PROTECTION OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA
This privacy statement provides information about the processing and the protection of your personal data.
Processing operation: Joinup website
Data Controller: European Commission, Director-General for Informatics (DG DIGIT), Unit B.2 Interoperability (hereinafter referred to as “DG DIGIT Unit B.2” or “data controller”)
Record reference: DPR-EC-01844
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Why and how do we process your personal data?
- On what legal ground(s) do we process your personal data?
- Which personal data do we collect and further process?
- How long do we keep your personal data?
- How do we protect and safeguard your personal data?
- Who has access to your personal data and to whom is it disclosed?
- What are your rights and how can you exercise them?
- Contact information
- Where to find more detailed information?
1. Introduction
The European Commission (hereafter ‘the 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 of 23 October 2018 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 (repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001).
This privacy statement explains the reason for the processing of your personal data, 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.
The Joinup website is a collaborative platform created by the data controller and funded by the European Union via the Digital Europe Programme. It is the home to Interoperable Europe. It offers several services that aim to help e-Government professionals share their experience with each other. We also hope to support them to find, choose, re-use, develop and implement interoperability solutions.
The Joinup website revolves around Collections. Collections provide a distinct, easy way to group and access content that is related to a specific subject field. All created Joinup content resides under a Collection (i.e., solutions, documents, news, events etc.).
The information in relation to processing operation the Joinup website undertaken by DG DIGIT, Unit B.2 of the European Commission is presented below.
2. Why and how do we process your personal data?
Non-registered users
The Joinup platform can be visited by any user. For all visitors, including these non-registered users, the platform is collecting IP addresses for technical purpose, which are essential for the operation of the website. If non-registered users provide consent to the processing of their personal data for statistical purpose, the controller processes their personal data via cookies. These data and cookies processed by the systems Europa Analytics / Matomo enable the data controller to collect information that is used to prepare aggregated, anonymous statistics reports of visitors’ activity. For more information about how we use cookies please visit our cookie policy
Registered users
Registration and login are needed to provide you with voluntary membership of Collections, enabling you to contribute to the Joinup content:
- Create a Collection with the approval of Joinup administrator;
- Create Solutions within a Collection;
- Post news items within a Collection;
- Post discussion items within a Collection;
- Upload documents to a Collection;
- Create events in a Collection;
- Post comments;
- Send notifications about what is new in the Collection.
The email address is not made public and will be used by the Joinup platform (or by administrators / moderators) to communicate with users for sending them a message related to the content they have submitted, for sending them information (i.e. Joinup or Collection newsletter) and for solving incidents users might experience while using the Joinup.
Support cases
An additional processing targets requests introduced by users and non-registered users via the Joinup Support Contact Form. The purpose of this processing is to answer users’ questions for solving technical issue or for helping users to find an answer in the mass of information and documents published on Joinup.
Use of the Newsroom service
All Joinup users (registered or non-registered) may subscribe to newsletters corresponding to specific topics of interest. This Newsroom service is provided via multiple European Institution websites and is not specific to Joinup. Therefore it has its own data protection policy, which is available here. For receiving the service, users must open a specific Newsroom account that is distinct from the Joinup registered user account and communicate their email address. Optionally, when managing this specific Newsroom user account, users may also provide some additional data (name, country, sector of activity).
Use of the EUSurvey service
This service is used to obtain feedback from Joinup users, i.e. for registering their participation to the Joinup User Group meeting. Personal data collected through EUSurvey forms (name, email address, organization, role) will be used only in the context announced by the form.
Your personal data will not be used for an automated decision-making including profiling.
3. On what legal ground(s) do we process your personal data
The creation of the Joinup website as a collaborative platform is supported by Articles 3(i) and 8(3) of Decision (EU) 2015/2240 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 establishing a programme on interoperability solutions and common frameworks for European public administrations, businesses and citizens (ISA2 programme) as a means for modernising the public sector as well as Article 8(d) of Regulation (EU) 2021/694 of 29 April 2021 establishing the Digital Europe Programme.
Therefore, we process your personal data because processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the Union institution or body according to Article 5(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725.
For the purpose of processing personal data to send you news and information about Join-up, to register yourself to the website, to contribute as author of publication, to respond to your request of supports and for the creation of aggregated statistics, the controller’s processing operation is based on consent under Article 5(d) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725.
4. Which personal data do we collect and further process?
In order to carry out this processing operation the data controller collects the following categories of personal data:
- Identification data of registered users: email address, username, first and family name.
- Voluntary information submitted by registered users: country of origin, professional domain, business title, organization, social media accounts, picture and content of message/question in the support cases.
- Identification data of users contacting the Joinup support via the contact form: email address, first and family name.
- Cookies: masked IP address and other technical data (such as location, date and time of the request, URL viewed) that is then aggregated to provide statistical reports on your use of the website. For a more complete information on our use of cookies please visit our cookie policy.
5. How long do we keep your personal data?
DG DIGIT, Unit B.2 keeps your personal data as long as you remain an active member of the Joinup platform or you are a non-active user for 3 years.
You have the possibility at any moment to cancel your account. In this case your identification data and the voluntary information that you submitted as registered user will be deleted permanently.
Personal data collected through EUSurvey forms have a shorter retention period limited to the time necessary to fulfil the purpose of the survey and in all cases no more than 2 years.
Based on copyright law, your name as the author of your contributions will stay published on top of the content of this contribution, as long it is published on Joinup or you request deletion of your contribution.
You can cancel your account by sending an email to the controller (contact details in section 9), or simply by clicking the cancel account button that you will find at the bottom of your profile page.
For technical support purposes, the Joinup website logs users’ activity including users’ IP address that are kept six months, and identification data in questions submitted via the contact form until the case is solved.
6. How do we protect and safeguard your personal data?
All personal data in electronic format (e-mails, documents, databases, uploaded batches of data, etc.) are stored either on the servers of the European Commission or of its contractors. All processing operations are carried out pursuant to the Commission Decision (EU, Euratom) 2017/46 of 10 January 2017 on the security of communication and information systems in the European Commission.
The Commission’s contractors are bound by a specific contractual clause for any processing operations of your data on behalf of the Commission, and by the confidentiality obligations deriving from the transposition of the General Data Protection Regulation in the EU Member States (‘GDPR’ Regulation (EU) 2016/679).
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.
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 authorised staff according to the “need to know” principle. Such staff abide by statutory and, when required, additional confidentiality agreements.
Your first name, family name and the optional information provided voluntarily will be accessible on the Joinup website by registered or anonymous users, together with your contributions and memberships. Your email address is not made public.
Access to your personal data is provided to contractors located in Europe and responsible for carrying out processing operations concerning support cases, management of users’ database and storage of your personal data.
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.
8. 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) on grounds relating to your particular situation.
You have consented to provide your personal data to DG DIGIT, Unit B.2 for the present processing operation. You can withdraw your consent at any time by notifying the Data Controller. The withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of the processing carried out before you have withdrawn the consent. For the processing of personal data via newsletter, you can withdraw your consent for this processing operation by unsubscribing directly in the email you receive.
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 9 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 10 below) in your request.
9. 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, DG DIGIT Unit B.2 at DIGIT-INTEROPERABILITY(at)ec.europa.eu
- The Data Protection Officer (DPO) of the Commission
You may contact the Data Protection Officer (DATA-PROTECTION-OFFICER(at)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(at)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.
10. Where to find more detailed information?
The Commission Data Protection Officer (DPO) publishes the register of all processing operations on personal data by the 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-01844.