Privacy Notice for Fragomen Educational Services (“FES”)

Fragomen Immigration Services India Pvt. Ltd. and our related affiliates (collectively, “Fragomen” or "we") want to ensure that all data subjects, including but not limited to a student, parent, guardian and any affected ("you"), are informed about the use and security of your personal information that we receive and process.

Accordingly, this Privacy Notice (“Privacy Notice”) is intended to inform you about Fragomen’s privacy practices. It describes the types of personal information we collect, how we may use that information, with whom it may be shared, and the measures taken to ensure its security.

In addition, we provide information on how to contact us to: (1) exercise your right to object to the processing of certain aspects of your personal information in accordance with applicable laws; (2) access, correct, or delete your personal information; (3) ask any questions you may have about our privacy practices.

Personal Information We Collect and How We Use It

Personal Information We Collect About You

Educational Consulting Services

Fragomen collects certain personal information for the purposes of providing educational consulting services (“Services”). Personal information will include information about a student and their parent or guardian. We will not be able to provide the services requested if we are not provided with all relevant personal information.

Below are set forth the purposes for which personal information is used and examples of the types of information that may be required. If, through the course of our representation, you request additional services, such as visa application assistance, test preparation, affiliate services, etc., we may be required to collect additional types of personal information to provide the requested services.

For purposes of providing the Services, Fragomen collects and processes personal information [such as name, address, telephone number, date of birth, marital status, passport number, professional credentials and skills, educational and work history, transcripts, salary, evaluations, references, interviews, certifications, disciplinary matters, bank and credit account information, health record]. Where required for the Services, Fragomen collects certain personal documents [such as passport copies, educational documents, visa copies, birth certificates, resume, curriculum vitae or cover letter and other documents].

We obtain the personal information from a number of sources such as our online portals, our mobile website or applications, online questionnaires and forms you complete, and other information you provide directly to us, including by email or in conversation with our consultants and staff. In addition, we obtain personal information from third-party sources [such as educational institutions you attended, your former, current, or prospective employer, recruiters, counsellors, test centers, banks, travel and ticketing service providers]. We use this information to provide the Services, including analyzing, completing, and processing related filings and submissions to [your destination education institutions].

We also use your personal information in other instances in connection with the services we provide. This use occurs only when there is a legitimate interest to do so that is not overridden by your data protection rights as required by law [such as assisting in the management and administration of our education consultation programs and analyzing education application trends].

Immigration Consulting Services

If you require us to provide immigration consulting and legal services, our Group Privacy Notice Immigration Privacy Notice shall apply.

In addition to providing the Services, we process personal information to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations including record-keeping requirements. For example, we process personal information under “know your customer”, anti-money laundering regulations, anti-bribery regulations and professional regulations.

Other Uses of Information

Where it is in our legitimate interests and not outweighed by your data protection rights, we use personal information we collect and process for client and Fragomen administration, compliance audits, compliance with Fragomen policies and procedures, ensuring the security and integrity of our services and in ensuring that our IT systems function effectively. We also use your personal information in assisting in the management and administration of our education consultation programs and analyzing education application trends.

In addition, we process your personal information with your consent, such as when we use your contact details to respond to a request or question by you, or where required by law.

Sensitive Personal Information

Educational Institutions worldwide require the collection and processing of a wide variety of personal information from students seeking to enter the same. Certain categories of personal information may be considered “sensitive” and are subject to a higher level of data protection. Depending on applicable data protection law [examples of sensitive personal information may include financial data, genetic, health, or biological data, data related to sexual orientation or gender status, data on caste/class/tribe, sex life, political or religious beliefs and affiliations, and criminal or police records].

In the context of the services we provide, Fragomen only collects sensitive personal information when the submission of such data is necessary to comply with the requirements of the education institution in which you are seeking entry. In some instances, the laws of EU member states require that we process sensitive personal information for these purposes as permitted by the terms of the GDPR; on other occasions we will ask for your explicit consent to process this data.

Minor’s Personal Data

An individual who is less than 18 years of age is considered a minor (“Minor”) in India. We do not knowingly collect personal data from Minors under the age of 18 without parental or guardian consent. In the event a Minor provided us with personal data without parental or guardian consent, the parent or guardian may contact us by emailing us at dataprivacy@fragomen.com and we will delete the information as quickly as possible.

Information We Transfer

Transfers Required for the Services

When we transfer your information to other countries, we will use, share, and safeguard that information as described in this Privacy Notice. We transfer personal information to third countries where it is necessary to provide you with the Services requested. We comply with applicable legal requirements when transferring Personal Information to countries other than the country where you are located.

We also share and provide your personal information to application submission platforms, translators, international language testing organizations, professional bodies, finance consultants, marketing, travel and ticketing agencies, and other service providers (e.g., entities that assist us in validating your identity, for risk assessment purposes, for fraud prevention, etc.) where it is necessary to provide the Services.

