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Privacy Notice

Introduction.

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

This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) explains how VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd. and its worldwide companies and subsidiaries (“VFS Global,” “we,” or “us”) and the GOVERNEMENT OF PORTUGAL handles personal information.

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

This Notice was last updated 21 January 2019

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?

In providing the service of receiving visa applications, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Portugal is the Data Controller and VFS Global is a Data Processor.

GENERAL CONSULATE OF PORTUGAL IN SAO PAULO - RUA CANADA, 324, JARDIM AMERICA, SAO PAULO, SP

The Privacy Notice of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Portugal can be found here:

When VFS Global provides additional services requested by you, such courier delivery, VFS Global is a Data Controller.

How do we collect information about you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website or use our services, for example, when you apply for a visa or use or other related visa application services.

What data does the mission process when you apply for a visa, and where does the data come from?

The categories of personal data processed cover the data requested on the visa application form. This includes your surname, name at birth, forename, date and place (including the country) of birth, gender, nationality/nationalities, civil status, current address, telephone number, email address, occupation, details of your travel document (type of document, serial number, issuing state and authority, date of issue, expiry date), your photograph and fingerprints.

The data in these categories derive from the information you provide in the course of the visa application process.

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 such as courier delivery. We process your date of birth to identify you when using the Track & Trace service.

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 deliver 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?

We will hold your personal information on our systems only for the minimum time as is necessary for the relevant activity as mandated by the Government of Portugal. The visa application data that we collect will not be copied or retained by VFS Global. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations (for example; invoices for taxation legislation).

Your contact information and information used in the Track & Trace service 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 if you contact us with follow-up questions.

Who has access to your information?

We will not disclose your personal information to third parties without your consent. We may share your contact information with companies belonging to VFS Global group where it is necessary for the processing of your requests or to deliver an additional service you have requested, for example; if you asked us to deliver your travel document to your home or office.

Authorities:

By applying for a visa or other type of travel document your personal information will be sent to the Portugal diplomatic mission. For further information about how your personal data is handled please see the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs website

Legal reasons:

We will only disclose personal information when supported by a court order to comply with requests from government agencies, including law enforcement and other public authorities, which may include such authorities outside your country of residence.

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 bring 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 off-shore:

As part of the services offered to you through this website, or in a Visa Application Centre, the information which you provide to us will, in most circumstances, be transferred to off-shore countries.

We will transfer your personal information, internally within VFS Global, to one of our data centres in the UK. If we transfer personal information internally within VFS Global from one country to another country, where the data protection laws may not offer the same level of data privacy protection as in your home country, we take measures to provide an appropriate level of data privacy protection. In other words, your rights and protections remain with your data. For example, we use European Commission approved contractual clauses, and other measures designed to ensure that the recipients of your personal information protect it.

If you would like to know more about our data transfer practices, please contact our Data Protection Officer .

Your choices.

You have the right to withdraw your consent that you gave us previously for processing your contact data for supplying additional requested services. However, if you do, we may not be able to continue to provide those services to you.

We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given us your prior permission for us to do so when purchasing an additional service. You can change your mind at any time and opt not receive any further marketing information by contacting our Customer Care team or updating your preferences on-line.

Your rights.

You have certain rights 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 to 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.
  9. The right to withdraw your consent

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.

The Data Protection Authority for Portugal is:

National Data Protection Commission. Tel: +351 213928400 - Email: geral@cnpd.pt.

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. This does not apply to personal information you have provided in support of your visa application, for this you must contact the Portugal diplomatic mission.

If you request access to your personal information, we will gladly comply, subject to any relevant legal requirements and exemptions. Before providing data to you, we will ask for proof of identity and sufficient information about your interaction with us so that we can locate any relevant data. We may also charge you a fee for providing you with a copy of your data (except where this is not permissible under local law).

The accuracy of your information is important to us. In some jurisdictions, you have the right to correct or amend your personal information if it is inaccurate or requires updating. In certain circumstances, you may also have the right to request deletion of your personal information as per applicable data protection laws.

To make an inquiry about the information that we hold on your please visit our Contact page.

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’s treated securely. Any sensitive information (such as credit or debit card details) is encrypted and protected. On our websites when you are on a secure page, a lock icon lock image will appear on the 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.

Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best efforts to ensure its security on our systems. When you set-up an account, say for example when you book an appointment at a visa application centre, you are responsible for keeping that account password confidential and we ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Use of 'cookies'

Like many other websites, the VFS Global website uses cookies. 'Cookies' are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical information about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to store your preferred language. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better 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.

Profiling.

Profiling is any form of automated processing of personal information in order to analyse or predict behaviour. VFS Global may use 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 particular 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 our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

Please, note that, if you link from our website to a third-party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of that 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:
Email:
DPO@vfsglobal.com

Address:
Attn: Data Protection Officer
VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd,
Unit 3205, 32nd Floor,
Jumeirah Business Centre 1,
Cluster G,
Jumeirah Lakes Towers,
P.O. Box 114100,
Dubai, UAE.