Regulation, complaints and privacy

IAA Level 1 is "Advice and Assistance". It covers straightforward applications made within the Immigration Rules, where the facts meet the qualifying criteria and there is no immigration history likely to cause a problem — for example applications for entry clearance or permission to stay, family, visit, work and study applications, EU Settlement Scheme applications, basic British citizenship applications and sponsor licence applications.

It does not cover administrative review, appeals, tribunal representation, bail, asylum, human-rights or discretionary applications, or cases involving overstaying, illegal entry, removal or deportation.

We provide advice and application assistance for straightforward immigration matters within our IAA Level 1 Immigration authorisation. Where a matter falls outside that authorisation — for example because it involves adverse immigration history, a discretionary or human-rights claim, an administrative review, an appeal or tribunal work — we will tell you and signpost or refer you to an adviser authorised at the appropriate level.

If an application is refused, we will explain the decision and whether any further work remains within our Level 1 authorisation. Where an administrative review, an appeal or other higher-level casework is needed, we will signpost or refer you to an appropriately authorised adviser. We do not provide appeal or tribunal representation.

If you are unhappy with our service, please tell us so we can try to put it right. Making a complaint will not affect how we treat you or your application.

• Write to us by email or by post to our registered office, with your name, any reference we have given you and what went wrong.
• We will acknowledge your complaint in writing and tell you who is dealing with it.
• We will investigate it and send you a written response explaining what we found and what we will do.
• If you are not satisfied with that response, you can ask for it to be reviewed by the person responsible for the practice.

Complaints by email: info@wlisuk.com

You can also complain directly to the Immigration Advice Authority (IAA), which handles complaints about regulated immigration advisers. How to complain to the IAA (opens on GOV.UK in a new tab).

West London Immigration Services is the data controller for the personal information described below. This section explains what this website collects, where it goes and how long we keep it.

If you send us an enquiry from this site

The enquiry form on our contact page asks for your name, your email address and what has happened, and optionally your telephone number and the service your question is about. We use it to answer your enquiry and to decide whether we can act for you.

• Your enquiry is stored on this website so our advisers can pick it up and answer it, and a copy is emailed to our office.
• We also record the IP address and browser the enquiry was sent from. That is used only to detect and block automated abuse of the form.
• We keep enquiries that do not become instructions for up to two years, then delete them. If you become a client, your information moves into your case file and is kept for the period our regulator requires.
• We do not sell your information and we do not use it for marketing.

The anti-spam check on the enquiry form

The enquiry form carries a reCAPTCHA tick box, provided by Google, which stops the form being used by automated scripts. Without it the form is flooded, and genuine enquiries are missed among the noise. We rely on our legitimate interest in keeping the form usable and our office secure.

• Ticking the box sends your IP address and information about how you used this page to Google, who decide whether you appear to be a person rather than a script. Google may set cookies on your device to make that decision.
• This happens only on the pages that carry the enquiry form, and only Google receives it. Nothing you have typed into the form — your name, your message or your contact details — is sent to them.
• We are told the answer, not the reasoning, and we do not keep it. The result is used to decide whether to accept that one submission, and nothing else.
• Because it protects the form itself, this check runs whether or not you accept optional cookies. If you would rather not use it, telephone, WhatsApp or email us instead — those routes reach the same advisers.

Google's own privacy notice (opens in a new tab) and terms of service (opens in a new tab) apply to what they do with it.

If you open one of our service enquiry forms

Several service pages open a form on enquiry.wlisuk.com instead. That is a separate WLIS site, and pressing the button takes you off this one. Nothing about you is passed across when you click: this website has no record of who you are at that point, and it sends nothing with you.

• What you then type into that form is submitted to our case management system, which is operated by WLIS and used to run client matters.
• We remain the data controller for it, and the same retention and confidentiality obligations apply as for any other enquiry.
• If you have accepted optional cookies, we record that a form was opened and which service page it was opened from. We do not record who opened it.

Cookies

We set a small number of cookies that are necessary to run the site, including one that remembers the cookie choice you made, so we do not have to keep asking. These are always on because the site does not work without them.

Optional cookies measure which pages and services people use, so we can improve them. They are only set if you accept them, and nothing optional loads before you answer. You can change your answer at any time using the cookie choices link in the footer.

If you become a client

To prepare an immigration application we need personal information that can include passport and identity details, your immigration history, family, employment and financial information, and sometimes health information or other special category data. We use it to provide the advice and application assistance you instruct us on, under our contract with you and our legal and regulatory obligations; special category data is used only where it is needed for your application and the law allows it. The client care letter you receive explains this in more detail.

Who else sees your information

• We send information to UK Visas and Immigration and the Home Office, and to any visa application centre involved, only as needed for an application you have instructed us to make, or where the law requires it.
• Our suppliers, such as our hosting, email and case management providers, process information on our instructions and cannot use it for their own purposes.
• Our regulator, the Immigration Advice Authority, may inspect client files as part of its regulation of advisers.

Your rights

You may ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it where we are not required to keep it. Write to us at info@wlisuk.com and we will respond within one month. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk (opens in a new tab).