Privacy Policy

Our ideas and insights on navigating the complexities of the immigration landscapes
VANGUARD VISA LAW PC PRIVACY POLICY
Effective Date: June 1, 2024

Vanguard Visa Law PC, our related affiliates, and subsidiaries (collectively, “Vanguard Visa Law” or “we”) want to ensure that our clients, their employees, and any affected data subjects (“you”) are informed about the security and use of the personal information that we receive and process on your behalf.

Accordingly, this Privacy Notice (“Privacy Notice”) is intended to inform you about Vanguard Visa Law’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:
• Exercise your right to object to the processing of certain aspects of your data under applicable laws
• Access, correct, or delete your data
• Ask any questions you may have about our privacy practices
• In some instances, we are engaged directly by corporations or business groups, which results in the processing of employee information at their request. Where we refer to “employer” below, it is in these circumstances that corporations or other business groups have engaged us to act. You may at any time, if you prefer, address any concerns directly to your employer, where applicable.

BROWSING OR USING OUR SITE DOES NOT MAKE YOU OUR CLIENT
Please be advised that browsing the website or using its services or functionality does not make you a client of Vanguard Visa Law. The site is provided for general informational purposes and convenience, not for creating an attorney-client relationship. You should contact an attorney or local bar association for legal advice.

PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU
Vanguard Visa Law collects certain personal information about you and, if required, your family members and employer to provide immigration consulting and legal services. We cannot provide the services requested if we are not provided with all relevant personal information.

CLIENT SERVICES
For purposes of providing client services, including the applicable legal services and immigration consulting services you or your employer request, Vanguard Visa Law collects and processes personal information such as name, address, telephone number, date of birth, marital status, passport number, employment history, educational background, tax status, employee number, job title and function, and expatriate status through our case management system, or in conversation with our lawyers, consultants, and staff. Where required for the service, Vanguard Visa Law collects certain personal documents such as passport copies, educational records, CVs, visa copies, birth certificates, and other materials.

We also obtain personal information from third-party sources, such as former employers, educational institutions you attended, relocation companies, and your current or prospective employer. We use this information to provide immigration consulting and legal services, including analyzing, completing, and processing immigration, visa, and related filings and submissions to relevant government agencies, providing legal and consultative advice on eligibility to obtain immigration benefits, and assisting with relocation and other expatriate issues.

We 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 client’s global mobility programs (such as visa expiration tracking, immigration program compliance, etc.), providing access to online case-management tools, where applicable, and analyzing immigration trends, such as visa processing times and government approval rates. Where your employer engages us, we process your personal information because it is in our legitimate interests to fulfill our contract with your employer for client services.

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

PRE-EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION
Certain countries require verification of new employees’ employment eligibility at the time of hire. Examples of such requirements include the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (“IRCA”) in the United States and the Immigration, Asylum, and Nationality Act of 2006 in the United Kingdom, pursuant to which CIP collects and processes personal information such as your name, email address, home address, military service, and citizenship status.

INFORMATION REQUESTS
If you request information about our services directly, you may choose to provide personal information such as your name, address, email address, and telephone number. We use your information to respond to your request.

OTHER USES OF INFORMATION
Where it is in our legitimate interests and not outweighed by your data protection rights, we use the personal information we collect and process for client and Vanguard Visa Law administration, compliance audits, compliance with Vanguard Visa Law policies and procedures, ensuring the security and integrity of our services and in ensuring that our Information Technology (IT) systems function effectively.
Furthermore, 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

IMMIGRATION SERVICES
Governments worldwide require collecting and processing a wide variety of personal information from foreign nationals seeking to enter the country and obtaining immigration benefits such as employment authorization or residency status. Governments require this information for reasons such as the protection of borders, health, sovereignty, national security, and the regulation of the local employment market. Specific categories of personal information may be considered “sensitive” and are subject to a higher level of data protection. These categories may include race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, sex life or sexual orientation, physical or mental health or condition, data relating to offenses or criminal convictions, and biometric data, such as fingerprints when used to uniquely identify you.

In the context of the services we provide, Vanguard Visa Law collects sensitive personal information when submitting such data is necessary to comply with the country’s legal obligations in which you are seeking a visa or work permit. Vanguard Visa Law may need to inquire about certain sensitive information to provide legal or consultative advice about your eligibility to travel to or obtain an immigration benefit from a specific country. For instance, we may need to ask whether you have been previously convicted of any criminal offenses, have particular political affiliations, or other personal matters when the local applicable immigration laws would require such data for purposes of preparing an application or petition on your behalf or evaluating whether certain personal information would bar you from entering the country. In some instances, the laws of EU member states require that we process sensitive personal data for these purposes as permitted by the terms of the GDPR; on other occasions, we will ask for your explicit consent.

INFORMATION WE COLLECT BY AUTOMATED MEANS
We use cookies and related technologies on our websites to understand how many users visited our sites and the pages they accessed to tailor our web services to our visitors.

COOKIES
Cookies are small text files placed on your computer’s hard drive when you visit certain websites that help collect data. We may use cookies to tell us, for example, whether you have visited us before or are a new visitor and to help us identify site features in which you may have the most significant interest. Cookies may enhance your online experience by saving your preferences while visiting a particular site.
Most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, be notified when you receive a new cookie, and disable existing cookies. However, please note that you may not be able to take advantage of all our website features without cookies.

