Privacy Policy

The Home Office reserves the right to gather information relating to site usage. Any information gathered is primarily for internal use to allow us to refine and improve our customer service. Where disclosure of information to a third party is likely we will, where possible, endeavor to ensure that this is clearly indicated. This does not affect your statutory rights.

This site uses an online measuring package called SiteStat which uses cookies to identify repeat visits. Our site is also carrying banner advertising for government services which use cookies in order to avoid you seeing the same advertisements repeated over and over, and to allow us to gauge the number of people viewing a campaign or particular web page.

Cookies are pieces of data created when you visit a site, and contain a unique, anonymous number. They are stored in the cookie directory of your hard drive, and do not expire at the end of your session. Cookies used by the Home Office contain no personal information about the user, nor does our website elicit or store any information from users other than the Internet Protocol address of the computer used to access the site. Cookies on this site may safely be turned off by users without affecting how pages are displayed.

Online visa applications and the Data Protection Act
Under the Data Protection Act, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you and all information will be treated in confidence.  The UK Border Agency is processing the personal data on the electronic visa application forms and related data for the purpose of promoting and protecting the interests of the United Kingdom and its citizens abroad. The data may be disclosed to other UK Government Departments, agencies, local authorities, foreign governments and other bodies for immigration purposes.  Applicants submitting their visa application in the United States of America will have their biometric data checked against Department of Homeland Security records.  For further information on this arrangement please refer to the visainfoservices website.

Online visa applications - What information do we collect?
We collect all the personal information you complete on the visa application electronic forms. All the information is sent over a 128 bit secure encrypted connection.

Online visa applications - Cookies
Our online visa application system does not use cookies.

Links to external sites
Our website contains links to other websites, both those of government departments and of other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our site, so you should always be aware when you are moving to another site. Please read the privacy statement of any site which collects personal information.

Your queries
If you send an email or letter to The Home Office UK Border Agency asking for information, we may need to contact other government departments to find that information. If your question is technical, we may need to pass it to our technology suppliers. We do not pass on any of your personal information when dealing with your enquiry, unless you have given us permission to do so. Once we have replied to you, we keep a record of your messages for up to six months for reference and audit purposes, after which it is deleted.

Changes to this privacy policy
If this privacy policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with other parties.