OVEC Privacy Policy
At OVEC we understand that your privacy is important to you. We are committed to meeting your expectations and will comply with all applicable privacy and data protection legislation in relation to your personal information and sensitive information.
Here’s a summary of how we protect your privacy:
1. We only collect what we need to help you with your request or provide you with information that you ask for, personalising it to your interests.
2. We won’t hang on to your information. If we don’t need it, and you don’t want us to keep it, we’ll delete it.
3. We want you to understand everything we do with your information, so we’ll try our best to explain with no nonsense.
4. No surprises — you decide what and how you hear from us.
5. That goes for everyone. We do not pass your information to third parties for marketing purposes without your knowledge.
The rest of this policy provides you with more detail of our privacy and personal information handling practices.
Who we are
OVEC is an organisation based in Mauritius that assists individuals to study overseas. This requires us to collect personal information from you. “We”, “us” and “our” refers to OVEC.
Data Controller Contact Details
Overseas Education Centre (OVEC)
Riverview Villa
Gentilly, Moka
Mauritius
Contact our Privacy Officer via email to: ovec@ovecedu.com
We will endeavour to respond to you within a reasonable time.
International Education Information, Advice and Counselling
The services we offer to help you study overseas include counselling, application assistance, visa assistance, student exhibitions and seminars.
If you register on our websites (www.ovecedu.com or www.ovecevents.com) or register to participate in an event we will collect personal information such as your name, email address, contact details, country of residence, nationality, preferred study destination, and when you intend to study.
If you enquire about study opportunities directly with an OVEC counsellor, or we assist you with your application to study, we may also request additional information such as education qualifications, employment history, occupation, areas of interest and professional memberships, copies of documents as proof of identity – e.g. copies of passport, proof of citizenship or photographs, marital status and how you will fund your studies. We may also request sensitive information about you such as racial or ethnic origin (from information on your country of origin), and/or your health or medical information (e.g. from a medical examination required for your visa application).
Collecting your personal information allows us to:
- assist you to pursue the opportunity to undertake studies in an education institution outside your home country;
- provide you with relevant information on your study options;
- present you as a candidate to your preferred institutions across all education sectors, which are seeking to recruit international students who want to study in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Canada or New Zealand;
- assist you to further your career after completing your studies at an overseas education institution;
- provide opportunities to participate in projects/programs as consultants;
- provide opportunities to provide feedback and testimonials on your experience
- inform and provide students, institutions and other clients of developments in the services we provide (including events and opportunities to participate in projects/programs);
- conduct research for statistical, analytical and training purposes;
- manage our internal business operations and events; and
- respond to your questions.
Student Essentials Services
OVEC offers services from third parties to help support you in your studies overseas and we call these Student Essentials. These services include overseas student health coverage, accommodation arrangements, a 24/7 emergency helpline, referral to guardianship services, visa application services and career skills training.
If you purchase a Student Essentials service we may collect personal information such as your name, date of birth, and financial information, and sensitive information such as your health or medical information. We may also collect payment information, however OVEC does not store information like credit card details.
Collection of your personal information and sensitive information (such as your health or medical information) allows us to:
- provide the health insurance provider nominated by you with all relevant information for your various require health services;
- facilitate your accommodation arrangements with third party providers;
- contact the relevant organisations, authorities or other third parties in relation to your overseas guardianship application;
- contact relevant visa offices with all relevant information required for visa renewal or parent visa application;
- contact worldwide institutions or other organisations on your behalf to facilitate visits, career skills training or internship placements;
- arrange or provide other products and services to you.
Visa application services
We provide visa application services for visas including guiding you through the application process and helping you prepare the necessary documents for your nominated visa application. These visa application services not only cover visa applications required for study, but also post-study work and skilled migration visa applications.
Collection of your personal information and sensitive information (such as information from your medical examination) allows us to:
- assist you in your application for a student visa including visa offices and other organisations on your behalf to discuss your application;
- provide the relevant visa offices with all relevant information required for your visa application;
- contact the visa offices or other organisations on your behalf to discuss or ask questions about your visa application; and
- keep you updated with the progress of your visa application and advise you of the outcome of your application.
Retention
OVEC’s vision is to provide students with their dream education at every stage of their lives. This means we would like to stay in touch for as long as you would like to hear from us, but we will only retain your information as long as is necessary for the purpose it was given to us.
As a guide we will keep your personal information for up to 7 years after commencing your studies or your last activity with us so that we can continue to support you through your journey, unless required to retain it for legal or regulatory purposes
In your dealings with us for conferences and events
OVEC organises various events and conferences related to international education which are managed or presented by OVEC whether in our own right, or under contract for another organisation. The information we collect is relevant to your attendance and participation.
In registering for, or participating in, an event we collect your personal details such as name, postal and email addresses, date of birth, contact details, residency status, education qualifications, employment history, occupation, areas of interest and professional memberships.