LOG FILES, USAGE DATA, AND IP ADDRESSES
Log files are web server files (containing information such as domain name or IP address, URL, HTTP response code, or the date and duration of your visit) that are automatically created when an Internet user visits a website. An IP address is an identifier that specific electronic devices use to identify and communicate with each other on the internet. When you visit our website, our servers log your IP address. In combination with other data, this information helps us understand which features are of interest to our visitors and the regions of the world where these visitors are located. Also, log files help detect disruptions that may interfere with the provision of our website.

INFORMATION WE SHARE
We will not sell, share, transfer, rent, use, or distribute your information for purposes other than those disclosed unless required by law or as authorized by you or your employer. We share the information you provide among our subsidiaries, affiliates, and your current or prospective employer or a third party as your employer instructs us, as appropriate or necessary in connection with the services (such as your employer’s relocation provider or to protect the interests of any person, where permitted by applicable law. Where your employer retains our services on your behalf, we share your personal information as instructed by your employer for tax purposes, to assist you in obtaining relocation services, and for any other purpose required to provide the services as permitted by applicable law.

As part of the immigration consulting and legal services we have been directed to provide, Vanguard Visa Law discloses personal information to government agencies, former, current, prospective employers, and related entities. To obtain immigration benefits on your or your employer’s behalf, we will disclose personal information to government agencies and immigration authorities.We also share the information with certain service providers we have retained in connection with our services, such as translators, education evaluation services, couriers, or other necessary entities. We take steps to require that service providers protect the information consistently with this Privacy Notice. These service providers are authorized to use the information only as necessary to perform services on our behalf or to comply with the law or legal process. We will take reasonable steps to prevent or stop the processing when we know that a service provider processes your personal information in a manner contrary to this Privacy Notice.

We will disclose information about you:
• If we are required to do so by law or legal process
• To law enforcement authorities or other government officials
• When we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to prevent physical harm or financial loss in connection with an investigation of suspected or actual illegal activity
• If required to protect the vital interests of any person

HOW WE PROTECT PERSONAL INFORMATION

We seek to ensure that any personal information that we hold about you is accurate, complete, current, and otherwise reliable based on data you or an employer provide to provide immigration consulting and legal services. We seek to collect only personal information that is adequate, relevant, and not excessive for these purposes.

We maintain appropriate administrative, technical, organizational, and physical safeguards to protect against the loss, misuse, or unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction of personal information.

We educate our employees and strive to maintain appropriate standards of conduct regarding protecting personal information.

We take steps to require that third parties who assist in our provision of services abide by all applicable privacy and data protection laws and prohibit them from using your information other than in connection with the services they have been engaged to provide.

We retain personal information for only as long as we need it to provide the services you or your employer has requested, for our own administration and internal purposes, and for any periods that are mandated by law or otherwise agreed to with our clients, after which, we take steps to delete or anonymize the information.

CHILDREN’S INFORMATION
When it comes to the collection of personal information from children under the age of 13 years old, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) puts parents in control. The Federal Trade Commission and the United States Consumer Protection Agency enforce the COPPA Rule, which spells out what operators of websites and online services must do to protect children’s privacy and safety online. Vanguard Visa Law does not solicit children who are less than 13 years of age. Vanguard Visa Law does not knowingly acquire, store, or use personal information relating to children under 13 years of age unless it is in the course of what is necessary for visa applications. If Vanguard Visa Law learns that confidential information of persons under 13 years of age (other than Service Data) has been collected via the website without parental consent, then Vanguard Visa Law will take appropriate steps to delete this information from its systems.

YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS
Under California Civil Code Section 1798.83, California users are entitled to request information relating to whether a business has disclosed personal information to any third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes.


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 the service you (or your employer) requested. For example, the Government requires specific personal data to review applications, screen foreign nationals, issue visas and other work authorization documents, etc. We also provide your personal information to local advisors, translators, and other service providers where it is necessary to provide the service you requested.

YOUR CHOICES AND RIGHTS
As stated above, Vanguard Visa Law may collect certain information about you in conjunction with providing immigration consulting and legal services. We will respect your decision if your employer subsequently informs us or if you instruct us directly and tell us that you wish to opt out of personal information. If sensitive personal information is involved in delivering 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 the requested service or follow the requirements of applicable laws. We will track the identical procedure if we disclose personal information to third parties expected to process the personal data for their independent purposes.

We also will assist our clients in providing you, or provide you directly, where appropriate, with 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 information in a structured, machine-readable format. We may, where applicable, use reasonable efforts to assist your employer in responding to a request to access, correct, delete, or restrict the processing of your personal information or, where required by law, respond directly to such a request within a reasonable period. If you or your employer informs us in writing that you wish to opt out of future processing of personal information, we will respect your request.

To help protect your privacy and the security of your information, Vanguard Visa Law takes reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access to information. Where we rely solely on your consent, you may withdraw it anytime. 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 to jeopardize your rights before further processing may continue. To exercise these rights, please contact your employer or Vanguard Visa Law, as applicable. If you have unresolved concerns 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.

UPDATES TO OUR PRIVACY NOTICE
This Privacy Notice may be updated periodically without prior notice to reflect changes in our information practices. We will post a notice on our relevant 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 controller for your personal information is Vanguard Visa Law PC.
If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Notice directed at any of the data controllers listed above, please email our data protection officer at [email protected].

You also may write to us at:
Vanguard Visa Law PC
1049 El Monte Ave Ste C10
Mountain View, California 94040
(650) 275-3124