Processing operation: Processing of personal data linked to the European Humanitarian Forum 2023
Data Controller: European Commission
Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO)
Unit ECHO.E.1 – International and Inter-Institutional Relations, Legal Framework
Record reference: DPR-EC-01063.1
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Why and how do we process your personal data?
3. On what legal ground(s) do we process your personal data?
4. Which personal data do we collect and further process?
5. How long do we keep your personal data?
6. How do we protect and safeguard your personal data?
7. Who has access to your personal data and to whom is it disclosed?
8. What are your rights and how can you exercise them?
9. Contact information
10. Where to find more detailed information?
1. Introduction
The European Commission is committed to protect your personal data and to respect your privacy. The Commission collects and further processes personal data pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data.
This privacy statement explains the reason for and purposes of the processing of your personal data in the context of the event in title (and meetings organised on the occasion of, or in connection, of the event), organised by the Data Controller. It explains the way we collect, handle and ensure protection of all personal data provided, how that information is used and what rights you have in relation to your personal data. It also specifies the contact details of the responsible Data Controller with whom you may exercise your rights, the Data Protection Officer and the European Data Protection Supervisor.
2. Why and how do we process your personal data?
Purpose of the processing operation: the Data Controller collects and further processes your personal data to provide you with information about the event, ensure the proper organisation and management of the event, process your application for participation in that event, disseminate information among participants about the specific event (before, during and after), and, if applicable, enhance cooperation, networking, facilitate exchange fora.
The organisation of the event includes the management of contact and mailings lists for invitations, handling of participation requests and feedbacks, the preparation and distribution of preparatory materials, meeting reports, news items and publications to the participants.
The registration to this event will be facilitated through a dedicated webpage managed by a service provider (Tipik Communication Agency) acting as processor on behalf of the data controller.
The publication and communication activity includes the publication of information about the
event on the event’s website, as well as the Commission’s web and social media channels.
3. On what legal ground(s) do we process your personal data?
The processing operations on personal data, linked to the organisation, management, follow-up and promotion of the event or related meetings are necessary for the management and functioning of the Commission, as mandated by the Treaties. Those provisions are in particular, Article 11 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 15 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
The processing operations on personal data of the speakers for the event with whom a contract is concluded, are carried out in line with the contractual provisions. Consequently, that processing is necessary and lawful under Article 5(1)(c) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 (processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract).
Your consent is required for the following actions during the meeting or event:
□ the sharing of the meeting or event participants list containing your name and affiliation with other participants (including participants established outside of the European unionor the European Economic Area). Further information will be given if there are specific purposes for such sharing (e.g. for the purpose of future collaboration);
□ the processing of your personal data for inviting you to future events and initiatives the data controller may organise;
□ the processing of your personal data for sharing reports and other documents related to the event;
□ the web-streaming and publication of photos and audio-visual recordings depicting you in an identifiable way; and
□ the processing of your personal data relating to your dietary requirements.
For these issues you may give us your explicit consent under Article 5(1)(d) and Article 50(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 to process your personal data for those specific purposes. You can give your consent via a clear affirmative act by ticking the box(es) on the online registration form.
You can withdraw your consent for these services at any time by contacting the data controller for this meeting/event (see Heading 12).
Surveys may be organised during the event notably to seek participants’ views on the event itself or parts thereof or seek their views on the organisation of future similar events. Such surveys are covered by a dedicated Record of Processing DPR-EC-01011.
4. Which personal data do we collect and further process?
The European Commission collects and further processes your personal data:
- function/title, gender (needed for the right title), first name, last name, name of organisation, city, country, postal and e-mail address, telephone number);
- photos and audio-visual recordings depicting you in an identifiable way;
- identity/passport number, date of birth (for access control purposes);
- for purpose of reimbursement of travel expenses/allowances: information about the form of transport used and hotel (mandatory only if the participant has these expenses covered by the Commission); and
- upon consent (requested via the online registration form): the dietary requirements.
Your personal data will not be used for any automated decision-making including profiling.
Live web-streaming and audio-visual recording at the event or meeting of the speakers, organisers and participants, as well as photographs of the speakers and panoramic photographs of participants and organisers will be taken and published in the context of the European Humanitarian Forum 2023.
The audience or non-speaker participants may be photographed in groups and may appear on panoramic photographs of the whole event/audience.
Participants in the event will be asked to grant their consent for the photographs and/or audio- visual recording in the forms for participation and/or registration in the event.
5. How long do we keep your personal data?
The Commission only keeps your personal data for the time necessary to fulfil the purpose of collection or further processing.
