Our Privacy Policy

Last updated: 21st of August, 2023.

What this Notice covers

The Immigration Advice Service Limited is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.

This Privacy Notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and data protection legislation.

We are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

This notice does not form part of any contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time.

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

As part of our commitment to complying with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and safeguarding your personal data, we kindly request your consent to process and store the information you provide us for the purposes outlined below.

1. What personal information do we collect from the people that visit our website?
When ordering or completing a contact form on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your name, email address or other details to help you with your need or experience.

2. When do we collect information? 
We collect information from you when you fill out a form or enter information on our site.

3. Our lawful basis for Data Collection and Processing: 

We will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you.
• To send emails regarding your order or other products and services related to your correspondence with IAS.
• To send weekly newsletters in relation to the latest developments in the immigration sector, your order or other products and services.
• To follow up with you after correspondence (live chat, email or phone enquiries)
• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests or those of a third party and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

3. Who has access to your data:

We may share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the working relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

Where we do so, we will require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

We may transfer your personal information outside the EU. If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.

4. Data Storage and Retention:

Your personal data will be securely stored in our systems and will only be retained for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected or as required by applicable laws and regulations.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

5. Data Sharing:

Your personal data will only be shared with relevant government agencies, organizations, or entities as required to process your immigration case. We will not disclose your personal data to third parties for marketing or commercial purposes without obtaining your explicit consent.

6. Data Security: 

We take data security seriously and have implemented appropriate technical and organizational measures to safeguard your personal data from unauthorized access, accidental loss, destruction, or alteration.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so. In addition:

• Our website is scanned on a regular basis for security holes and known vulnerabilities in order to make your visit to our site as safe as possible.
• We use regular Malware Scanning.
• Your personal information is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights to such systems and are required to keep the information confidential. In addition, all sensitive information you supply is encrypted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology.
• We implement a variety of security measures when a user places an order, enters, submits, or accesses their information to maintain the safety of your personal information.
• All transactions are processed through a gateway provider and are not stored or processed on our servers.

7. Your rights:

Under the GDPR, you have the right to request access to your personal data, rectification of inaccuracies, erasure of data, restriction of processing, data portability, and the right to object to the processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

IAS is committed to upholding the rights of relevant data subjects. These rights encompass the ability to access, correct, delete, or restrict the processing of personal data associated with the individual. Furthermore, data subjects possess the authority to raise objections against processing, which includes direct marketing activities. It is important to note that data subjects also retain the right to file complaints with the appropriate Data Protection Authority, such as the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office.

If you believe the IAS has not complied with your rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner.

8. What if you do not provide personal data? 

If you do not provide personal data, it is likely to be impossible for the IAS to enter into, or to continue with, a working relationship with you.

9. Further questions? 
If you have further questions about how we process individual monitoring data, please feel free to get in touch with us at [email protected].

10. Do we use ‘cookies’? 
Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the site’s or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information. For instance, we use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart. They are also used to help us understand your preferences based on previous or current site activity, which enables us to provide you with improved services. We also use cookies to help us compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future.

We use cookies to:

• Understand and save users’ preferences for future visits.
• Keep track of advertisements.
• Compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interactions in order to offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may also use trusted third-party services that track this information on our behalf.

You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser settings. Since browser is a little different, look at your browser’s Help Menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies.

If you turn cookies off, some of the features that make your site experience more efficient may not function properly.

10. Google 

Google’s advertising requirements can be summed up by Google’s Advertising Principles. They are put in place to provide a positive experience for users. https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1316548?hl=en

We have implemented the following:

• Remarketing with Google Ads
• DoubleClick Platform Integration

We, along with third-party vendors such as Google use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookies) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) or other third-party identifiers together to compile data regarding user interactions with ad impressions and other ad service functions as they relate to our website.

Opting out: 

Users can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Settings page. Alternatively, you can opt out by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative Opt Out page or by using the Google Analytics Opt Out Browser add on.

11. California Online Privacy Protection Act 
CalOPPA is the first state law in the United States to require commercial websites and online services to post a privacy policy. The law’s reach stretches well beyond California to require any person or company in the United States (and conceivably the world) that operates websites collecting Personally Identifiable Information from California consumers to post a conspicuous privacy policy on its website stating exactly the information being collected and those individuals or companies with whom it is being shared. – See more at: https://consumercal.org/california-online-privacy-protection-act-caloppa/#sthash.0FdRbT51.dpuf

According to CalOPPA, we agree to the following:

• Users can visit our site anonymously.
• Once this privacy policy is created, we will add a link to it on our home page or as a minimum, on the first significant page after entering our website.
• Our Privacy Policy link includes the word ‘Privacy’ and can easily be found on the page specified above.

12. How does our site handle Do Not Track signals? 

We honour Do Not Track signals and Do Not Track, plant cookies, or use advertising when a Do Not Track (DNT) browser mechanism is in place.

13. Changes to this website Privacy Notice You will be notified of any Privacy Policy changes: 
The IAS reserves the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will update this privacy notice when we make any substantial updates as well as provide the date the privacy policy is updated.

14. Contacting us 

If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us using the information below.

iasservices.org.uk

Immigration Advice Service

Ashwood House

Ellen Street

OL9 6QR

United Kingdom

[email protected]