Privacy Policy

1. Information we collect

When you submit an enquiry through this website, message us on WhatsApp or call us, we collect the information you choose to give us.

An enquiry sent through the form or the chat widget is saved to our own records at the moment you submit it, before WhatsApp opens. That is so we can still reply to you if WhatsApp fails to open, or if you close it without pressing send. It is the same information you can see in the message that was prepared for you.

• Your name and contact details, including phone number, WhatsApp number and email address
• The service and destination you are enquiring about, and anything you tell us about your case
• Documents you send us for the purpose of processing an application you have engaged us for
• Basic technical data such as the page you enquired from, referring website and campaign parameters
• A partial record of the network you connected from — the last part of your IP address is removed before it is stored, which is enough to recognise automated abuse and not enough to identify you

2. Why we collect it

We use your information to respond to your enquiry, to prepare and process the services you engage us for, and to keep you updated on your case.

We also use aggregate, non-identifying data to understand which pages generate enquiries so we can improve the website.

3. Who we share it with

We share your information only where it is necessary to deliver the service you have asked for.

• Embassies, consulates, visa application centres and immigration authorities, where you have engaged us to make an application
• Airlines, hotels, insurers and transport providers, where you have asked us to make a booking
• A partner consultancy where your case is handled with or referred to them — we tell you before any document is shared, and they are bound by equivalent confidentiality obligations
• Service providers who host this website and store our records under confidentiality obligations

4. What we do not do

We do not sell your contact details. We do not pass your number to unrelated marketing lists. We do not send bulk promotional messages to people who only made an enquiry.

5. Storage and security

Original documents you provide are held securely and returned to you against a signed receipt. Never hand originals to anyone — including us — without one.

Digital copies are kept while your case is open and for up to three years afterwards, which covers reapplication, follow-up enquiries and our own tax and record-keeping obligations. After that they are deleted. You can ask us to delete them sooner, and we will unless we are required to keep them.

Enquiry records are held in a password-protected system that only our own staff can reach. They are kept on the same basis and for the same period as the documents above.

6. Your choices

You may ask us at any time to tell you what information we hold about you, to correct it, or to delete it where we are not required to keep it. Write to info@apkavisa.pk and we will respond.

You can ask us to stop contacting you at any point, and we will.

7. WhatsApp

Most of our work happens over WhatsApp. Messages there are end-to-end encrypted between your phone and ours, but they are still stored on both devices, and WhatsApp itself holds metadata about the exchange under its own privacy policy, not ours.

Never send anyone banking credentials, card numbers, passwords or one-time codes over WhatsApp — we will never ask for them, and anybody who does is defrauding you whoever they claim to be.

8. Cookies and analytics

This website uses only what is needed to function, plus Google Analytics to understand traffic. It tells us which pages people arrive on and which ones lead to an enquiry, so we know what is worth writing more of.

Google Analytics sets a cookie and records your approximate location, browser and the pages you visit. We see it only as aggregated figures — we cannot pick you out of it, and we never combine it with the details you send us in an enquiry. Google processes it under its own privacy policy, not ours.

It does not run on our staff pages. If you would rather not be counted at all, any browser extension that blocks analytics will stop it, and nothing on this site will break.

In our directory, an agency's photo is shown from Google's servers, so your browser asks Google for it as it would for any picture on the web. An agency's map loads from Google Maps only when you tap it; Google Maps may then set its own cookies, under Google's privacy policy. If you never tap a map, it never loads.

9. Agencies in our directory

Our directory shows each listed agency's business details — its name, address, phone, WhatsApp, email and website — publicly, because that is what a listing is. For an agency added from its public Google Business listing, the profile also shows what that listing says: its opening hours, map location, photo, Google rating and review topics, with the date we read them. Where it gives a mobile number, that number is shown as its WhatsApp. When an agency applies for a listing or asks us to update one, we keep what it sends, including its contact person's name and number, to check the request and reply to it.

When somebody presses a listing's WhatsApp, Call or Website button, or its enquiry form's button, we record which button, on which page and from which campaign — and nothing about the person who pressed it. We also count how many times a day each profile is viewed: a number, and nothing about who viewed it. The agency sees these counts in its dashboard.

An agency pays for a paid tier directly to us, by bank transfer or mobile wallet. We keep a record of each payment — which tier it was for, the amount, the date, the payment reference and the name on the account it came from — for as long as the listing exists and our accounts require, because it is the record of what was paid for. We never ask for card details.

10. Reviews of agencies

When you review an agency on its profile, we keep what you write — the rating, title and review — with your name, your city, the service you used and your email address. The review, your name, your city and the service are shown publicly once the review is published. Your email address is never shown and never given to the agency: we use it only to send you the link that confirms the review is yours, and to tell us apart from somebody using your name.

We also keep a partial record of the network you wrote it from, with the last part of the address removed, as we do for enquiries. It lets us spot several reviews coming from one place, which is a sign of fake reviews, and it cannot identify you.

A review you never confirm is never published, and we delete it after 30 days. A published review stays on the agency's profile while the listing exists. To have your review taken down, write to us from the same email address, and we will remove it and keep only a note that it was removed at your request.

11. Agencies' dashboard logins

Featured and Sponsored agencies have a login to their own dashboard. For each login we keep the email address it signs in with, its password in a one-way scrambled form that cannot be turned back into the password, and when it last signed in. We send that address the emails the dashboard needs: the link to set a password, and our decisions on what the agency sends us. A login stops working when the listing is no longer Featured or Sponsored, and we delete it when the agency asks.

What an agency sends from its dashboard — changes to its details, photos, replies to reviews and its reasons for disputing one — is kept with the date and the login that sent it, so we can check it before anything appears and keep a record of what we decided.

12. Contact

Questions about this policy should go to info@apkavisa.pk, or to our office at 226B Tulip Extension Commercial, Sector C, Bahria Town, Lahore.