Collection of your personal information allows us to:
- register you to attend the event;
- provide services to you related to the event (e.g. to list you as a speaker in the program or list you as an exhibitor or sponsor in our exhibitor directory)
- respond to enquiries from you pre and post the event;
- keep you informed about the event you registered for and/or future events
- manage our operations for the event, including the fulfilment of any legal requirements;
- collect customer views on our services with a view to developing new and/or improved services;
- obtain website usage data to monitor our website performance; and
- if applicable, process payment for registration or other event-related services/products e.g. accommodation payments/deposits, additional social event tickets, etc).
How we collect personal information
We will only collect personal information by lawful and fair means. Personal information may be collected directly from you or your authorised representative, or may be collected from a third party such as a licensee or representative authorised by us to provide services to you. You may supply your personal information to us when communicating with us via social networks and other online channels, e.g. through your Facebook or Twitter identity.
We do not collect personal and sensitive information unless the information is reasonably necessary for our business functions or activities. We will obtain your consent before collecting any sensitive information.
When you deal with us, you will need to identify yourself in order for us to provide our services to you, as such we do not accept the use of pseudonyms.
Disclosure to others
We may disclose your personal information to overseas recipients such as education institutions located outside your home country, overseas visa agencies, professional bodies and commercial organisations, or regulatory authorities when you have sought our assistance to apply for study at those institutions or where disclosure is required for verification purposes. As such, the location of these overseas recipients would depend on the specific institutions to which you apply or where such verification is required.
For events or conferences, we may disclose, with your consent, some of the information that is collected via the online registration form such as your name or your email address to sponsors for marketing purposes.
Some OVEC IT systems and data are hosted on servers in countries outside Mauritius and we may send your information to one of those servers as part of our business.
OVEC may hold or transfer the data we collect in or to the following countries (in addition to your home country):
- Australia
- UK
- Germany
- India
- Ireland
- Singapore
- Hong Kong
- United States
This information is stored and accessed only as required to provide our services to you. Where we transfer data to offshore servers, the data is subject to use restrictions and safeguards against unauthorised access.
The information disclosed to overseas recipients consists of any information you have given us to provide the relevant services. By accepting services from us, you consent to us providing your personal information to the relevant overseas recipient as mentioned above. OVEC takes appropriate steps to ensure there are adequate safeguards in place for the transfer of your personal information.
The steps we take to protect and keep secure the personal information we hold
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information we hold against interference, loss, unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure, and other misuse.
The steps we take include:
- maintenance of computer technology, people and process-based security measures for example firewalls, network security configurations, encryption, use of passwords and other appropriate measures where information is held in electronic form;
- regular updates to security systems and configurations to protect our systems from malicious activity;
- restriction of access to data to only those staff that need access to carry out our business activities;
- training and ensuring that all our employees are required, as a condition of employment, to treat personal information held by us as confidential.
However, you should be aware that if you submit information to us electronically the internet is not a secure environment. We take reasonable steps to provide a secure channel for receiving information but cannot absolutely protect personal information before it reaches us.
Retention
When the personal information that we collect is no longer required, we will destroy, delete it in a secure manner, or ensure that the information is de-identified in accordance with our information destruction and de-identification policy, unless we are required by law to retain a copy of the personal information.
Your rights
You have the right to seek access to any of your personal information held by us unless there is a valid reason under the Privacy Act or Data Protection Act for us to withhold the information.
Valid reasons include:
We have reason to suspect that unlawful activity or misconduct of a serious nature has been engaged in and giving access would be likely to prejudice the taking of appropriate action in relation to the matter; or
Giving access would reveal evaluative information generated within us in connection with a commercially sensitive process.
If your personal details change, or you believe the information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or out-of-date, please contact us so that we can correct our records.
Right to erasure
At your request, we will remove all the data we have for you which we are not required legally to retain.
Right to restrict processing
You have the right to restrict processing when you have exercised one of the above rights and it may take some time to process that request. For example: when you contact us to update your details you have the right to request restriction until your details are being updated.
Right to withdraw consent
For the processing activities where we have asked you for consent, you have the right to withdraw this consent at any point by unsubscribing from a message from us, or by contacting ovec@ovecedu.com
Right to object
You can object to the processing of your personal data.
Right to not be subject to automated decisions and profiling
None of our processing activities are purely automated and no decisions are made without human intervention. There are instances where we process data to analyse or predict behaviour but we will ask you for explicit consent when this processing will involve your personal data.
Right to data portability
If you have provided us with your personal data with consent or under the contact obligations, you have the right to request the data you have provided to us in a machine-readable format should you decide to move to another data controller.
Making a request
Requests for access or correction to your personal information or other privacy rights described above should be addressed to The OVEC Privacy Officer by emailing ovec@ovecedu.com. All requests will be responded to in writing within a reasonable period of time. As part of this process we will verify the identity of the individual requesting the information prior to providing access or making any changes. If we cannot fulfil your request, we will respond provide you with an explanation.