Privacy Notice

Beijing TLScontact Consulting Limited and its worldwide group companies (hereinafter “TLScontact”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of the customers who use TLScontact websites and services (hereinafter “Customers”, “you”, “your). The purpose of this privacy notice (hereinafter the “Privacy Notice”) is to explain how and why we use your personal data to ensure you remain informed and in control of your information.

TLScontact processes your personal data in compliance with the applicable legal requirements, and in particular, the Personal Information Protection Law of P.R. China effective as of November 1, 2021.

This Privacy Notice applies to all TLScontact services and by using our services you acknowledge having been informed that TLScontact collects, stores, uses, processes, transfers and discloses your personal data in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

Any questions you have in relation to this Privacy Notice or how we use your personal data should be sent to our Personal Information Protection Officer at the following email address:

TLScontact Data Protection Officer:Email:dp@tlscontact.comAddress:Attn : Personal Information Protection OfficerTLScontact11th Floor, Block A, Gateway Plaza, No. 18 East Third Ring North RoadChaoyang District, Beijing, China

TLScontact is a pioneering company specialising in providing Customer relationship management. Our core business is to operate visa application centres on behalf of government authorities (“our Clients”, “Diplomatic mission”).

TLScontact is part of the Teleperformance Group, the worldwide leader in outsourced omnichannel customer experience management, providing excellent customer experience at every opportunity, serving governments and companies.

Your personal data (i.e. any information allowing to identify you and without anonymization) is collected on the behalf of our clients (i.e. hereinafter the “Clients”) for the provision of a visa service and/or immigration service, and to perform administrative and non-judgmental tasks related to the aforementioned services (see Section 1 of this Privacy Notice). Your personal data may also be collected by TLScontact on its own behalf for the provision of specific services in general related to the aforementioned services, and/or to ensure the security of its premises, employees and visitors (see Section 2 of this Privacy Notice).

3.1. How do we collect your personal data?

We obtain personal data about you when you use our services to apply for instance for a visa via our online application system and/or in the application center.

Representatives may submit personal data about you on your behalf. We will always verify and validate any individuals claiming to be your representative before accepting any information about you.

3.2. What do we collect?

We will only collect personal data required by our Clients to submit a visa application or provide a related service. The type and categories of personal data that we collect is dependent on what visa/service you are applying for.

We collect in particular as an example the following categories of personal data:

General Personal Data:

Personal details: name, nationality, gender, details of your travel document (i.e., passport or ID), email address, telephone number, marital status, postal address, place, date of birth, photographs, etc.

Personal details of people related to you: children, parents, spouse, emergency contact, personal details of inviting party etc.

Business, education: business and/or employment activities, student activities, employer/student address and contact details.

Sensitive Personal Data:

Sensitive personal data: health related information, biometric data (fingerprints, digital face image, DNA swabs), records of criminal activities, legal proceedings, data of your children underage of 14 etc.

Financial data: payment card details, bank account details, national insurance details, proof of salary, proof of assets, taxes etc.

Electronic media data: Video and audio recordings.

This list may vary depending on a Client’s requirements and the services you request from us.

If you want to know exactly what personal data will be collected for your visa/immigration service, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission for more information.

3.3. How is your personal data used?

We will never sell your personal data or use it in any way without your direct knowledge. We will only use your personal data on behalf of our Client and according to its instructions in order to process the specific service that you require relating to the visa application.

We may use your personal data for instance to:

• Validate who you say you are;
• Book an appointment for you to one of our Visa Application Centre (VAC);
• Assist you in your visa application or other application;
• Carry out further verification procedures in relation to your visa or other application;
• Provide you with additional services that you request relating to the visa application, we may in particular use your personal data to process any added value services (AVS) that you request, relating to your visa application, for example a courier delivery service to ship your application documents to your address of choice;
• Enable you to track the progress of your application;
• Perform our obligations under our mandate from our Clients;
• Send you communications and notifications concerning the status of your chosen service.

Such data processing is based on the execution of the Terms of Services between TLScontact and you, the contract between TLScontact and its Client and on the compliance with legal obligations.

For more information regarding the purposes of the data processing we implement on behalf of our Client, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission.

3.4. How long we store personal data?

We keep your personal data in accordance with our legal obligations and with our Client’s instructions. Most of the time we do not maintain any personal data once the visa application process is over. We will hold your personal information on our systems only for as long as is necessary to provide the service.

For more information about how long the Client keeps your personal data, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission.

3.5. Who has access to your personal data?

TLScontact and Teleperformance group of companies

We may share your personal data with companies belonging to TLScontact or to Teleperformance group where it is necessary to process your requests and to provide you with the relevant services.

