Data Transfer Notice
VFS Global
VFS Global manages the administrative and non-judgmental tasks related to visas, passports, travel documents, identity management, and other citizen services such as passport renewals for its client governments and diplomatic missions. VFS Global only provides certain logistic support to visa/ permit or travel document applications on behalf of its client governments and in accordance with the respective contracts with them regarding such services/support. Apart from visa/permit or travel document application processing services and citizen services, VFS Global also provides optional additional services called Valued Added Services (VAS).
As part of our services, we may need to transfer your personal data to another country. This notice explains why we may need to transfer your personal data, how we protect it, and what your rights are.
We may need to transfer your personal data to another country for the following reasons:
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To process your visa or passport application, we may need to share your personal data with the relevant authorities in the country you are applying to visit. This may include the embassy, consulate, immigration office, or other government agencies.
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To provide you with optional additional services, such as courier delivery, SMS notifications, or travel insurance, we may need to share your personal data with our service providers or partners in the country where you are applying or where the service is provided.
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To comply with our legal obligations, we may need to share your personal data with law enforcement, regulatory, or judicial authorities in the country where we operate or where the request is made.
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To improve our services, we may need to share your personal data with our affiliates, subsidiaries, or parent company for quality assurance, audit, or internal reporting purposes.
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For security control purposes, we may need to send your data to our offshore servers in order to manage our security assurance mechanisms.
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For logistic purposes, in order to provide our services, we may need to transfer and store your data in one of our data centers that may be located outside of the country in which you applied.
We only transfer your personal data to another country when it is necessary for the purposes described above and when we have a valid legal basis to do so.
We take appropriate measures to protect your personal data when we transfer it to another country. These measures include:
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Ensuring that the country where we transfer your personal data has adequate data protection laws or has been recognized by the European Commission as providing an adequate level of protection.
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Entering into contractual agreements with the recipients of your personal data that require them to comply with the same or similar data protection standards as we do.
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Implementing technical and organizational safeguards to prevent unauthorized access, use, disclosure, or loss of your personal data.
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Monitoring and reviewing our data transfer practices and procedures regularly to ensure compliance with our policies and applicable laws.
We will inform you of the specific measures we have taken to protect your personal data when we transfer it to another country, upon request.
You have the right to access, correct, update, delete, or restrict the processing of your personal data that we hold. You also have the right to object to the processing of your personal data, to request a copy of your personal data, or to withdraw your consent at any time, where applicable. To exercise your rights, you can contact us at mail or use the request form provided on our website.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the data protection authority in your country or in the country where we transfer your personal data, if you are not satisfied with how we handle your personal data.
For more information about how we collect, use, and share your personal data, please refer to our Privacy Policy, which is available on our website.
