VFS Global
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VFS Global is a
visa Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...
and passport administration
outsourcing Outsourcing is an agreement in which one company hires another company to be responsible for a planned or existing activity which otherwise is or could be carried out internally, i.e. in-house, and sometimes involves transferring employees and ...
company for governments and
diplomatic mission A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...
s. Zubin Karkaria founded the company in 2001 while he was chief executive at
Kuoni Travel Kuoni Travel is a tourism company, operating various services including charter and scheduled passenger airlines, package holidays, cruise lines, and hotels in destinations around the world across nine different geographic regions. The company ...
. Formerly based in India, the company is now headquartered in
Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...
with offices in 147 countries. In 2018, VFS processed approximately 25 million visa applications, often containing passport details and financial histories, on behalf of the British Home Office and 61 other governments. During the past two decades of its operations, VFS Global has attracted considerable controversy as well as criticism from governments, journalists, and clients. It has been criticized for allegedly exploitative and monopolistic practices, lack of transparency, and numerous data security failures. Many visa applicants from lower-income countries reported that they "missed flights and were wrongly denied visas due to delays and administrative errors, including apparent failure to scan vital documents."


History


Origins and revenue model

Founder Zubin Karkaria conceived the idea for VFS Global while working with the Kuoni Group. Karkaria believed one could circumvent embassy's wait times required for processing visa applications by outsourcing the administrative work. He soon "persuaded the US government to pilot a scheme for Indian visa applicants to the US at its Mumbai embassy". The company opened its first visa processing centre in
Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
that same year. In 2003, the company acquired a
UK Government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...
contract to process visa applications from India. By 2007, the company had obtained its first global account from
UK Visas and Immigration UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) is a division of the Home Office responsible for the United Kingdom's visa system. It was formed in 2013 from the section of the UK Border Agency that had administered the visa system. History The then Home Secret ...
for operations across 33 countries. Within one year of gaining its account, the company's image was tarnished by a data breach which exposed the sensitive information of UK visa applicants. Despite recurrent data breaches, the company later obtained a major contract with the United Kingdom to administer the majority of the UK's visa applications. The contract was a significant change in how visa applicants to the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
were charged to have their applications processed. The company's growth was primarily due to its revenues from service fees paid directly by visa applicants. In 2009, financial records indicated that VFS Global's parent company at the time, VF Worldwide Holdings, was an
offshore corporation The term "offshore company" or “offshore corporation” is used in at least two distinct and different ways. An offshore company may be a reference to: * a company, Corporate group, group or sometimes a division thereof, which engages in offsho ...
in
Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...
, an African tax haven.


Expansion and growth

In August 2017, the VFS Global acquired the UK-based visa service provider TT Services (TTS) for an undisclosed amount. At the time of the acquisition, TTS operated 51 visa application centres in over 35 countries with 216 employees. Later that year, in November, VFS Global expanded its visa services in
Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
with new centres launched in the additional cities of
Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...
,
Goa Goa () is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is located between the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north and Karnataka to the ...
,
Gurugram Gurgaon (pronunciation: ʊɽɡãːw, officially named Gurugram (pronunciation: ʊɾʊɡɾaːm, is a city located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest of the nationa ...
, and
Jaipur Jaipur (; Hindi Language, Hindi: ''Jayapura''), formerly Jeypore, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Rajasthan. , the city had a pop ...
. In January 2019, the parent company of VFS Global, EQT AB, declared their intention to sell the company. In August 2019, an in-depth financial investigation by the British newspaper ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' revealed that VFS Global had experienced exponential growth in recent years and its shareholders extracted £567m through "distribution to owner" payments and inter-company loan write-offs. This growth has been attributed to the company's "exploitative" business practices. In October 2021, Blackstone acquired a majority stake in VFS Global. Kuoni and Hugentobler Foundation remains a minority stakeholder. Prior to October 2021, the company was owned by a
private equity fund A private equity fund (abbreviated as PE fund) is a collective investment scheme used for making investments in various equity (and to a lesser extent debt) securities according to one of the investment strategies associated with private equity ...
and, as VF Worldwide Holdings, is incorporated in the African tax haven of
Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label=Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It incl ...
. Investors in the company include the
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
and
Emiratis The Emiratis ( ar, الإماراتيون) are the native Arab citizen population of the United Arab Emirates. Their largest concentration is in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where there are about approximately 1.5 million Emiratis. Formerl ...
investment authorities, the Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund, and
Theo Müller Theo Müller (January 29, 1940) is a German businessman. He is the head of the dairy company Müller, which was founded by his grandfather. Early life Theo Müller was born in Aretsried, Germany, in 1940, the son of Alois Müller. Career The M ...
.


