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Privacy Notice

At VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd, we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

Last updated 05 May 2020

Scope.

This Privacy Notice explains how VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd. and its worldwide companies & subsidiaries (“VFS Global,” “we,” or “us”) handles your personal information. As well as visa application processing services, we may also provide additional related services to the visa applicant. This privacy notice explains how we process personal data in relation to those additional services.

We may change this Notice from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes.

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Notice or our privacy practices, please contact our Data Protection Officer

Who are we?

VFS Global is the world's largest outsourcing and technology services specialist for governments and diplomatic missions worldwide. We are authorized to receive applications for various categories of visa, permit and travel document and to perform administrative and non-judgmental tasks related to those applications and citizen services for client governments enabling them to focus entirely on the critical task of assessment.

Who is responsible for your personal data?

The < FPS Home Affairs – Immigration Office of Belgium > is responsible for processing the personal data you provide in the visa application form and for the data received about you in connection with processing your case (Data Controller for visa applications). Please the link at the bottom of our website for more information about how they process your personal data 

When VFS Global provides additional services requested by you, such as courier delivery, VFS Global is responsible for processing the personal data you provide in connection with these services (Data Controller for additional services). This privacy notice applies to the processing of personal data that VFS Global performs in providing these additional services.

Contact information of the data controllers.

The contact information for the Data Controller for visa applications can be found in the link to the government website at the bottom of this website.

The contact information for the Data Controller for additional services (VFS Global) is:

VFS Consulting Ireland Ltd.
The Black Church,
St. Mary Place,
Dublin 7
IRELAND

How do we collect information about you?

We collect information about you when you use our websites, or request our services, for example, when you request courier delivery services. This information is collected by a member of our staff when you contact a visa application centre (VAC), if call our Customer support centre by phone or by Webchat, or when you provide these details in a web form on our websites.

What data does VFS Global process when providing additional services requested by you?

VFS Global processes the contact information provided by you in order to deliver an additional requested service.

First Name,
Last Name,
Delivery Address,
Email address,
Mobile Phone Number.

We also collect your date of birth to identify you when using the Track & Trace service.

Lawful basis for processing your personal data.

  • If the data protection law in your country of residence allows, we will use the lawful basis of “performance of contract”. What this means in plain terms, is that when you purchase an additional service from us, you enter into a contract with us to deliver that service. If it clearly obvious that we could not deliver that service without some personal data, then by entering into that contract implies that you have given your permission for us to process that personal data. For example, in order to provide the Courier service, we will need a delivery address.
  • If the data protection law in your country of residence does not have the lawful basis of “performance of contract then we will ask for your consent to processing of your personal data for one or more specific processes.

How is your information used?

Your information will only be used to:

  • Book an appointment with one of our visa submissions officers at a Visa Application Centre (VAC);
  • To validate who you say you are when you come to collect your travel document;
  • To enable you to track the progress of your application;
  • To provide you with additional services that you request such as courier delivery for which we will need to know the delivery address and the name of who to deliver the travel document to;
  • With your permission, to send you information which you have requested and that may be of interest to you.

How long do we hold on to your data for?

The visa application data that we collect will not be copied or retained by VFS Global.

If you are applying for a Schengen visa we will delete your personal data at the latest seven days after their transmission to the client government Mission and ensure that only your name and contact details are retained for the purposes of appointment arrangements, as well as the passport number, these are kept until the return of the passport and deleted five days thereafter.

For all other visa types your contact information is retained in electronic form for a maximum of thirty (30) days after your travel documents have been returned to you. This is for the purposes of assisting you if you contact us with follow-up questions. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations (for example; invoices for taxation legislation).

Who do we share your information with?

We will not disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent. We may share your contact information with other partners where it is necessary for the processing of your requests or to deliver an additional service that you have requested for, for example; if you have asked us to deliver your travel document to your home or office. We only use partners that have adequate data protection measures in place.

We will only disclose personal information when requested by authorities if that request is supported by a court order.