Government Authorities and Diplomatic Missions

When applying for a visa or other related service, your personal data will be sent to our Client, i.e. the foreign Diplomatic Mission that represents the country you are applying to. This Diplomatic Mission may share your personal data with for example an applicable governmental, regulatory, or enforcement authority for the prevention of crime or terrorism. We cannot control or direct how your personal data is used after transferring it to the relevant Diplomatic Mission since it acts as the data controller. We strongly recommend you read their privacy notices too (including the information provided in the visa application forms).

Third parties for legal reasons

We may share personal data with third parties to comply with legal obligations and respond to requests from government agencies, including law enforcement and other public authorities, which may include such authorities outside your country of residence.

Third party service providers working on our behalf

We may pass your personal data to our third-party service providers, subcontractors and other associated organizations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to deliver your documents to you by courier). We will only disclose personal data that is necessary to deliver the services concerned. Before sharing any personal data we make sure that all service providers are contractually obliged to and can prove that your personal data:

• Will be kept secure and confidential;
• Is stored for only as long as required to process service;
• Will never be used for anything other than to process the requested service;
• Will never be used for any marketing purpose by the third party except to the extent you consent upon this.

Other Third parties

We work with third-party product providers to provide you the best customer experience. For example, a third-party provider need to process your personal data to allow the payments of the services you have requested and to meet the applicable legal requirements.

Below are contact details of other parties who have access to your personal data through TLScontact data processing activity.

In order to monitor our service provision, to prevent human trafficking and to protect vulnerable people, our Government Clients may request access to real-time footage of the activity in our Visa Application Centres.

3.6. Overseas transfer of your personal data

Due to the nature of our business, your visa application will be transferred directly to the servers outside of the People's Republic of China that are owned and maintained by our affiliated company, TLS Group SA to facilitate our Client (s) in relation to your visa application to check, access such data or obtain the transmission of the data for the purpose of visa decision. We will never transfer your personal data in an unsafe or unsecure way.

If we transfer your personal data to other countries in which applicable laws do not offer the same level of data privacy and protection, we take measures to provide an appropriate level of data privacy and protection by using our Binding Corporate rules or by entering into Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the China Authorities with the data importers.

Through the implementation of our Binding Corporate Rules or Standard Contractual Clauses you can rest assured that your personal data is protected when transferred internationally within Teleperformance Group.

4.1. How do we collect your personal data?

We obtain personal data about you when you use our services in relation to your visa application, when you come to our Visa Application Centre (VAC) as a visitor and/or when you use some of our additional services.

4.2. What do we collect?

We will use, store or otherwise process any of your personal data in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Notice, including but not limited to:

• Personal details: name, email address, telephone number, postal address, etc.
• Financial data: payment details.
• CCTV images for general surveillance.

When we collect personal data through forms, including but not limited to electronic forms, we will indicate the mandatory fields via asterisks. Failure to provide the data marked with an asterisk could prevent you from accessing a service of ours.

4.3. How is your personal data used?

We will never sell your personal data or use it in any way without your direct knowledge.

We may use your personal data for example to:

• Provide you with some additional services that you request, which are provided by TLScontact for its own account or for the account of certain TLScontact trusted partners (i.e. service directly linked or not to the visa application) and process your payments;
• Ensure the security of TLScontact’s employees, visitors, customers and premises;
• Answer your inquiries and/or resolve any dispute relating to TLScontact services;
• Request your feedback on our services in order to allow us to improve the quality of our services. You can withdraw your consent to receive any question regarding the quality of our services at any time by contacting us on-line through the Feedback and Complaints page such as explained further under article 3 here below or by contacting our Personal Information Protection officer at the email address indicated here above;
• Send you marketing communications (with your consent) - we will not share your personal data with third parties for marketing purposes unless you have explicitly consented. You can withdraw this consent at any time by contacting us on-line where applicable.

To process your personal data lawfully we need to rely on one or more valid legal grounds. The grounds we may rely upon are for example:

• Where we process your personal data to provide you with the services requested, to deal with your enquiries and claims relating to such services, to handle your payments, etc., the legal basis of the processing is the performance of the agreement (in specific the Terms of Services and your oral agreement with us) between us and you.
• Where we process your personal data to deal with your enquiries that are not related to a specific service, to send you marketing communications, to request feedback on our services or to protect our employees, visitors and premises, the legal basis of the processing is your consent.
• Where the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, the data processing is based on such legal obligation.

4.4. How long we store personal data?

We review our retention periods for personal data on a regular basis. We generally keep your personal data for as long as it is necessary for the purpose for which the personal data is processed (i.e. for the duration of the provision of the service, during your presence in our premises, for maximum 1 month regarding CCTV images and for 1 year from the last contact with you regarding marketing communications, where applicable and permitted by the local legislation). We may however be required to hold some types of personal data longer to fulfil our statutory obligations or in accordance with the applicable statute of limitations.

