Privacy policy

What this policy covers

This policy covers personal data collected through 247expat.com.

It does not cover what happens after you leave this website. When you begin a visa application you enter a service operated by Retail Consulting UK Ltd, and that company's own privacy policy applies to everything you submit there. When you follow a link to buy health insurance, the distributor's privacy policy applies. Those are separate controllers making their own decisions about your data.

Who controls your data

The data controller for 247expat.com, and for the visa applications made through the service it links to, is:

Retail Consulting UK Ltd Company number 06711242 211 Manchester New Road, Manchester M24 1JT, United Kingdom info@247expat.com

One company operates the website and provides the visa services, so one controller is responsible for both your enquiry and your application. Health insurance is a separate relationship with a separate controller, described below.

If you only read the guides

Reading this website collects no personal data from you. There are no analytics scripts, no advertising pixels, no social embeds and no third-party tracking of any kind, and nothing is stored on your device. We intend to add analytics and advertising measurement behind a consent banner; when we do, this policy and the cookies page will be updated before it goes live. Nothing of the sort is running today.

Your browser requests pages from our hosting provider, which keeps standard server logs containing IP address, request time, requested URL, user agent and response status, as hosting providers do, in order to serve the site and protect it from abuse.

If you send a service enquiry

The service pages carry an enquiry form. Where that form is open it collects:

• name, email address and telephone number
• current country and nationality
• timing — how soon you intend to move
• number of adults and dependants, on services where a family discount applies
• anything you choose to write in the message field
• your consent confirmation for us to reply to the enquiry

It also records where the enquiry came from: the service, the page and site it was sent from, the first page of your visit, any campaign parameters in the link you arrived on, and an external referring website if there was one. This exists so that we know which guidance actually helped someone, and so that a person who arrives through a campaign is not miscounted.

Lawful basis. Replying to an enquiry you have sent us is processing necessary to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract. Keeping the website working and secure rests on our legitimate interests. We do not use enquiry data for marketing, and the consent box on the form is confirmation that we may reply to your enquiry — it is not a marketing opt-in.

Special category data. The enquiry form does not ask for health information, and you should not put any into the message field. Health information required for an actual visa application is handled by Retail Consulting UK Ltd under its own policy and with explicit consent.

Who else sees it

• Hostinger, our hosting provider, which serves the website and keeps the server logs described above.

• HighLevel, our customer relationship management system, which receives the enquiry and is where we work it.

• Retail Consulting UK Ltd, where your enquiry concerns a visa service it provides and you have asked us to take it forward.

We do not sell or rent personal data, and we do not share your enquiry with advertisers or data brokers. We do not run HubSpot's website tracking here: HighLevel is our customer system, and a second behavioural tracker is not something this site needs.

Both processors operate under their own published data processing agreements, which appoint them as processor, cover their sub-processors, and incorporate the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK International Data Transfer Addendum where a transfer requires them.

Transfers outside the UK and EEA

Where personal data is transferred outside the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area, it is transferred only where appropriate safeguards are in place, such as standard contractual clauses or another lawful transfer mechanism.

How long it is kept

An enquiry that does not become a client is kept for 24 months and then deleted or anonymised, unless there is a separate legal or contractual reason to keep it. Twenty-four months is deliberate rather than indefinite: people often enquire about moving to Spain a year or more before they actually go, and we would rather still have the context when they come back than start again — but an ordinary sales lead is not kept forever.

Server logs are kept by our hosting provider for its standard operational period.

For visa services, Retail Consulting UK Ltd retains administrative and contractual records for up to six years and visa documentation for up to five years unless a longer period is legally required, with financial records kept in accordance with UK statutory requirements.

Your rights

To exercise any of these, write to info@247expat.com.

You have the right to access your personal data, to have inaccurate data corrected, to ask for erasure, to restrict processing in certain circumstances, to object to processing based on legitimate interests, to data portability, and to withdraw consent where processing rests on consent. Exercising a right costs nothing.

Where your request concerns a visa application, it should go to Retail Consulting UK Ltd as the controller of that data.

Security

We apply appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against unauthorised access, loss, alteration and disclosure. The website is served over HTTPS. No method of transmission over the internet is entirely secure, and absolute security cannot be guaranteed.

Children

This website and the services referred to on it are intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18 through this website. Where a visa application includes a child, that data is handled by Retail Consulting UK Ltd with the authorisation of a parent or guardian.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how your data has been handled, tell us first so we can put it right: info@247expat.com.

You may also complain to a supervisory authority: in the United Kingdom, the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk; in Spain, the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos at aepd.es.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the updated version is published here.