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INSPIRE Privacy Policy

PROTECTION OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA

This privacy statement provides information about the processing and the protection of your personal data.

  • Processing operation: INSPIRE web sites and applications
  • Data Controller: Joint Research Centre, Digital Economy unit (JRC.T.1)
  • Record reference: DPR-EC-01862

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 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 information in relation to processing operation"INSPIRE web sites and applications"undertaken by the Joint Research Centre, Digital Economy unit (JRC.T.1) is presented below.

Why and how do we process your personal data?

Purpose of the processing operation: The Joint Research Centre, Digital Economy unit (JRC.T.1) collects and uses your personal information for the management of INSPIRE web sites and applications provided by the Digital Economy unit.

The INSPIRE Directive (Directive 2007/2/EC) aims at establishing a European Union spatial data infrastructure for the purposes of EU environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment.

INSPIRE web sites and applications are internet tools on Joint Research Centre (JRC) websites which enable the INSPIRE stakeholder community (e.g. INSPIRE implementers, coordinators, experts, users, policy makers etc.) geographically spread across Europe (and beyond) to share INSPIRE-related information and documents, participate in discussion fora, submit and track issues, search and access data, services and metadata, download software and recieve INSPIRE related newsletters etc.

Personal data are collected to enable

  • the association of content (e.g. posts, comments, uploaded documents) to user profiles,
  • the assignment of permissions (e.g. to edit or publish content) to authorised users, and
  • the creation of expert databases including their areas of expertise.

Personal information is collected via web based forms and saved as records within databases on JRC servers. To enable access to certain INSPIRE web sites or applications, the EULogin user id is manually inserted into databases on JRC servers.
In case of requests of modifications and/or withdraw all contact details, manual processing might be requested.
Manual update (modify, insert, delete, etc.) can be done in dialogue mode by users.

Your personal data will not be used for an automated decision-making including profiling.

On what legal ground(s) do we process your personal data

We process your personal data, because:

For the members of the INSPIRE stakeholder community, and according to Article 5(1)(d), you have given your consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes.

For the appointed members of expert groups related to INSPIRE project, and according to Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725, the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject (Articles 15, 19 and 21 Directive 2007/2/EC).

We do not process special categories of data, therefore Article 10 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 does not apply.

Which personal data do we collect and further process

In order to carry out this processing operation the Joint Research Centre, Digital Economy unit (JRC.T.1) collects the following categories of personal data:

Through the EU login mechanism: email, first name and last name.
Through the INSPIRE web sites and applications: contact and location details (e-mail address, (mobile) telephone number, postal address, company and department, country of residence), profile picture, social media user names (e.g. twitter, github), IP, timestamp and the resource visited
Areas of expertise/interest: areas of expertise, skills, areas of interest, website(s)

For the members of the INSPIRE stakeholder community, the provision of your personal data is not mandatory.
For the appointed members of expert groups related to INSPIRE project will be kept until the departure of the expert from the group.

How long do we keep your personal data?

The Joint Research Centre, Digital Economy unit (JRC.T.1) only keeps your personal data for the time necessary to fulfil the purpose of collection or further processing, namely for

  • Data provided by user on a voluntary basis (members of the INSPIRE stakeholder community): Personal information will be kept as long as the services are in use. Personal information is deleted when a user requests his/her profile to be deleted or two years after the last activity.
  • Data provided in compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject (the appointed members of expert groups related to INSPIRE project): Personal information of appointed members of expert groups will be kept until the departure of the expert from the group. Member States are regularly requested to confirm their appointments.

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 on the servers of the European Commission. 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.

In order to protect your personal data, the Commission has put in place a number of technical and organisational measures in place. 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.

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.

Name, contact details of nominated MS experts and the content of the expert database will be published on INSPIRE websites.

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, rectify or erase your personal data and the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Where applicable, you also have the right to object to the processing or the right to data portability.

  • For the members of the INSPIRE stakeholder community: You have consented to provide your personal data to the Joint Research Centre, Digital Economy unit (JRC.T.1) 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 appointed members of expert groups related to INSPIRE project: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data, which is lawfully carried out pursuant to Article 5(1)(a).

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.

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, the Joint Research Centre, Digital Economy unit (JRC.T.1), JRC-T1-DPatec [dot] europa [dot] eu (JRC-T1-DP[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu).

  • The Data Protection Officer (DPO) of the Commission

You may contact the Data Protection Officer (DATA-PROTECTION-OFFICERatec [dot] europa [dot] eu (DATA-PROTECTION-OFFICER[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]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 (edpsatedps [dot] europa [dot] eu (edps[at]edps[dot]europa[dot]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.

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-01862 -INSPIRE web sites and applications.