4.5. Who has access to your personal data?

TLScontact group or Teleperformance group of companies

We may share your personal data with companies belonging to the TLScontact group or to Teleperformance group where for instance it is necessary to process your requests, to provide you with the relevant services or to request your feedback on our services.

Third parties for legal reasons

We will share personal data with third parties:

• To comply with legal obligations and respond to requests from government agencies, including law enforcement and other public authorities, which may include such authorities outside your country of residence.
• In the event of a merger, sale, restructure, acquisition, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).
• To protect our rights, users, systems, and services.

Third party service providers working on our behalf

We may pass your personal data to our third-party service providers, subcontractors and other associated organizations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf. We will only disclose personal data that is necessary to deliver the service. Before sharing any personal data we make sure that all service providers are contractually obliged to and can prove that your personal data:

• Will be kept secure and confidential;
• Is stored for only as long as required to process service;
• Will never be used for anything other than to process the requested service;
• Will never be used for any marketing purpose by the third party except to the extent you consent upon this.

To check the details of those who have access to your personal data, please click HERE.

4.6. Overseas transfer of your personal data

Due to the nature of our business, your personal data may be transferred beyond the borders of your Country. By applying for a visa or other related service your personal information will be transferred to the country or with the Government Authority you are applying to. We will never transfer your personal data in an unsafe or unsecure way.

If we transfer your personal data to other countries in which applicable laws do not offer the same level of data privacy and protection, we take measures to provide an appropriate level of data privacy and protection.

Through the implementation of our Binding Corporate Rules or the Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the China Authorities, you can rest assured that your personal data is protected when transferred internationally within Teleperformance group.

4.7. Use of cookies

Our website is no different from other websites and uses cookies to function properly and make your browsing experience easier. For example cookies can help the website remember you and during your next visit you won’t have to choose your preferred language again.

Our websites also use Google Analytics, a service which transmits website traffic data to Google servers. Google Analytics does not identify individual users or associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. We use reports provided by Google Analytics to help us understand website traffic and webpage usage.

You can turn off cookies for our website through the settings page on your browser.

We want to ensure you remain in control of your personal data. Part of this is making sure you understand your rights, which are as follows:

• Access/Copy – the right to access or copy your personal data, obtain a confirmation of your personal data we currently hold.
• Rectify – the right to inaccurate data rectified.
• Erase – the right to have your sensitive data erased (however, this is not an absolute right and TLScontact may have legal or legitimate grounds for keeping such sensitive personal data).
• Restrict – the right, in some cases, to restrict processing of your sensitive personal data.
• Object – the right to object to the processing of your sensitive personal data in compliance with local laws.
• Portability - the right to request to transmit your sensitive data to another processor. This right only applies when certain conditions stipulated by the Chinese Authorities shall be met.
• Withdraw – you may withdraw your consent, at any time, for the processing of your sensitive personal data for which you have provided consent by following the Subject Access request described in this Notice. Please note that withdrawing your consent or failing to provide sensitive personal data described in this Privacy notice will impact and may stop the processing of any services that you requested or are currently enrolled in.

Explanation – the right to request a processor to explain the processing of personal data. For the personal information of the deceased, the above rights to Access/Copy, Rectify and Erasure could be exercised by his/her close relatives, unless there exists other arrangement that is priorly made by the deceased.To exercise your rights to your sensitive personal data, all you need to do is contact us directly or through the Feedback and Complaints page, fill in the short request form and choose the “Personal Data Request” category in the “Reason for contact” field. You can also exercise theses rights by contacting the Diplomatic Mission when such rights relate to the visa/immigration application.

When the request is submitted to TLScontact, we will send you a confirmation of acknowledging your request and will process or hand over your request to our Client without undue delay.

We or our Client may contact you to clarify your request, seek additional information or to verify your identity before processing.

If you feel that your right have been impacted, please contact our Personal Information Protection Officer through the contact details provided at the top of this privacy notice.

You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority in your country.

“Profiling” means any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyze or predict aspects concerning that natural person’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location or movements.

TLScontact does not do profiling.

For more information about potential use of profiling by the Client, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission.

Our website may contain links to other websites. We are not responsible for the content or functionality of any of those external websites.

If an external website requests personal data from you (e.g. in connection with an order for goods or services), the data you provide will not be covered by this Privacy Notice. We suggest you read the privacy notice of any website before providing any personal data.

When purchasing goods or services from any of the businesses that our site links to, you will be entering into a contract with them (agreeing to their terms and conditions) and not with TLScontact.

We will amend this Privacy notice from time to time to ensure it remains up-to-date and accurately reflects how and why we use your personal data. The current version of our Privacy notice will always be posted on our website. In case of material changes we will inform you by any appropriate means.

9.1. How do we collect your sensitive personal data?

We obtain sensitive personal data about you when you use our services to apply for instance for a visa via our online application system and/or in the application centre.

