Privacy
Policy.

This policy is issued by Zarnab International (Pvt) Ltd (“Zarnab International”, “we”, “us”, “our”), an education consultancy established in 1998. We help students in Pakistan choose and apply for courses at universities and colleges abroad, and support them with visa and pre-departure guidance.

We decide how and why your personal information is used, so we are responsible for it. Our head office is at 510, 5th Floor, Siddiq Trade Centre, Gulberg, Lahore, Pakistan. We also have offices in Johar Town (Lahore), Islamabad and Faisalabad.

This policy explains how we handle personal information when you:

• visit zarnab.com or use our student portal
• fill in an enquiry, consultation or registration form
• visit one of our offices, attend an event or seminar, or speak to a counsellor
• contact us by phone, email, social media or messaging apps
• ask us to help you apply to a university, college or for a visa

Universities, colleges, embassies and visa authorities that receive your information through us use it under their own privacy policies. We encourage you to read those policies too.

We only collect what we need to counsel you and to process the applications you ask us to make. Depending on the services you use, this may include:

Sensitive information. Some universities or visa authorities require health information (for example medical or TB test results), or police and criminal record certificates. We only collect this when it is required for your application, and only with your explicit consent.

• Directly from you: when you fill in a form, register on the portal, upload documents, chat with a counsellor, call, email or visit us.
• From people you authorise: such as parents, guardians or sponsors who contact us or provide documents on your behalf.
• From institutions and authorities: such as offer letters, conditions, CAS/CoE documents or decisions about your application.
• From referrals: if you register with a referral code, we record who referred you.
• Automatically: limited technical data when you use our website and portal (see Cookies & Local Storage).

We use your information for the purposes below, and only where we have a valid reason (a “basis”) to do so:

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use it to make automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.

We share your information only as needed for the purposes above, and only what each recipient needs:

• Universities, colleges and schools you choose to apply to, including their admissions, compliance and international teams, and pathway providers.
• Application platforms and agent portals run by institutions or their partners, for example UCAS or a university’s own agent portal.
• Embassies, high commissions, immigration authorities and their official visa application centres, when we help with your visa.
• Testing and other bodies (for example English test providers, scholarship bodies or accommodation providers), only when you ask us to.
• Service providers that process data for us under our instructions: cloud hosting and secure file storage (Amazon Web Services), our customer relationship management (CRM) and enquiry-form provider (Techuni), and email and telephone providers.
• Professional advisers such as lawyers, auditors and accountants, under confidentiality.
• Law enforcement and regulators, where we are required to by law or a valid legal order (including under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016), or to protect the rights and safety of you, us or others.
• A successor business, if Zarnab International is reorganised, merged or sold, subject to this policy.

We never give your information to third parties for their own marketing.

Studying abroad means your information has to leave Pakistan. Depending on where you apply, we send it to institutions and authorities in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the United States, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand and Malaysia. Our portal files are stored with a cloud provider on servers that may be outside Pakistan, currently in the United Kingdom.

Data protection laws in these countries may differ from those in Pakistan. These transfers are necessary to provide the service you ask us for. We limit what we send to what each recipient needs, and we use reputable providers bound by confidentiality and security obligations.

We keep cookies to a minimum. We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies, and we do not currently use analytics tools on our website.

Some pages show embedded Google Maps for our office locations. Google may set its own cookies when you view or use these maps, under the Google Privacy Policy.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. If you block the session cookie, you will not be able to sign in to the portal.

If we introduce analytics or other non-essential cookies in future, we will update this policy first, and ask for your consent where required.

Our website links to other sites and platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, Google Maps, the British Council and university websites. We are not responsible for how those sites handle your information. Please read their privacy policies before sharing information with them.

Our “Book Free Consultation” form opens a pre-filled email in your own email app. When you send it, your details are delivered to us through your email provider.

We use technical and organisational measures appropriate to the information we hold, including:

• encrypted connections (HTTPS) for our website and portal
• passwords stored only as a secure one-way hash, never in readable form
• encrypted session cookies
• private document storage, with files available only through short-lived, access-controlled links
• role-based access, so staff only see the student records they need for their work
• confidentiality obligations on our staff and service providers

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. If a security incident is likely to put your rights at risk, we will tell you without undue delay and explain the steps you can take.

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it:

When information is no longer needed, we delete it securely or anonymise it.

You can ask us to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you and get a copy of it.
• Correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Delete your information where we no longer need it or have no legal reason to keep it.
• Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent.
• Object to or restrict certain uses of your information.
• Receive your documents in a commonly used electronic format.
• Stop marketing messages at any time.

To make a request, contact us using the details below. We may need to verify your identity first. We aim to respond within 30 days.

Withdrawing consent or asking us to delete information does not affect anything we did before, and does not apply to information we must keep by law. If you withdraw consent while an application is in progress, we may no longer be able to continue that application. Institutions or authorities that already hold your information will need to be contacted separately for their copies; we can help you with this.

Many students begin planning their studies before they turn 18. If you are under 18, we ask that a parent or legal guardian is involved and agrees before we submit any application on your behalf. Parents or guardians may exercise the rights in this policy on behalf of their children.

Our online services are not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their information online.

With your consent, we may send you information about study opportunities, scholarships, intakes and events by email, SMS, phone or messaging apps. You can opt out at any time by replying “STOP”, using the unsubscribe link where provided, or contacting us. Service messages about an active enquiry or application are not marketing, and you will continue to receive them.

We may update this policy from time to time, for example to reflect changes in law or in how we work. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page shows when it was last changed. If we make significant changes, we will let you know by email or through the student portal.

For questions, requests or complaints about your personal information, contact us:

Please mark your message “Privacy request” so it reaches the right person quickly.

We will try to resolve any concern you raise. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the relevant authority in Pakistan. For matters involving the misuse of personal data under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016, that is the National Cyber Crimes Investigation Agency (NCCIA), which replaced the FIA Cybercrime Wing. If you are located in another country, you may also contact your local data protection authority.