VFS Partner respects and values your privacy. With this Privacy Policy, we are committed to ensuring your privacy and the confidentiality of your personal data when you use our website or communicate with us.
By accessing our website and/or communicating with us by email or through other channels, you agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with any part of this Privacy Policy, you must notify us and stop using our website. We will then not be able to provide any further legal or related services to you.

We process the personal data you provide to us when communicating with us (e.g. name, email and postal address, telephone number, language preference, job title, business connections and content of communication). The personal data may relate to you as well as to your employees and agents. In some cases, personal data may be supplemented with information from public sources, such as online media or employer websites, to obtain further information so that we can communicate effectively with you.

We use personal data to manage our relationship with you and to communicate with you, for example, to send you newsletters and invitations to events, training programmes or lectures, to maintain our contact list and/or to provide you with other information that you request from us. Personal data will only be used by us and our external partners (who are required to protect your personal data to the same extent as we are).

We do not subject you to profiling or automated decision making. Personal data relating to communications with you will be retained for as long as you are in business contact with us, subject to any applicable legal or regulatory retention obligations.

In order to provide our services, we work together with external partners (data processors). The condition for the cooperation is that the data processing of the commissioned processors complies with the DSG and DSGVO. In individual cases, the relevant data protection regulations may differ from ours. Personal data is disclosed to data processors solely for the purpose of fulfilling our services and only to the extent necessary for this purpose. We do not sell your personal data to third parties and do not pass it on to third parties without your consent, unless we are obliged to do so under applicable law.

Data processing servers may be located abroad and data processors may be based abroad. However, we only work with data processors who are committed to data processing that complies with the DSG and DSGVO.

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your device when you visit the VFS Partner website or open our marketing-related emails (e.g. newsflashes or invitations to events or webinars). Cookies (including third-party cookies such as tracking technologies provided by Google Analytics) are used in particular to improve the website or for general marketing purposes by collecting information about the interaction of unique browser-device pairs with the website (such as the number of sessions and time spent on the site), statistical information about interaction with the site (including referrals, popularity of certain content, access to user categories, markets, regions, languages, demographics, browser and device types and similar information) or statistical information about interaction with our marketing emails (e.g. whether they were opened or forwarded or whether links were clicked).

Third-party service providers such as Google may track your use of our website, combine this information with information from other websites you have visited (which they also track) and use this combined information for their own purposes. If you have registered with the relevant service providers, they may be able to identify you. In these cases, the processing of your personal data is governed by their privacy policies (for information on how Google uses your personal data when you use our website, visit the website of Google).

You can change your browser settings to delete and block cookies (or to disable Google Analytics by downloading and installing the Google browser add-on). If you continue to use the VFS Partner website without changing your settings (or without using the add-on, if applicable), you consent to the use of cookies by us and our third-party providers.

We automatically collect a range of technical data each time you access this website. This data is considered personal data. These are:

• IP address of the user
• Name of the website or file accessed
• Date and time of access
• Message about successful retrieval
• Browser type and version
• Operating system of the user
• Referrer URL (the website previously visited)

Server log files are not merged with other personal data. We collect server log files for the purpose of administering and improving the website and to be able to recognise and prevent unauthorised access. Server log files containing the above-mentioned data will be deleted after 6 months at the latest, unless there is a justified interest or a service-oriented request. We reserve the right to store the server log files for longer if there are facts that suggest the assumption of unauthorised access.

When processing personal data for the purposes described herein, we rely on your consent to this Privacy Policy, our legitimate interests in communicating with you as a business contact, about our business and events and/or our performance of any contract, or any other reason for lawfully processing your personal data in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

We limit the use of and access to your personal data to those who absolutely need to know it in order to allow you to access our website and/or communicate with you. We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to maintain the confidentiality and integrity of your personal information. We ensure that our systems are safe and secure and we ensure compliance with all applicable data protection and security laws.

You have the right to be informed by us about any processing of your personal data in order to verify the lawfulness of the processing. If you are affected by inaccurate or incomplete personal data, you can request the correction or completion of the corresponding data. To the extent permitted by applicable law, you may in certain cases request the erasure of your personal data or a temporary restriction of processing, and you may also object to the processing of your personal data, in which case, however, we may not be able to provide relevant services.

If you have any questions or are dissatisfied with the processing of your personal data by us, you can contact us anytime at the addresses given on our website.