Representatives may submit sensitive personal data about you on your behalf. We will always verify and validate any individuals claiming to be your representative before accepting any information about you.

9.2. What do we collect?

We will only collect sensitive personal data required by our Clients to submit a visa application or provide a related service. The type and categories of sensitive personal data that we collect is dependent on what visa/service you are applying for.

We collect in particular as an example the following categories of sensitive personal data:

Sensitive personal data: health related information, biometric data (fingerprints biometric enrolment), records of criminal activities, legal proceedings, data of your children underage of 14 etc.

Financial data: payment card details, bank account details, national insurance details, proof of salary, proof of assets, taxes etc.

Electronic media data: Video and audio recordings.

This list may vary depending on a Client’s requirements and the services you request from us.

If you want to know exactly what sensitive personal data will be collected for your visa/immigration service, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission for more information.

9.3. How is your sensitive personal data used?

We will never sell your sensitive personal data or use it in any way without your direct knowledge. We will only use your personal data on behalf of our Client and according to its instructions in order to process the specific service that you require relating to the visa application.

We may use your personal data for instance to:

• Validate who you say you are;
• Carry out further verification procedures in relation to your visa or other application.
• Provide you with additional services that you request relating to the visa application, we may in particular use your personal data to process any added value services (AVS) that you request, relating to your visa application;
• Perform our obligations under our mandate from our Clients.

Such data processing is based on the execution of the Terms of Services between TLScontact and you, the contract between TLScontact and its Client and on the compliance with legal obligations.

For more information regarding the purposes of the data processing we implement on behalf of our Client, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission.

9.4. How long we store sensitive personal data?

We keep your sensitive personal data in accordance with our legal obligations and with our Client’s instructions. Most of the time we do not maintain any sensitive personal data once the visa application process is over. We will hold your sensitive personal information on our systems only for as long as is necessary to provide the service.

For more information about how long the Client keeps your sensitive personal data, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission.

9.5. Who has access to your sensitive personal data?

TLScontact and Teleperformance group of companies

We may share your sensitive personal data with companies belonging to TLScontact or to Teleperformance group where it is necessary to process your requests and to provide you with the relevant services.

Government Authorities and Diplomatic Missions

When applying for a visa or other related service, your sensitive personal data will be sent to our Client, i.e. the foreign Diplomatic Mission that represents the country you are applying to. This Diplomatic Mission may share your sensitive personal data with for example an applicable governmental, regulatory, or enforcement authority for the prevention of crime or terrorism. We cannot control or direct how your sensitive personal data is used after transferring it to the relevant Diplomatic Mission. We strongly recommend you read their privacy notices too (including the information provided in the visa application forms).

Third parties for legal reasons

We may share sensitive personal data with third parties to comply with legal obligations and respond to requests from government agencies, including law enforcement and other public authorities, which may include such authorities outside your country of residence.

Third party service providers working on our behalf

We may pass your sensitive personal data to our third-party service providers, subcontractors and other associated organizations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf. We will only disclose sensitive personal data that is necessary to deliver the services concerned. Before sharing any sensitive personal data we make sure that all service providers are contractually obliged to and can prove that your sensitive personal data:

• Will be kept secure and confidential;
• Is stored for only as long as required to process service;
• Will never be used for anything other than to process the requested service;
• Will never be used for any marketing purpose by the third party except to the extent you consent upon this.

Other Third parties

We work with third-party product providers to provide you the best customer experience. For example, a third-party provider need to process your sensitive personal data to allow the payments of the services you have requested and to meet the applicable legal requirements.

Below are contact details of other parties who have access to your personal data through TLScontact data processing activity.

In order to monitor our service provision, to prevent human trafficking and to protect vulnerable people, our Government Clients may request access to real-time footage of the activity in our Visa Application Centres.

9.6. Overseas transfer of your Sensitive personal data

Due to the nature of our business, your visa application will be transferred directly to the servers outside of the People's Republic of China that are owned and maintained by our affiliated company, TLS Group SA to facilitate our Client (s) in relation to your visa application to check, access such data or obtain the transmission of the data for the purpose of visa decision. We will never transfer your personal data in an unsafe or unsecure way.

If we transfer your sensitive personal data to other countries in which applicable laws do not offer the same level of data privacy and protection, we take measures to provide an appropriate level of data privacy and protection.

Through the implementation of our Binding Corporate Rules or the Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the China Authorities, you can rest assured that your sensitive personal data is protected when transferred internationally within Teleperformance group.

10.1. How do we collect your sensitive personal data?

We obtain sensitive personal data about you when you use our services in relation to your visa application, when you come to our Visa Application Centre (VAC) as a visitor and/or when you use some of our additional services.

10.2. What do we collect?

We will use, store or otherwise process any of your sensitive personal data in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Notice, including but not limited to:

• Financial data: payment details.
• CCTV images for general security surveillance.

