Privacy Policy

Effective date: November 1, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Patel & Bhana (“Patel & Bhana,” “the Firm,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), a law firm organized under the laws of the Republic of Panama with offices at Vía Israel, PH Street Mall, Suite 501, Bella Vista, Panama City, Republic of Panama, collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects your personal data when you interact with us, including through our website at https://www.patelbhana.com, our lead-generation forms on Facebook and Instagram (“Meta Lead Ads”), our email communications, and our intake and scheduling assistant.

This Policy is issued in compliance with Law 81 of March 26, 2019, on the Protection of Personal Data of the Republic of Panama, and its implementing regulations (Executive Decree 285 of May 28, 2021), and where applicable to individuals located in those jurisdictions, with applicable data-protection laws of the United States and the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

1. Who We Are and How to Contact Us

The data controller responsible for your personal data is Patel & Bhana. Our lead intake and client-communication system, known internally as “Rainmaker,” is an application owned and operated by Patel & Bhana that receives, stores, and manages the information you submit to us. References in this Policy to our systems include the Rainmaker application.

For any questions about this Policy or to exercise your rights, please contact us at hpatel@patelbhana.com.

2. Personal Data We Collect

We collect the following categories of personal data, depending on how you interact with us:

2.1 Data you submit through Meta Lead Ads

When you complete one of our lead forms on Facebook or Instagram, Meta Platforms, Inc. (“Meta”) collects your submission and makes it available to us via Meta’s Graph API. The specific fields we retrieve include:

Your full name;
Your email address;
Your telephone number;
Your country of residence;
Your indicated income range or retirement status; and
Any answers you provide to the qualifying questions in the form.

We also receive technical identifiers associated with your submission (such as the lead identifier, form identifier, and advertisement identifier) that allow us to retrieve and process your inquiry. With respect to data collected through Meta Lead Ads, Patel & Bhana and Meta act as independent or joint controllers under applicable law; Meta’s handling of your data is governed by Meta’s Privacy Policy.

2.2 Data you submit through our website and assistant

When you use the chat assistant on our website, reply to our emails, or request a consultation, we collect the information you provide — which may include your name, email address, the content of your messages, your scheduling preferences, and details about the legal matter for which you are seeking assistance.

When you complete a form on our website — to contact us, request a free consultation, download a guide or a visa document checklist, or subscribe to our newsletter, The Fine Print — we collect the information you provide, which may include your name, email address, telephone number, country of residence, the service you need, when you plan to move, your message, the guide or visa you selected, and the language of the page you used. The newsletter only requires your email address.

Our website chat assistant, Mariya, is an artificial-intelligence assistant, not an attorney. Its responses are general information and do not constitute legal advice. Our attorney may review your conversations to follow up on your inquiry, and the assistant does not make decisions that produce legal effects for you.

When you book a consultation, we and our scheduling provider collect the information needed to schedule the appointment, including your name, email address, selected time, and time zone.

2.4 Data collected automatically

When you interact with our emails or click links we send you (such as a link to download a guide), we may record that the interaction occurred, along with associated timestamps, to understand engagement and improve our communications.

When you browse our website, we and our hosting provider automatically process the technical data needed to deliver and secure the site, including your IP address, browser and device type, the pages you visit, the referring website, and any campaign tags in the link you followed. Analytics and advertising data are collected only if you accept them, as described in Section 2.6.

2.5 Contact through WhatsApp

When you click the WhatsApp button on our website, we record the page and language from which you clicked, the advertising campaign that brought you to our site (if any), the time of the click, and a reference code added to the pre-filled message. This record does not contain your personal data. If you then send us a message, we receive your telephone number, your WhatsApp profile name, and the content of your message, which we use to respond to you. WhatsApp is a service of Meta, and its use is governed by WhatsApp’s terms and privacy policy.

2.6 Cookies and similar technologies

Our website uses necessary cookies and similar local-storage technologies to function, stay secure, remember your language, and save your cookie preferences. With your consent, we also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics) to understand how our website is used and advertising cookies (Google and Meta) to measure our advertising and show it to people who may be interested in our services. Analytics and advertising cookies remain disabled until you accept them in our cookie notice. You may accept, reject, or change your choice at any time through the “Cookie settings” link at the bottom of every page of our website.