Criticism and controversies

Throughout its existence during the past two decades, VFS Global has attracted considerable criticism from governments, investigative journalists, and its clients. The company allegedly pressured visa applicants into purchasing premium services such as premium lounges. In 2019, the British Home Office was deluged by complaints from customers applying for visas using VFS Global, many of whom accused the company of "exploiting vulnerable applicants for profit." The majority of these applicants were from lower-income countries, and they "missed flights and were wrongly denied visas due to delays and administrative errors, including apparent failure to scan vital documents."


Data breaches


Initial breach and inaction

Between 2005 and 2007, a security flaw in the VFS Global application website for the British
Foreign & Commonwealth Office The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' ministries of foreign affairs, it was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreign ...
resulted in many visa applications from India, Nigeria and Russia being publicly accessible. Sensitive data stored in VFS's online service could be accessed by simply altering the VFS website's
URL A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...
address. By doing so, anyone could access the company's visa applicant database including their "stored passport numbers, names, addresses, and travel details." Although the security flaw had been known since December 2005, VFS Global addressed the issue only after media reports in May 2007.


UK government investigation

Following this data breach and media outcry, the UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs appointed an independent investigator to uncover the reasons for the breach of security in the VFS online visa application website. The subsequent July 2007 report highlighted many failures by VFS, including that VFS had failed to protect personal data to the levels expected by the UK Data Protection Act. The report recommended that the VFS online visa applications not be resumed for applications from India. In November 2007, the UK
Information Commissioner's Office The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is a non-departmental public body which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). It is the independe ...
announced that it had found the
Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * Unit ...
's contractual relationship with VFS Global to be in breach of its obligations under the
Data Protection Act 1998 The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA, c. 29) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom designed to protect personal data stored on Computer, computers or in an organised paper filing system. It enacted provisions from the European Union (EU) Da ...
. The
Information Commissioner's Office The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is a non-departmental public body which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). It is the independe ...
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. As a result of this ruling, the Foreign Office reviewed its relationship with VFS and briefly sought to significantly reduce its outsourced work, especially in the area of IT. Following this incident, several governments criticized VFS Global's abilities and porous security protocols. "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 The Chinese Canadian National Council (CCNC) (french: Conseil national des Canadiens chinois pour la justice sociale), known in the Chinese-Canadian community as Equal Rights Council (平權會), is an organization whose purpose is to promote eq ...
. Likewise, Liam Clifford, an immigration expert working for ''Global Visas'', raised security concerns associated with VFS Global's operations: "Once you put this work in the hands of private companies overseas, you no longer have the same protection."


2015 data breaches

VFS Global's data security again came under scrutiny in July 2015 when its online visa forms for Italy allowed any user to access the personal information of other applicants—including their date of birth, passport details and addresses—if they input the ID number of another person when logging into the system.


Monopoly allegations

VFS Global has been alleged to be a
monopolistic A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a spec ...
enterprise operating in the visa outsourcing sector. Its alleged monopoly has led to issues related to prohibitive visa application prices and also sparked concerns in the areas of centralised document handling and content security. In June 2014, the South African Competition Commission investigated the company regarding allegations of market dominance in the visa support services market to foreign embassies. The Commission recommended further investigations into the company. In a statement to
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
parliament in July 2018, VFS Global denied that their company operates as a monopoly, though its prepared statement did not cite any outsourcing companies with whom they are in competition for winning contracts.


Extortion allegations

In 2019, the Nigerian government's Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs accused VFS Global of "extorting" and "mistreating" vulnerable visa applicants in developing countries such as Nigeria. Additionally, the government placed the company under investigation for "allegations of abusive market dominance and unlawful tender procedures, resulting in excessive visa application prices and hidden fees."


English-only service in Canada

In March 2023, VFS Global faced criticism for requiring a French-speaking applicant for permanent residency in Canada to respond only in English, despite that it is legally obligated to provide services in both official languages of Canada. Quebec's Minister
Jean-François Roberge Jean-François Roberge is a Canadian politician in Quebec, who was elected to the National Assembly of Quebec in the 2014 election. He represents the electoral district of Chambly as a member of the Coalition Avenir Québec and is the current ...
called it "completely unacceptable" and "all citizens should be able to interact with the federal government in their language of choice". VFS Global did not apologize for the incident.


See also

* BLS International


References


Citations


Works cited

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:VFS Global Outsourcing companies Companies established in 2001 Indian companies established in 2001 Companies based in Dubai Trade monopolies