When we collect sensitive personal data through forms, including but not limited to electronic forms, we will indicate the mandatory fields via asterisks. Failure to provide the data marked with an asterisk could prevent you from accessing a service of ours.

10.3. How is your sensitive personal data used?

We will never sell your sensitive personal data or use it in any way without your direct knowledge.

We may use your sensitive personal data for example to:

• Provide you with some additional services that you request, which are provided by TLScontact for its own account or for the account of certain TLScontact trusted partners (i.e. service directly linked or not to the visa application) and process your payments;
• Ensure the security of TLScontact’s employees, visitors, customers and premises;
• Answer your inquiries and/or resolve any dispute relating to TLScontact services.

To process your sensitive personal data lawfully we need to rely on one or more valid legal grounds. The grounds we may rely upon are for example:

• Where we process your sensitive personal data to provide you with the services requested, to deal with your enquiries and claims relating to such services, to handle your payments, etc., the legal basis of the processing is the performance of the agreement (in specific the Terms of Services and your oral agreement with us) between us and you.
• Where we process your sensitive personal data to deal with your enquiries that are not related to a specific service, or to protect our employees, visitors and premises, the legal basis of the processing is your consent.
• Where the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, the data processing is based on such legal obligation.

10.4. How long we store sensitive personal data?

We review our retention periods for sensitive personal data on a regular basis. We generally keep your sensitive personal data for as long as it is necessary for the purpose for which the sensitive personal data is processed (i.e. for the duration of the provision of the service, during your presence in our premises, for maximum 1 month regarding CCTV images). We may however be required to hold some types of sensitive personal data longer to fulfil our statutory obligations or in accordance with the applicable statute of limitations.

10.5. Who has access to your sensitive personal data?

TLScontact group or Teleperformance group of companies

We may share your sensitive personal data with companies belonging to the TLScontact group or to Teleperformance group where for instance it is necessary to process your requests, to provide you with the relevant services or to request your feedback on our services.

Third parties for legal reasons

We will share sensitive personal data with third parties:

• To comply with legal obligations and respond to requests from government agencies, including law enforcement and other public authorities, which may include such authorities outside your country of residence.
• In the event of a merger, sale, restructure, acquisition, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).
• To protect our rights, users, systems, and services.

Third party service providers working on our behalf

We may pass your sensitive personal data to our third-party service providers, subcontractors and other associated organizations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf. We will only disclose sensitive personal data that is necessary to deliver the service. Before sharing any sensitive personal data we make sure that all service providers are contractually obliged to and can prove that your personal data:

• Will be kept secure and confidential;
• Is stored for only as long as required to process service;
• Will never be used for anything other than to process the requested service;
• Will never be used for any marketing purpose by the third party except to the extent you consent upon this.

To check the details of those who have access to your personal data, please click HERE.

10.6. Overseas transfer of your sensitive personal data

Due to the nature of our business, your visa application will be transferred directly to the servers outside of the People's Republic of China that are owned and maintained by our affiliated company, TLS Group SA to facilitate our Client (s) in relation to your visa application to check, access such data or obtain the transmission of the data for the purpose of visa decision. We will never transfer your personal data in an unsafe or unsecure way.

If we transfer your sensitive personal data to other countries in which applicable laws do not offer the same level of data privacy and protection, we take measures to provide an appropriate level of data privacy and protection.

Through the implementation of our Binding Corporate Rules or the Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the China Authorities, you can rest assured that your sensitive personal data is protected when transferred internationally within Teleperformance group.

10.7. Use of cookies

Our website is no different from other websites and uses cookies to function properly and make your browsing experience easier. For example cookies can help the website remember you and during your next visit you won’t have to choose your preferred language again.

Our websites also use Google Analytics, a service which transmits website traffic data to Google servers. Google Analytics does not identify individual users or associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. We use reports provided by Google Analytics to help us understand website traffic and webpage usage.

You can turn off cookies for our website through the settings page on your browser.

10.8. Use of cookies

Our website is no different from other websites and uses cookies to function properly and make your browsing experience easier. For example, cookies can help the website remember you and during your next visit you won’t have to choose your preferred language again.

Our websites also use Google Analytics, a service which transmits website traffic data to Google servers. Google Analytics does not identify individual users or associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. We use reports provided by Google Analytics to help us understand website traffic and webpage usage.

You can turn off cookies for our website through the settings page on your browser.