3. How We Use Your Personal Data

We use your personal data for the following purposes:

To respond to your inquiry and provide the information, guides, or legal orientation you request;
To communicate with you by email regarding your inquiry, including through our automated intake assistant, which collects details to help our attorney prepare for your consultation;
To schedule and manage consultations with our attorney;
To evaluate whether and how we can assist you with your legal or immigration matter;
To send you follow-up communications about your inquiry and our relevant services, from which you may opt out at any time;
To send you our newsletter, The Fine Print, if you subscribe;
With your consent, to measure the use of our website and the performance of our advertising;
To comply with our legal, regulatory, and professional obligations, including those applicable to the practice of law and to anti-money-laundering requirements; and
To protect the security and integrity of our systems.

Legal basis. We process your data based on your consent (which you provide when you submit a lead form, contact us, subscribe to our newsletter, or accept cookies on our website), the necessity of taking steps at your request before entering into a professional engagement, and our compliance with legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal data. We do not share your personal data with third parties for their own marketing purposes, except through the advertising cookies you choose to accept on our website (see Section 2.6). We share your data only as follows:

Service providers who process data on our behalf and under our instructions, solely to operate our systems, including our cloud hosting and database provider, our email-delivery provider, our scheduling provider, and the artificial-intelligence provider that powers our intake assistant. These providers are bound by confidentiality and data-protection obligations.
Meta, the platform through which Lead Ads submissions are made, as described in Section 2.1;
Google and Meta for analytics and advertising, only if you accept those cookies on our website, as described in Section 2.6; and
Authorities or third parties, as required by law, including to comply with a legal obligation, court order, or applicable professional or regulatory requirement.

5. International Transfers

Patel & Bhana operates in the Republic of Panama, and our service providers may store or process data on servers located outside your country of residence, including in the United States. When personal data is transferred internationally, we take steps to ensure it receives an adequate level of protection consistent with Law 81 of 2019 and, where applicable, the GDPR and United States data-protection laws.

6. How Long We Keep Your Data

We retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Policy. For leads and prospective clients who do not engage our services, we retain the data for at least three (3) years from the date of the last contact, after which it is deleted or anonymized, unless (a) you request deletion earlier, or (b) a longer retention period is required to comply with a legal, regulatory, or professional obligation. If you become a client, we retain data in accordance with the record-keeping obligations applicable to the practice of law. If you subscribe to The Fine Print, we keep your email address until you unsubscribe.

7. Your Rights

Subject to applicable law, you have the right to:

Access the personal data we hold about you;
Rectify inaccurate or incomplete data;
Request deletion of your data (the “right to be forgotten”);
Object to or restrict certain processing, including direct-marketing communications;
Withdraw consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal;
Data portability, where applicable; and
Lodge a complaint with the competent data-protection authority — in Panama, the National Authority for Transparency and Access to Information (ANTAI).

Any user may request deletion of all data we have collected from or about them, at any time, free of charge, regardless of their country or region of residence, by emailing hpatel@patelbhana.com. We will respond within the time limits required by applicable law.

8. Additional Information for United States Residents

If you are a resident of the United States, you may have rights under your state’s privacy laws, including, among others, the right to know what personal information we collect about you, the right to request its correction or deletion, and the right to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of your personal information. Patel & Bhana does not sell your personal information. Google and Meta receive information about your visit to our website for advertising purposes only if you accept advertising cookies. You may reject or withdraw that consent at any time through the “Cookie settings” link on our website. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at hpatel@patelbhana.com.

9. How We Protect Your Data

We implement technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction, including access controls, encryption in transit, and restricted database access. No system is completely secure, but we work to safeguard your information in accordance with our professional duty of confidentiality.

10. Children

Our services are intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with data, contact us so we can delete it.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. The effective date at the top indicates the last revision date. Material changes will be posted on this page.

12. Contact Us

Patel & Bhana

Vía Israel, PH Street Mall, Suite 501, Bella Vista, Panama City, Republic of Panama

Email: hpatel@patelbhana.com

Website: https://www.patelbhana.com