties.

Consent

By choosing to provide VFS GLOBAL with your personal information you are consenting to its use in accordance with the principles outlined in the Policy and as outlined at the time you are asked to provide any personal information. VFS GLOBAL may contact you by email in order to provide you with updates pertaining to its services as well as information about additional offers, products or events that VFS GLOBAL believes may be of interest to you.

Security

VFS GLOBAL has implemented measures designed to help protect personal information in its custody and control. VFS GLOBAL maintains reasonable administrative, technical, physical and organizational safeguards in an effort to protect personal information in its custody and control. Personal Information is stored on encrypted servers located in Secured Data Centre and is protected using tools like encryption, passwords, physical security, firewalls, and other security features and measures to protect its website and users personal information against unauthorized disclosure, access, misuse, abuse, hacking, etc. However VFS GLOBAL shall not be liable for unlawful access, use, modification, destruction, destruction or interceptions by unauthorized persons.

Links

VFS GLOBAL website may contain links to other/ third party sites promoting various products and/or services that VFS GLOBAL does not own or operate. These links to websites are in nature of paid advertising are not verified by VFS GLOBAL. These links are provided for convenience, access to these links is voluntary and does not indicate that VFS GLOBAL endorses or is associated with any of these other third party websites. Users are requested to use their own discretion which dealing with these websites and neither VFS GLOBAL nor its officers, employees, agents shall have any responsibility or liability of any nature whatsoever for these other third party websites or any information contained in them.

These linked websites have their own separate and independent privacy statements, notices and terms of use, which Users are recommended to carefully review the same. VFS GLOBAL does not have any control over such third party websites, and therefore shall have no liability or responsibility their personal information practices.

Correction / updating of personal information

If your Personal Information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, we will provide a way to correct, update or remove your personal information provided to us.

Transfer of your personal information

Some parties that process or store personal information may be located in jurisdictions outside your country of residence. Therefore, your information may be processed and stored in these jurisdictions and, as per the applicable foreign governments, courts, or law enforcement or regulatory agencies may be able to obtain disclosure of your information through the laws in these countries.

Notification of changes

We reserve the right to update or modify the Policy, at any time and without any prior notice, by posting the revised version of the Policy on our Website. If we decide to change and/or modify our Policy, we will post those changes on our Website so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under which circumstances (if any) we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify you by way of an email. If you so wish, you may withdraw your consent to such use subject to and in accordance with the terms of our Policy.

To Personal Information

Please note that disclosure of personal information is voluntary. The Applicants / Users disclosing personal information shall be deemed to have read and understood this Privacy Policy and consents to use and disclosure of the personal information as provided in this Privacy Policy. The Applicants / Users have right to withdraw their consent prior to further disclosure of the personal information by VFS GLOBAL to the Diplomatic Missions / Governments and/ or relevant Visa Offices or other third parties.

Applicant/s have right to their personal information provided by them. Users may request access to their personal information by writing an email to the Info email ID mentioned on the “Contact Us” page with subject line as “Subject Access Request”. This request will be forwarded to the respective Governments/ Diplomatic Missions since they are the data controllers and further action will be taken by VFS GLOBAL based on the directions received by the respective Governments/ Diplomatic Missions.

VFS GLOBAL shall not be responsible to ascertain authenticity or accuracy of the information provided by the Applicant. It shall be the duty of the Applicant to ensure that the information provided to VFS GLOBAL is accurate, complete and up to date.