Privacy policy

1. Introduction

This Privacy Policy provides an overview of which personal data will be collected from you when visiting the website and how your personal data will be processed and used. Your personal data are processed in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of individuals regarding the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), and Belgian Law of 30 July 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data. 

Article 4(1) of the GDPR defines “personal data” as any information that pertains to an identified or identifiable natural person (“data subject”’). An identifiable natural person is someone who can be directly or indirectly identified.

2. Contact Details

The Controller for this processing operation in the context of the BETTER4U Website is the European Food Information Council (EUFIC):

European Food Information Council (EUFIC)

Rue Belliard 2A, 1040 Brussels, Belgium

Stephan Kampshoff (info@better4u.eu)

3. Collection of your Personal Data

We collect or use the following personal data when you visit our BETTER4U website:

• – IP address
• – User ID
• – Location of the user
• – Date and time of access 
• – Title of the page being viewed
• – URL of the page being viewed
• – URL of the page that was viewed prior to the current page
• – Screen resolution
• – Time in local timezone
• – Files that were clicked and downloaded
• – Link clicks to an outside domain
• – Pages generation time (the time it takes for webpages to be generated by the webserver and then downloaded by the user)
• – Country, region, and city of the visitors’ browser when visiting the BETTER4U website
• – Main Language of the browser 
• – User Agent of the browser; which is a piece of information that the browser sends to the BETTER4U website when you visit it. The User-Agent tells our website what kind of browser you are using, what version it is, and what operating system your computer or device is running.
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If you subscribe to receive our newsletter the following personal data will be collected:

• – Name
• – Email address
• – Date and time of your subscription
• – Form interaction; in case you want to write us a message in the provided form of the newsletter we will store your message

We use Brevo, as our newsletter tool. (Please see section 5 of this privacy policy for more information about Brevo).

If you contact us via Email/Contact Form, we collect:

• – Name
• – Email address
• – Message(s); in case you contact us via Email/Contact Form we store the correspondence with you
• – Date and time of the communication
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If you contact us via social media, we collect:

• Name and/or affiliation
• Information about your interactions (likes, comments and shared posts) with our content. 

4. Purpose and Legal Basis for Data Processing

We collect and further process your personal data for the following purposes:

• – To update relevant content on the website and social media channels
• – To report on the progress of the BETTER4U project to the European Commission
• – To email you with news about the BETTER4U project and related topics
• – To enable interaction on the website (i.e. contact forms, sharing function)
• – To improve the user experience
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Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information are:

• Consent

When you sign up for our BETTER4U newsletter, we process your personal data based on your explicit consent, which you provide by actively ticking a box to agree to receive our newsletter. You can withdraw your consent at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” at the bottom of the email or emailing info@better4u.eu. Withdrawing your consent does not affect the lawfulness of the processing of your personal data prior to such withdrawal.

• Legitimate Interest

When you visit our BETTER4U website, EUFIC uses your personal data to better understand web visitors and to maintain the website based on our legitimate interest in keeping it secure and functioning properly. We use Matomo-On-Premise, which acts as a Website Analytics Provider. We process your personal data by using Matomo-On-Premises and this is based on legitimate interest: processing your personal data is helping us identify what is working and what is not on our website. For example, it helps us identify if the way we are communicating is engaging or not and how we can organize the structure of the website better. Your data will be used only to improve the user experience on our website. For more information about Matomo please see Section 5.

When you contact us via email/contact form, we process your personal data based on our legitimate interests in responding to your inquiry.

If you contact us via social media the processing of your personal data is based on our legitimate interest in responding to your comments, invitations, and reactions.

5. Third Parties

The collection and/or part of the processing of personal information are carried out through:

• Matomo acts as a Website Analytics Provider. We use Matomo-On-Premise, meaning Matomo is hosted on our own servers and provides open source software. We choose what happens to the data and where we want your personal data stored. Matomo does not have any means of accessing your personal data. 
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• Brevo: We use Brevo (formerly sendinblue) as our newsletter tool, and this processing is based on your consent, which you provide by agreeing to receive our newsletter.
  Brevo is located at 106 boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris, France. Brevo has appointed a Data Protection Officer who can be contacted at the following address: dpo@brevo.com.
  For more information please see the privacy policy of Brevo. 