For each of the categories of personal data that may be processed, please find below the retention details and the reference to the relevant record of processing:
□ Personal data related to the organisation and management of the event (this includes the information given during the registration, before, during or after the event) will be kept for five years after the meeting or event.
□ Recordings from the web-streamed event will be kept for 2 years before being deleted. More information is available in the Record of Processing DPR-EC-00306 (Web-streaming of Commission events).
□ Photos and videos for which consent was obtained through duly completed and signed Consent Form(s) for the Meeting/Event will be kept for 2 years. Their publication in the channels identified in the Consent Form will follow the longevity of the content posted therein, unless consent was redrawn at an earlier stage.
□ In case of audio-visual recording of the event, the recordings will be kept for 3 months after the meeting or event before being deleted. More information is available in the Record of Processing DPR-EC-01937 (Audio-visual recording of meetings).
□ Personal data shared with the controller for future mailing purposes (e.g., for receiving newsletters or invitations to similar events) are processed in line with the Record of Processing DPR-EC-03928 (Management of subscriptions to receive information) and the specific privacy statement prepared by the organising Commission service.
□ Selected service providers for organisational purposes (such as caterers, travel agents or event management organisations) are contractually bound to process personal data on behalf of and in line with the instructions of the data controller, keep confidential any data they process and protect it from unauthorised access, use and retention.
□ data related to dietary requirements, requested for the organisation of catering during the event activities, will be deleted immediately after the conclusion of the event and in any case no later than 1 year after.
□ Personal data collected on the occasion of surveys will be kept for a maximum of 5 years, in line with the Record of processing DPR-EC-01011.
6. How do we protect and safeguard your personal data?
All personal data in electronic format are stored on the servers of the European Commission until the end of their retention period. All processing operations are carried out pursuant to Commission Decision (EU, Euratom) 2017/46 of 10 January 2017 on the security of communication and information systems in the European Commission.
In order to protect your personal data, the Commission has put in place a number of technical and organisational measures. Technical measures include appropriate actions to address online security, risk of data loss, alteration of data or unauthorised access, taking into consideration the risk presented by the processing and the nature of the personal data being processed. Organisational measures include restricting access to the personal data solely to authorised persons with a legitimate need to know for the purposes of this processing operation.
The service provider for the European Humanitarian Forum 2023, Tipik, is bound by a specific contractual clause for any processing operations of your personal data on behalf of the
Commission. Tipik has put in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the level of security, required by the Commission.
7. Who has access to your personal data and to whom is it disclosed?
Access to your personal data is provided to the Commission staff responsible for carrying out this processing operation and to other authorised Commission staff according to the “need to know” principle. Such staff abide by statutory, and when required, additional confidentiality agreements.
Tipik as service provider assisting the Commission will also access to your information for the purposes of organising the event.
Legal name of the Processor: Tipik Communication Agency SA
Official postal address: Avenue de Tervuren, 270, 1150 Brussels, Belgium Functional mailbox and/or telephone number: info@tipik.eu / 02 235 56 70.
8. Cookies
Cookies are short text files stored on a user’s device (such as a computer, tablet or phone) by a website. Cookies are used for the technical functioning of a website (functional cookies) or for gathering statistics (analytical cookies).
The 2023 European Humanitarian Forum site managed by Tipik, as processor acting on behalf of the data controller, has a cookies policy governed by EU law.
On the use of cookies by Zoom, see Heading 9.2 below.
9. Third-party IT tools, including Social Media
9.1 Commission websites
We will use third-party IT tools to inform about and promote the event through widely used communication channels, including the social media. For detailed information about the use of social media by the European Commission, see the Record of Processing DPR-EC-00073 (Social Media Use by the European Commission).
You may be able to watch our videos, which may be also uploaded to one of our social media pages and follow links from our website to other relevant social media.
In order to protect your privacy, our use of third-party IT tools to connect to those services does not set cookies when our website pages are loaded on your computer (or other devices), nor are you immediately redirected to those social media or other websites. Only in the event that you click on a button or “play” on a video to watch it, a cookie of the social media company concerned will be installed on your device. If you do not click on any social media buttons or videos, no cookies will be installed on your device by third parties.
In order to view such third-party content on our websites, a message will alert you that you need to accept those third parties’ specific Terms and Conditions, including their cookie policies, over which the Commission has no control.
The use of a third-party IT tool does not in any way imply that the European Commission endorses them or their privacy policies. In the event that one or more third-party IT tools are occasionally unavailable, we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to their downtime.
We recommend that users carefully read the relevant privacy policies of the social media tools
used. These explain each company’s policy of personal data collection and further processing,
their use of data, users' rights and the ways in which users can protect their privacy when using those services.
