Privacy Policy

The short version

VL Study Abroad Consultants collects the details you type into a form here so that a counsellor can write back to you. That is the whole purpose. We do not sell your details, we do not pass them to anyone who is not working on your application, and if you ask us to delete them, we delete them.

What we collect

Only what you type in. Depending on which form you used, that is:

• Your name, email address and phone or WhatsApp number.
• Your current qualification, and the country, intake and programme you have in mind.
• Whatever you choose to write in a message or notes box.
• If you booked a call, the day and time you picked.

Cookies and how we measure the site

The first time you open the site we ask whether we may measure how it gets used. Nothing is stored before you answer, and nothing is stored at all if you say no. The site behaves exactly the same either way.

If you say yes, we use Google Analytics. It sets a cookie and records which pages you open, roughly how long you stay, the rough area you are in (worked out from your IP address, which is shortened before it is stored) and what device and browser you are on. We look at it for one reason: to see which pages are actually helping students, so we know what to write more of.

Your answer is saved in your browser so you are not asked again on every visit. You can change it whenever you like, using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Clearing your browser data clears it too, and you will simply be asked again next time.

We do not run ads, we do not build a profile of you, and we do not share anything with advertisers. The advertising and personalisation features in Google Analytics are switched off.

What we never collect

One line worth reading twice. If somebody contacts you claiming to be us and asks for a bank transfer or a card number through a web form, it is not us. Call the number on the contact page before you pay anybody anything.

• We never ask for your passport number, CNIC, bank details or card details through this website.
• There are no advertising trackers, retargeting pixels or profiling cookies anywhere on the site.
• If you say no to the measurement above and do not send a form, we hold nothing at all about your visit.

Where it goes, and who else sees it

When you send a form it arrives as an email in our own inbox, a counsellor reads it and replies. It stays in that inbox, and for students who go on to become clients, in our own working notes for the application. We work entirely online and keep no paper files, so there is no filing cabinet in an office somewhere with your documents in it.

We do not sell your details and we do not hand them to other consultancies, agents or lead buying services. If your information needs to reach a university, a scholarship body or an embassy, that happens only for a student who has asked us to make that application, and it goes to that institution and nowhere else.

• Our website host, which serves these pages and runs the small program that emails your form to us.
• Google, which carries and stores that email in Gmail, and Google Analytics if you agreed to the measurement above.
• WhatsApp, owned by Meta, if you choose to message us there. That conversation is covered by WhatsApp’s own privacy terms rather than ours.

Some of these companies are based outside Pakistan, so your details may sit on servers in other countries, including the United States and the European Union.

How long we keep it

If you enquire and then decide not to go ahead, we keep the enquiry for as long as it is still useful to you. Students often come back a year later for the next intake. Ask us to delete it at any point and we will.

If you become a client, we keep the records tied to your application while we are working on it and for a reasonable period afterwards, because a question about a visa or an enrolment can turn up months later.

Your choices

Email us and say what you want. There is no form to fill in for this. We will not ask you to prove anything beyond enough for us to be sure it is really you, and we answer within 30 days, usually much sooner.

If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the law there gives you these rights directly, and you can complain to your national data protection authority if you think we have handled your details badly. We would far rather you told us first, so we can put it right.

• Ask what we hold about you and we will tell you.
• Ask us to correct anything that is wrong.
• Ask us to delete your details and we will, unless we are in the middle of an application you asked us to run.
• Ask us to stop contacting you and we stop.
• Ask for a copy of what you gave us, in a form you can pass to someone else.
• Change your mind about the measurement cookie whenever you like, using the buttons at the bottom of this page.

Photographs on this site

The photographs of Umer and Kashan on the About page are really them. The quotes on the success story cards come from students we have worked with, but the portraits beside those quotes are illustrations rather than photographs, so no student is identifiable from a picture they never agreed to. If a student does agree to appear with their real name and photograph, we ask them in writing first, and they can change their mind at any time.

Children

This site is for students applying to university. If you are under 18, go through the enquiry with a parent or guardian. They will need to be part of the funding and the visa file anyway.

Changes

If this policy changes we update the date at the top of the page. This is a plain description of how we actually work rather than a document drafted by a lawyer, and it is not legal advice.