VFS Global

History

VFS Global was established in Mumbai in 2001, when it set-up three Visa Application Centres for its first client government – the United States of America. By 2005 VFS Global served eleven governments – including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. In 2007 it won its first global account – that of the Home Office- UK Visas & Immigration (formerly UK Border Agency) – for operations across 33 countries.

VFS Global works predominantly with a user-pay revenue model where it receives its service fee directly from the visa applicants, in addition to the visa fees which are remitted to the diplomatic mission.

Data security

A security flaw in the VFS Global managed online application website for the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office resulted in up to 50 000 visa applications from India, Nigeria and Russia being publicly accessible. The security flaw was known since December 2005, but the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website was only shut down after an investigation in May 2007 following reports in the media. The 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.

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 This has since been replaced by the secure online applications made available directly at the Visa4UK official government website of the UK Border Agency. Baker also mentioned in the report that following this incident, UKvisas conducted extensive testing and found no evidence that data had been stolen or misused. VFS underestimated what was necessary in order to protect personal data to the levels expected by the UK Data Protections Act. After this incident, several visa application level checks were put in place. Technical processes were also upgraded later to check the records of the online application site.

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 a statement that it would comply with the Data Protection Act and would not reopen the VFS UK visa online facility. It has been reported by The Guardian that as a result of this ruling, the Foreign Office would review its relationship with VFS and seek to significantly reduce its outsourced work, especially in the area of IT. Consequently, applicants from India today need to apply directly at the Visa4UK official government website for online visa applications. After the report was issued, VFS introduced various measures to ensure safe and secure business environment. One of them was to make all its centres ISO compliant.

Since this incident several governments have been critical of VFS Global's abilities and have raised concerns over security. "There's the accountability issue, the privacy issue and why are we outsourcing to a for-profit entity something that belongs in the security mandate?" asked Victor Wong, executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council. Liam Clifford of global visas, told The Sunday Telegraph: "Once you put this work in the hands of private companies overseas, you no longer have the same protection."

VFS Global's security flaws were called into question again in July 2015 when their online visa forms for Italy allowed users to see the personal information of other applicants, including their date of birth, passport details and addresses, if they mistakenly input the ID number of another person when logging into the system.

Organisational Monopoly & Dominance

Various sources cite VFS Global as an example of a monopoly company operating globally in the visa processing outsourcing sector under the ownership of Kuoni group. The shareholding or governance structure of VFS Global is not made public as of yet by Kuoni. Monopoly results in lack of competition, processing standards and administerial dubiousness that causes a range of confusion for policy makers globally while awarding and administering government contracts without tendering. This has also led to problems in visa application pricings, and also caused concerns in the areas of centralised document handling and content security, though VFS claims a streamlined application submission process in all its centres.

It is reported in south east Asia that VFS own staff at its collection offices attempts to abuse its dominant status by making their own rules with visa applicants. This includes entry criteria to the VFS centres and also level of assistance offered to applicants. .

In June 2014, it was reported that VFS Global is being investigated by the South African Competition Commission regarding allegations of market dominance by VFS Global in the visa support services market to foreign embassies. The Commission's spokesperson Themba Mathebula stated that the commission’s screening unit had completed its preliminary investigation and submitted its report, recommending further formal investigations into VFS.