9.2 EHF online participation
For the purpose of organising online participation, the contractor (Tipik Communication Agency) uses a third party tool, Zoom, that under Tipik Communication Agency responsibility, collects from moderators and speakers the following personal data: title, position, the first name, last name, email address, IP address, website data, geolocation, and browser-generated information, cookies, language settings, operating system used, unique device identifiers or other technologies used to analyse users’ activity. For information on how Zoom uses cookies and how processes personal data, please see privacy policy here.
10. International transfers
The European Commission may transfer your personal data to the recipients in a third country or to an international organisation in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 (e.g. for travel and hotel booking purposes or when sharing the list of participants to all participants irrespective of their country of origin/establishment or whether they work for international organisations).
The legal basis for the transfer of your personal data is to be found in either Article 47 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 when the third country is covered by an adequacy decision (for a list of the countries concerned, see Adequacy decisions | European Commission (europa.eu)) or by Article 50(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 under which the data subject has explicitly consented to the proposed transfer, after having been informed of the possible risks of such transfers for the data subject due to the absence of an adequacy decision and appropriate safeguards.
While the transfer of personal data to certain third countries is covered by adequacy decisions (see above), there may be participants in the events established in countries not covered by such decisions or working for international organisations. The data controller is therefore not in a position to guarantee you that the level of protection afforded by those third countries or international organisations to your personal data will necessarily be equivalent to that afforded under EU law. However, the related risks may be considered to be limited as the personal data to be transferred should only consist in names and affiliation (which may actually already publicly available). You are in any event entitled to object to the transfer of your personal data. For practical reasons, as there should only be one list of participants, should you object or withdraw your consent to your name and contact details being mentioned in the list, you may be completely taken out from said list.
Please note that pursuant to Article 3(13) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 public authorities (e.g. Court of Auditors, EU Court of Justice) which may receive personal data in the framework of a particular inquiry in accordance with Union or Member State law shall not be regarded as recipients. The further processing of those data by those public authorities shall be in compliance with the applicable data protection rules according to the purposes of the processing.
The information we collect will not be given to any third party, except to the extent and for the purpose we may be required to do so by law.
This section only applies to transfers to be carried out by the Commission itself or by its contractors at the Commission’s request; it does not cover possible international transfers resulting from the use of third-party IT tools, which are governed by the relevant third-party privacy policy (see Heading 9.2 above).
11. What are your rights and how can you exercise them?
You have specific rights as a ‘data subject’ under Chapter III (Articles 14-25) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725, in particular the right to access, your personal data and to rectify them in case your personal data are inaccurate or incomplete. Where applicable, you have the right to erase your personal data, to restrict the processing of your personal data, to object to the processing, and the right to data portability.
You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data, which is lawfully carried out pursuant to Article 5(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 on grounds relating to your particular situation.
The European Commission will ensure that the data subjects can exercise their right to object to processing whenever possible by the organisers of the meeting/event (for example, on the spot by indicating a non-web streamed seat if requested; or ex-post, by deleting a specific sequence from the online video/voice recording).
You have consented to provide your personal data to the data controller for the present processing operation. You will be able to withdraw your consent at any time by notifying the data controller. The withdrawal of your consent will not affect the lawfulness of the processing carried out before you have withdrawn the consent.
You can exercise your rights by contacting the data controller, or in case of conflict the Data Protection Officer. If necessary, you can also address the European Data Protection Supervisor. Their contact information is given under Heading 12 below.
Where you wish to exercise your rights in the context of one or several specific processing operations, please provide their description (i.e. their Record reference(s) as specified under Heading 13 below) in your request.
12. Contact information
- The Data Controller
If you would like to exercise your rights under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725, or if you have comments, questions or concerns, or if you would like to submit a complaint regarding the collection and use of your personal data, please feel free to contact the Data Controller:
European Commission
Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations Unit ECHO.E.1 – International and Inter-Institutional Relations, Legal Framework ECHO-E1-ATTRIBUTION@ec.europa.eu.
- The Data Protection Officer (DPO) of the Commission
You may contact the Data Protection Officer (DATA-PROTECTION-OFFICER@ec.europa.eu) with regard to issues related to the processing of your personal data under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725.
- The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS)
You have the right to have recourse (i.e. you can lodge a complaint) to the European Data Protection Supervisor (edps@edps.europa.eu) if you consider that your rights under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 have been infringed as a result of the processing of your personal data by the data controller.
13. Where to find more detailed information?
The Commission Data Protection Officer (DPO) publishes the register of all processing operations on personal data by the European Commission, which have been documented and notified to him. You may access the register via the following link: http://ec.europa.eu/dpo-register.
This specific processing operation has been included in the DPO’s public register with the
following Record reference: DPR-EC-01063.