We want to ensure you remain in control of your sensitive personal data. Part of this is making sure you understand your rights, which are as follows:

• Access/Copy – the right to access or copy your personal data, obtain a confirmation of your personal data we currently hold.
• Rectify – the right to inaccurate data rectified.
• Erase – the right to have your sensitive data erased (however, this is not an absolute right and TLScontact may have legal or legitimate grounds for keeping such sensitive personal data).
• Restrict – the right, in some cases, to restrict processing of your sensitive personal data.
• Object – the right to object to the processing of your sensitive personal data in compliance with local laws.
• Portability - the right to request to transmit your sensitive data to another processor. This right only applies when certain conditions stipulated by the Chinese Authorities shall be met.
• Withdraw – you may withdraw your consent, at any time, for the processing of your sensitive personal data for which you have provided consent by following the Subject Access request described in this Notice. Please note that withdrawing your consent or failing to provide sensitive personal data described in this Privacy notice will impact and may stop the processing of any services that you requested or are currently enrolled in.

Explanation – the right to request a processor to explain the processing of personal data. For the personal information of the deceased, the above rights to Access/Copy, Rectify and Erasure could be exercised by his/her close relatives, unless there exists other arrangement that is priorly made by the deceased. To exercise your rights to your sensitive personal data, all you need to do is contact us directly or through the Feedback and Complaints page, fill in the short request form and choose the “Personal Data Request” category in the “Reason for contact” field. You can also exercise theses rights by contacting the Diplomatic Mission when such rights relate to the visa/immigration application.

When the request is submitted to TLScontact, we will send you a confirmation of acknowledging your request and will process or hand over your request to our Client without undue delay.

We or our Client may contact you to clarify your request, seek additional information or to verify your identity before processing.

If you feel that your right have been impacted, please contact our Personal Information Protection Officer through the contact details provided at the top of this privacy notice.

You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority in your country.

“Profiling” means any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyze or predict aspects concerning that natural person’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location or movements.

TLScontact does not do profiling.

For more information about potential use of profiling by the Client, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission.

Our website may contain links to other websites. We are not responsible for the content or functionality of any of those external websites.

If an external website requests personal data from you (e.g. in connection with an order for goods or services), the data you provide will not be covered by this Privacy Notice. We suggest you read the privacy notice of any website before providing any personal data.

When purchasing goods or services from any of the businesses that our site links to, you will be entering into a contract with them (agreeing to their terms and conditions) and not with TLScontact.

We will amend this Privacy notice from time to time to ensure it remains up-to-date and accurately reflects how and why we use your sensitive personal data. The current version of our Privacy notice will always be posted on our website. In case of material changes we will inform you by any appropriate means.

15.1. How do we collect your personal data?

We obtain personal data about you when you use our services to apply for instance for a visa via our online application system and/or in the application center.

Representatives may submit personal data about you on your behalf. We will always verify and validate any individuals claiming to be your representative before accepting any information about you.

15.2. What do we collect?

We will only collect personal data required by our Clients to submit a visa application or provide a related service. The type and categories of personal data that we collect is dependent on what visa/service you are applying for.

We collect in particular as an example the following categories of personal data:

General Personal Data:

Personal details: name, nationality, gender, details of your travel document (i.e. passport or ID), email address, telephone number, postal address, place, date of birth, photographs, etc.

Personal details of people related to you: parents, emergency contact, personal details of inviting party etc.

Education: student activities, student address and contact details.

Sensitive Personal Data:

Sensitive personal data: health related information, biometric data (fingerprints, DNA swabs), records of criminal activities, legal proceedings.

Financial data: payment card details, bank account details, national insurance details proof of assets, etc.

Electronic media data: Video and audio recordings.

This list may vary depending on a Client’s requirements and the services you request from us.

If you want to know exactly what personal data will be collected for your visa/immigration service, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission for more information.

15.3. How is your personal data used?

We will never sell your personal data or use it in any way without your direct knowledge. We will only use your personal data on behalf of our Client and according to its instructions in order to process the specific service that you require relating to the visa application.

We may use your personal data for instance to:

• Validate who you say you are;
• Book an appointment for you to one of our Visa Application Centre (VAC);
• Assist you in your visa application or other application;
• Carry out further verification procedures in relation to your visa or other application;
• Provide you with additional services that you request relating to the visa application, we may in particular use your personal data to process any added value services (AVS) that you request, relating to your visa application, for example a courier delivery service to ship your application documents to your address of choice;
• Enable you to track the progress of your application;
• Perform our obligations under our mandate from our Clients;
• Send you communications and notifications concerning the status of your chosen service.

Such data processing is based on the execution of the Terms of Services between TLScontact and you (represented by your parent(s)/guardian(s)), the contract between TLScontact and its Client and on the compliance with legal obligations.

For more information regarding the purposes of the data processing we implement on behalf of our Client, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission.

15.4. How long we store personal data?

We keep your personal data in accordance with our legal obligations and with our Client’s instructions. Most of the time we do not maintain any personal data once the visa application process is over. We will hold your personal information on our systems only for as long as is necessary to provide the service.

For more information about how long the Client keeps your personal data, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission.

