Last updated: 19 August 2026
This policy explains what personal information My Abroad Friend collects, why we hold it, and who we share it with. It applies to the My Abroad Friend website and platform. Our Terms of Service govern your use of the service itself.
1. Who is responsible for your information
My Abroad Friend operates the platform that education consultancies and migration agents use to manage student enquiries and applications. Where you are working with a consultancy, that consultancy decides what to do with your information and is responsible for its own handling of it. We provide and run the system that stores it.
2. What we collect
We collect what an application actually requires, and we collect it because you or the consultancy acting for you provide it:
- Identity and contact details — name, date of birth, nationality, email address, phone number, postal address.
- Academic history — institutions attended, qualifications, grades, transcripts, English test results such as IELTS.
- Immigration and travel details — passport details, visa history, previous refusals where relevant to an application.
- Documents you upload — transcripts, passport copies, financial evidence, sponsorship letters, offer letters and similar files.
- Family and financial information — dependants and funding evidence, where the application or visa route requires it.
- Correspondence — messages, notes and call records created while your case is handled.
- Technical information — sign-in times and basic device or browser information, used to keep accounts secure.
Some of this is sensitive, particularly passport and immigration history. We ask for it because visa and admission processes require it, not because it is useful to us.
3. Why we hold it
To operate the platform, so a consultancy can progress your application; to submit applications to institutions and, where relevant, to authorities; to communicate with you about your case; to keep accounts secure and investigate misuse; and to meet legal and record-keeping obligations.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not use your documents to train models.
4. Who we share it with
- The consultancy handling your case, so they can act on your application. This is the main sharing that happens, and it is the point of the service.
- Institutions and partners you are applying to, limited to what the application requires.
- Service providers who run parts of the platform on our behalf, including cloud hosting and file storage, email delivery, and payment processing. They act on our instructions.
- Authorities where we are legally required to disclose, or where disclosure is necessary to investigate fraud.
Your information is not shared with other consultancies on the platform. Agencies are separated from one another, and a consultancy can only see the students assigned to it.
5. Where it is held
The platform and its file storage are hosted with cloud providers, and your information may be processed in a country other than the one you live in. Applying to study abroad inherently involves sending your details to another country: an application to an Australian university reaches Australia.
6. How long we keep it
We keep application records for as long as your case is active and afterwards for as long as the consultancy needs them to answer questions about a past application, or as long as the law requires. Documents that are no longer needed are deleted. Where a record must be retained for legal or regulatory reasons, it is kept for the required period and no longer.
7. Your choices
You can ask to see the information held about you, to have inaccurate details corrected, to have information deleted where there is no legal reason to keep it, or to obtain a copy of what you provided. The quickest route is the consultancy handling your case, since they hold the working record. You can also contact us directly and we will help, or pass the request on.
Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under local data-protection law, and nothing here limits them.
8. Keeping it secure
Access is restricted to your consultancy and to platform staff who need it to operate or support the service. Accounts are protected by passwords and session controls, connections to the platform are encrypted, and access is logged. No system is completely secure, and we do not claim otherwise. If a breach affects you, we will tell you and the relevant authority where we are required to.
9. Cookies
We use cookies that are necessary for the platform to work, principally to keep you signed in and to protect against cross-site request forgery. Blocking these will prevent sign-in from working.
10. Children
The platform is not intended for children under 16. Where an applicant is under 16, a parent or guardian should provide the information and hold the account.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy as the service changes. The date at the top shows when it was last revised, and material changes will be made clear on this page.
12. Contact
Questions about your information, or a request about the rights above, can be raised with the consultancy handling your case or sent to My Abroad Friend using the contact details published on this site.