Transfers to Other Fragomen Offices

We share some of your personal information with other Fragomen offices to administer and manage group functions and provide international advisory services, and if required, immigration consulting services. For these purposes, your personal information will be processed in, or accessed from, Fragomen offices situated in jurisdictions that do not have equivalent data protection laws to those in your country of residence.

In addition, some of our global systems for providing services are hosted by our offices in the United States. We safeguard your data within the Fragomen group of companies through the use of European Commission-approved standard contractual data protection clauses.

Transfers to Other Service Providers

Your personal information will be shared with companies providing services under contract to us for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice, some of which are located outside the EEA. If you reside in the EEA, we may use standard contractual data protection clauses, which have been approved by the European Commission. For further information, including to obtain a copy of the documents used to protect your information, please contact us as described in the How to Contact Us section below.

Storage and Retention

By using our Services, you understand that any information collected about you will be stored in our CRM platform and hosted on servers residing in India.

We would like to stay in touch for as long as you would like to hear from us, but we will only retain your information as long as necessary for the purpose of the Services you engage us. As a general guide and in accordance with our Data Retention and Destruction Policy, we will archive the data after 1 year and keep your personal data for up to seven (7) years after completion of the Services to you, unless required to retain longer for legal or regulatory purposes.

Information We Collect by Automated Means

We use cookies and related technologies on our websites and other web-based interfaces, such as FES webpage platform, social media, Google searches and analytics, our mobile website, and applications. We use these technologies to understand how many users visited our sites and the pages they accessed, so that we can best tailor our web services to our visitors.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer’s hard drive when you visit certain websites that help collect data. We use necessary cookies to enable functionality of our site. We won't set optional cookies unless you enable them. Submitting your preference by using our Cookies consent tool will set a cookie on your device to remember your preferences. Should you wish to change your cookie preferences, you may do so by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking the ‘Cookies Settings’ button on the bottom left corner. You’ll be offered the list of cookies that you can activate or disable as you wish. Please note, however, that without cookies, you may not be able to take advantage of all our website features.

Automated-Processing Tool We Use

We use automated-processing tools to match your eligibility against the criteria laid down by educational institutions. We take appropriate measures to ensure that the matching results will be examined by our professional educational consultants to make sure there is no unreasonable bias, unfair, or other output that could affect your freedom of choice. You may object to automated processing by informing your consultants at any time.

Your Choices and Rights

As set out above, Fragomen may collect certain information about you in conjunction with providing educational consulting services. We will respect your decision subsequently if you instruct us directly that you wish to opt out of providing personal information. If sensitive personal information is involved for the delivery of a new purpose, we will only use your information if you actively communicate your consent to this processing to your employer or us, as applicable, when it is necessary to deliver requested service, or in accordance with the requirements of applicable laws. We will follow an identical procedure if we disclose personal information to third parties that are expected to process the personal information for their own independent purposes.

We will also assist in providing you, where appropriate, access to your personal information and, as applicable, with the ability to review and correct inaccuracies, delete unnecessary personal information, and receive a copy of your personal data in a structured machine-readable format. We may, where applicable, use reasonable efforts to assist you in responding to a request to access, correct, delete, or restrict processing of your personal information or, where required by law, to respond directly to such a request within a reasonable period of time.

To help protect your privacy and the security of your information, Fragomen takes reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access to information. Where we rely solely on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time. You may also object to processing based on our legitimate interests alone. In such instances, our business interests must be found to be compelling and not jeopardize your individual rights before further processing may continue. To exercise these rights, please contact Fragomen. If you have unresolved concerns, where provided by local law, you may have the right to complain to a data protection authority where you reside, where you work or where you believe there has been an infringement of data protection laws.

Your Obligations

If you reside in India, under the applicable data protection law you are obligated to not to impersonate someone else while providing personal information for our services, not suppress any material information while providing personal data for any documents issued by the Government, and not register a false or frivolous grievance or complaint. Noncompliance may result in a fine.

Updates to our Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice may be updated periodically without prior notice to you to reflect changes in our information practices. We will post a notice on our applicable websites or materials to advise of any significant changes to our Privacy Notice and indicate in the notice when it was most recently updated. In certain countries, additional or different procedures not inconsistent with this Privacy Notice may apply as necessary to satisfy local legal requirements.

How to Contact Us

The controllers for your personal information are Fragomen Immigration Services India Pvt. Ltd and the Fragomen office (if any) providing the services to you. If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Notice directed at any of the data controllers listed above, please contact our data protection officer by email at dataprivacy@fragomen.com. You also may write to us at:

Attn: Grievance Officer
K. Kurian, Director – Operations
kkurian@fragomen.com
Fragomen Immigration Services India Pvt. Ltd.
Ground Floor, Akemps, No.28 3rd Main,
1st Cross, Ashwini Layout, Off 100 Feet Inner Ring Road,
Ejipura, Bengaluru, 560047, India