Nick Noorani Website

A controversial Indian company company has been authorized to provide clerical support for the processing of Canadian immigration visas in China, a move that immigration experts in this country say could put sensitive information about applicants in the hands of the Chinese government.
VFS Global, an international company based in India, has been authorized to take applications for all categories of temporary visas at its Canada Visa Application Centres in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chongqing. Its website indicates it will also help process permanent travel documents.
VFS has been accused of breaching security of applicants in UK. A security breach was first reported by an Indian applicant in December 2005 after which no effective remedial action was taken by either VFS nor UKvisas, the joint Home Office and Foreign & Commonwealth Office unit which runs the UK’s visa service through British diplomatic Posts overseas. The same applicant went public in May 2007 after he noticed that his earlier warnings were ignored. It is estimated that this security breach has resulted in approximately 50,000 applicant’s identities having been possibly compromised until its subsequent closure in May 2007 following the media outcry.

The report of the investigation by the Independent Investigator, Linda Costelloe Baker highlighted “organisational failures” by both VFS and UKvisas.
The report also recommended that the VFS online visa applications not be resumed for applications from India. This will be replaced by the secure online applications made available directly at the UKvisas website.
In November 2007, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office announced that it had found the Foreign Office in breach of its obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998. The Information Commissioner’s Office required the Foreign Office to sign an undertaking that it will comply with the Data Protection Act and will not reopen the VFS UK visa online facility. It has been reported that as a result of this ruling, the Foreign Office will terminate its relationship with VFS. There has been no formal comment from VFS regarding this matter.
Other criticisms that have been leveled against the organization which serves as the sole and exclusive contact between visa applicants and embassies have been that the staff have taken upon themselves the role of visa officers and act in an arrogant manner and in some cases even damaging valuable documents and degree certificates submitted to them due to carelessness and even vindictiveness. Their tie-ins with various marketing firms also leave the applicants being hassled with marketing promotions while waiting in the lounge to be seen by the staff.
More recently, Suprit Roy a former Project Head and senior VP of VFS Global Services has exposed that top management at VFS Global has been unwilling to enforce the discipline and best practices required to run a business in an ethical manner. As an example of the continued negligence towards IT security, Roy quotes the fact that even after resigning from the company in December 2007, his corporate email account remains active. Before Roy resigned from VFS Global there appears to have been a considerable conflict of interest resulting in a public interest litigation pending at the Bombay (Mumbai) High Court.
Although the Canadian embassy makes the final decision about acceptance, VFS collects and processes information about applicants and arranges interviews with embassy staff.
The Canadian government has essentially outsourced the clerical work involved in processing applications, Ryan said. VFS, which is operating in conjunction with a Chinese company, charges about $35 for the service, which is provided for free by the embassy.
But the extra cost is a minor concern compared with possible security ramifications.
The VFS website says: “Canada Visa Application Centre takes every reasonable precaution while handling the documents of applicants. However, [it] shall not be responsible in any manner whatsoever to the applicant for any documents which are lost in transit by accident, theft, natural calamities (act of God) or any other reason outside the control of, or not arising out of a willful default of Canada Visa Application Centre.”
problem was brought to the attention of the UK media and an independent government investigation was launched [3] by the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO).
23 Jun 2008 by editor
http://www.thelinkpaper.ca/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1214246504&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&cat=2