Third Party Product Providers we work in association with:

We work closely with a small number of third-party product providers to bring you a range of quality and reliable services designed to provide you the best application process experience. For example, when you pay for your visa application, we will use a trusted payment service provider. This third-party provider will use your details to process your payments and carry out their obligations arising from any applicable laws. In some cases, they will be acting as a Data Controller of your information and therefore we advise you to read their Privacy Notice. These third-party service providers may share your information with us which we will use in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

Transferring your information offshore:

We transfer your personal information, internally within VFS Global, to one of our data centres located in Europe. If you would like to know more about our data transfer practices, please contact our Data Protection Officer .

Your rights.

You have certain rights under the GDPR with regards to the personal information you provided when requesting additional services. These rights are:

  1. The right to be informed how your personal information is being used.
  2. The right of access and to a copy of your personal information.
  3. The right to rectification if your personal information is incorrect.
  4. The right to erasure your personal information. (Where the law permits this).
  5. The right to restrict processing of your personal information.
  6. The right to data portability.
  7. The right to object to how your personal information is used.
  8. Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling.

To exercise any of these rights please visit our Contact page.

How you can access and update your information?

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information VFS Global holds about you. If you request access to your personal information, we will gladly comply, subject to any relevant legal requirements and You have the right to ask for a copy of the information VFS Global holds about you. If you request access to your personal information, we will gladly comply, subject to any relevant legal requirements and exemptions. Before providing personal data to you, we will need to identify you. To do this we may ask you to provide information about your interaction with us.

We are not able provide access and a copy of the personal information you have provided in support of your visa application, for this you must contact the diplomatic mission mentioned above whose visa you have applied for.

Complaints.

If you feel that your personal information has been handled incorrectly or you have a complaint about how your personal information is processed, you have the right to complain.

You can complain to our Data Protection Officer, or the Data Protection Authority in your country, outlining how you think your rights may have been impacted by the data processing performed by VFS Global.

VFS Global’s EU lead supervisory authority is:

The Data Protection Commission for Ireland
21 Fitzwilliam Square South
Dublin 2
D02 RD28
IRELAND

Security precautions in place to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of your information.

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it is treated securely. Your information is encrypted and protected. On our websites when you are on a secure page, a lock iconlock will appear in the address bar of most web browsers. This means the transfer of information from your browser to our webservers is encrypted to keep it safe.

Please bear in mind that emails are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, do not include personal information in an email when you communicate with us, if you do, you do so at your own risk.

Use of 'cookies'

Like many other websites, the VFS Global website uses cookies. A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. This helps us to improve our websites and deliver more personalised service.

We provide the choice for you to accept or refuse the use of cookies when you visit our websites. Disabling cookies may result in a loss of functionality when using our website. For more detailed information about how VFS Global uses cookies, please see our Cookies disclosure notice at the foot of this page.

Profiling.

Profiling is any form of automated processing of personal information in order to analyse or predict behaviour. VFS Global may use trusted website analytics partners for helping us to develop a better user experience and to improve our website. For example, how long a user spends on a webpage will indicate to us how user-friendly the page is. None of your personal information is collected or passed to our analytics partners or third parties. This analysis is provided via analytics cookies. We provide the choice for you to accept or refuse the use of cookies when you visit our websites and we also provide a facility for you to disable the analytics cookies.

Links to other websites.

Our websites may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This Privacy Notice applies only to this website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.

Please, note that, if you link from our website to another website, or if you follow a link to arrive at our website, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of those third-party website and we recommend that you check the Privacy Notice of that third-party website.

Contact us:

We understand that you may have questions about this Statement or our privacy practices. Please feel free to contact us in one of the following ways:

VFS Global’s Group Data Protection Officer:

Barry Cook

Email:
DPO @ vfsglobal.com

Postal Address:
Attn: Data Protection Officer
VFS Consulting Ireland Ltd.
The Black Church,
St. Mary Place,
Dublin 7
IRELAND