15.5. Who has access to your personal data?

TLScontact and Teleperformance group of companies

We may share your personal data with companies belonging to TLScontact or to Teleperformance group where it is necessary to process your requests and to provide you with the relevant services.

Government Authorities and Diplomatic Missions

When applying for a visa or other related service, your personal data will be sent to our Client, i.e. the foreign Diplomatic Mission that represents the country you are applying to. This Diplomatic Mission may share your personal data with for example an applicable governmental, regulatory, or enforcement authority for the prevention of crime or terrorism. We cannot control or direct how your personal data is used after transferring it to the relevant Diplomatic Mission. We strongly recommend you read their privacy notices too (including the information provided in the visa application forms).

Third parties for legal reasons

We may share personal data with third parties to comply with legal obligations and respond to requests from government agencies, including law enforcement and other public authorities, which may include such authorities outside your country of residence.

Third party service providers working on our behalf

We may pass your personal data to our third-party service providers, subcontractors, and other associated organizations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to deliver your documents to you by courier). We will only disclose personal data that is necessary to deliver the services concerned. Before sharing any personal data we make sure that all service providers are contractually obliged to and can prove that your personal data:

• Will be kept secure and confidential;
• Is stored for only as long as required to process service;
• Will never be used for anything other than to process the requested service;
• Will never be used for any marketing purpose by the third party except to the extent you consent upon this.

Other Third parties

We work with third-party product providers to provide you the best customer experience. For example, a third-party provider need to process your personal data to allow the payments of the services you have requested and to meet the applicable legal requirements.

Below are contact details of other parties who have access to your personal data through TLScontact data processing activity.

In order to monitor our service provision, to prevent human trafficking and to protect vulnerable people, our Government Clients may request access to real-time footage of the activity in our Visa Application Centres.

15.6. Overseas transfer of your personal data

Due to the nature of our business, your visa application will be transferred directly to the servers outside of the People's Republic of China that are owned and maintained by our affiliated company, TLS Group SA to facilitate our Client (s) in relation to your visa application to check, access such data or obtain the transmission of the data for the purpose of visa decision. We will never transfer your personal data in an unsafe or unsecure way.

If we transfer your personal data to other countries in which applicable laws do not offer the same level of data privacy and protection, we take measures to provide an appropriate level of data privacy and protection by using our Binding Corporate rules or by entering into Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the China Authorities with the data importers.

Through the implementation of our Binding Corporate Rules or Standard Contractual Clauses you can rest assured that your personal data is protected when transferred internationally within Teleperformance Group.

16.1. How do we collect your personal data?

We obtain personal data about you when you use our services in relation to your visa application, when you come to our Visa Application Centre (VAC) as a visitor and/or when you use some of our additional services.

16.2. What do we collect?

We will use, store or otherwise process any of your personal data in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Notice, including but not limited to:

• Personal details: name, email address, telephone number, postal address, etc.
• Financial data: payment details.
• CCTV images for general surveillance.

When we collect personal data through forms, including but not limited to electronic forms, we will indicate the mandatory fields via asterisks. Failure to provide the data marked with an asterisk could prevent you from accessing a service of ours.

16.3. How is your personal data used?

We will never sell your personal data or use it in any way without your direct knowledge.

We may use your personal data for example to:

• Provide you with some additional services that you request, which are provided by TLScontact for its own account or for the account of certain TLScontact trusted partners (i.e. service directly linked or not to the visa application) and process your payments;
• Ensure the security of TLScontact’s employees, visitors, customers and premises;
• Answer your inquiries and/or resolve any dispute relating to TLScontact services;
• Request your feedback on our services in order to allow us to improve the quality of our services. You can withdraw your consent to receive any question regarding the quality of our services at any time by contacting us on-line through the Feedback and Complaints page such as explained further under article 3 here below or by contacting our Personal Information at the email address indicated here above;
• Send you marketing communications (with your consent) - we will not share your personal data with third parties for marketing purposes unless you have explicitly consented. You can withdraw this consent at any time by contacting us on-line where applicable.

To process your personal data lawfully we need to rely on one or more valid legal grounds. The grounds we may rely upon are for example:

• Where we process your personal data to provide you with the services requested, to deal with your enquiries and claims relating to such services, to handle your payments, etc., the legal basis of the processing is the performance of the agreement (in specific the Terms of Services and your parent(s)/guardian(s) oral agreement with us) between us and you.
• Where we process your personal data to deal with your enquiries that are not related to a specific service, to send you marketing communications, to request feedback on our services or to protect our employees, visitors and premises, the legal basis of the processing is your parent(s)/guardian(s)’ consent.
• Where the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, the data processing is based on such legal obligation.