Unless explicitly stated and with your consent, your personal data will not be transferred outside of the European Union (EU) or the European Economic Area (EEA).

6. Social media 

The website integrates social media interactions allowing to share the project’s website content on social media platforms and other related actions. By using these interactions, your personal data may be shared with a wide audience including, in some cases, those who are see the social media content and but are not logged into the specific social media platform.

The applicable data protection provisions of the social media integrated into the BETTER4U website may be accessed under the following links:

• Twitter/X – https://twitter.com/privacy?lang=en
• LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy
• Instagram – https://help.instagram.com/155833707900388
• YouTube – https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en 

7. Data Retention Period

We retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined above, comply with legal obligations, or until you withdraw your consent, if applicable. 

• – Personal data collected via our website is stored for three years after the end of the BETTER4U project, meaning after November 2030, your data will be deleted. 
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• – Personal data collected through email communication/contact form is kept for the duration of our interaction plus three years after the BETTER4U project ends (November 2030)
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• – Regarding the personal data we process and store when you subscribe to the BETTER4U newsletter, we will delete them when you unsubscribe by clicking on the link “unsubscribe” at the bottom of the e-mail or after one year if you do not open any of our communication. 

8. Cookies 

This website uses cookies to improve your browsing experience and provide personalized services. Cookies are small text files stored on your computer or mobile device when you visit a website. They help websites work efficiently and provide information to website owners. We use the following types of cookies:

• Essential Cookies: These are necessary for the website to function properly, enabling core functionalities such as security, network management, and accessibility.
• Functionality Cookies: These allow the website to remember your choices (such as your username, language, or region) and provide enhanced, personalized features.

We do not use Analytics Cookies, Marketing Cookies, or Third-Party Cookies.

You can control and manage cookies in different ways. Most web browsers allow you to delete or block cookies, and you can also set your browser to notify you before cookies are stored. However, please note that if you choose to block cookies, you may not be able to access certain features or functionalities of our website.

9. Data Security

Your personal data is protected through technical and organizational measures to safeguard it against unauthorized access, alteration or loss. Your data is securely stored by EUFIC on a password-protected server in France and only authorized people can access the information. 

10. Your rights under GDPR 

The right to be informed – We are committed to informing you if we collect your personal data, and, if so, how and why we use your personal data. We provide this information through this form and ensure you are informed each time we collect your data (Article 13).

The right to access – You have the right to access your personal data we store about you. Please send us an email to me contact we have provided above, and we will respond to your request (Article 15).

The right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify inaccurate personal data concerning you. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete (Article 16).

The right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal data without undue delay. You can do this by sending an email to us. Please use our contact details we have provided in section 2 of the privacy policy (Article 17).

The right to restrict processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data, if:

• – You contest the accuracy of the personal data, allowing us time to verify its accuracy;
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• – The processing of your personal data is unlawful, and you request the restriction instead of the erasure;
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• – We no longer need your personal data for processing purposes, but you require it to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims;
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• – You have objected to the processing under Article 21(1), and verification is pending to determine whether our legitimate grounds override your interests. (Article 18). 
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The right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal data you gave us to another organisation, or to you. You have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format (Article 20).

The right to object – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data (Article 21).

The right to withdraw consent – When we use consent as our lawful basis you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time: Withdrawing your consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing that was based on consent prior to the withdrawal (Article 7)

The right to not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing – We do not conduct any automated decision-making and profiling in the context of the BETTER4U Website.

The right to lodge a complaint to with your national data protection authority. Contact details of the Belgian data protection authority:

Autorité de protection des données

Rue de la Presse 35, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

contact@apd-gba.be. 

You can find the supervisory authority of your country here.

To make a data protection rights request, please contact us using the contact details at the top of this privacy policy. You don’t need to pay a fee to exercise your rights. If you have any concerns about our use of your personal data, you can contact us by using the contact details at the top of this privacy policy. 

11. Changes to our Privacy Policy

EUFIC keeps its privacy policy under regular review and places any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on 08.07.2024