16.4. How long we store personal data?

We review our retention periods for personal data on a regular basis. We generally keep your personal data for as long as it is necessary for the purpose for which the personal data is processed (i.e. for the duration of the provision of the service, during your presence in our premises, for maximum 1 month regarding CCTV images and for 1 year from the last contact with you regarding marketing communications, where applicable and permitted by the local legislation). We may however be required to hold some types of personal data longer to fulfil our statutory obligations or in accordance with the applicable statute of limitations.

16.5. Who has access to your personal data?

TLScontact group or Teleperformance group of companies

We may share your personal data with companies belonging to the TLScontact group or to Teleperformance group where for instance it is necessary to process your requests, to provide you with the relevant services or to request your feedback on our services.

Third parties for legal reasons

We will share personal data with third parties:

• To comply with legal obligations and respond to requests from government agencies, including law enforcement and other public authorities, which may include such authorities outside your country of residence.
• In the event of a merger, sale, restructure, acquisition, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).
• To protect our rights, users, systems, and services.

Third party service providers working on our behalf

We may pass your personal data to our third-party service providers, subcontractors and other associated organizations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf. We will only disclose personal data that is necessary to deliver the service. Before sharing any personal data we make sure that all service providers are contractually obliged to and can prove that your personal data:

• Will be kept secure and confidential;
• Is stored for only as long as required to process service;
• Will never be used for anything other than to process the requested service;
• Will never be used for any marketing purpose by the third party except to the extent you consent upon this.

To check the details of those who have access to your personal data, please click HERE.

16.6. Overseas transfer of your personal data

Due to the nature of our business, your personal data may be transferred beyond the borders of your Country. By applying for a visa or other related service your personal information will be transferred to the country or with the Government Authority you are applying to. We will never transfer your personal data in an unsafe or unsecure way.

If we transfer your personal data to other countries in which applicable laws do not offer the same level of data privacy and protection, we take measures to provide an appropriate level of data privacy and protection.

Through the implementation of our Binding Corporate Rules or the Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the China Authorities, you can rest assured that your personal data is protected when transferred internationally within Teleperformance group.

16.7. Use of cookies

Our website is no different from other websites and uses cookies to function properly and make your browsing experience easier. For example cookies can help the website remember you and during your next visit you won’t have to choose your preferred language again.

Our websites also use Google Analytics, a service which transmits website traffic data to Google servers. Google Analytics does not identify individual users or associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. We use reports provided by Google Analytics to help us understand website traffic and webpage usage.

You can turn off cookies for our website through the settings page on your browser.

We want to ensure you remain in control of your personal data. Part of this is making sure you understand your rights, which are as follows:

• Access/Copy – the right to access or copy your personal data, obtain a confirmation of your personal data we currently hold.
• Rectify – the right to inaccurate data rectified.
• Erase – the right to have your sensitive data erased (however, this is not an absolute right and TLScontact may have legal or legitimate grounds for keeping such sensitive personal data).
• Restrict – the right, in some cases, to restrict processing of your sensitive personal data.
• Object – the right to object to the processing of your sensitive personal data in compliance with local laws.
• Portability - the right to request to transmit your data to another processor. This right only applies when certain conditions stipulated by the Chinese Authorities shall be met.
• Withdraw – you may withdraw your consent, at any time, for the processing of your personal data for which you have provided consent by following the Subject Access request described in this Notice. Please note that withdrawing your consent or failing to provide personal data described in this Privacy notice will impact and may stop the processing of any services that you requested or are currently enrolled in.

To exercise your rights to your personal data, all you need to do is to have your parent(s)/guardian(s) contact us directly or through the Feedback and Complaints page, fill in the short request form and choose the “Personal Data Request” category in the “Reason for contact” field. You can also exercise theses rights by contacting the Diplomatic Mission when such rights relate to the visa/immigration application.

When the request is submitted to TLScontact, we will send you a confirmation of acknowledging your request and will process or hand over your request to our Client without undue delay.

We or our Client may contact you to clarify your request, seek additional information or to verify your identity before processing.

If you feel that your right have been impacted, please contact our Personal Information Protection Officer.

You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority in your country.

“Profiling” means any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyze or predict aspects concerning that natural person’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location or movements.

TLScontact does not do profiling.

For more information about potential use of profiling by the Client, please contact the relevant Diplomatic Mission.

Our website may contain links to other websites. We are not responsible for the content or functionality of any of those external websites.

If an external website requests personal data from you (e.g. in connection with an order for goods or services), the data you provide will not be covered by this Privacy Notice. We suggest you read the privacy notice of any website before providing any personal data.

When purchasing goods or services from any of the businesses that our site links to, you will be entering into a contract with them (agreeing to their terms and conditions) and not with TLScontact.

We will amend this Privacy notice from time to time to ensure it remains up-to-date and accurately reflects how and why we use your personal data. The current version of our Privacy notice will always be posted on our website. In case of material changes we will inform you by any appropriate means.