Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

Effective date: May 16, 2019. Updated: March 23, 2023

Legal notice

Disclaimer

This website has been developed by Voices of Culture, with funding from the European Commission to implement the structured dialogue between the cultural sctor and the European Union. This website reflects the views only of the author.

Our goal is to keep the information on this website accurate and up-to-date. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them. Neither we nor the European Commission accept any responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the information published on this site.

Please note that it cannot be guaranteed that a document available online represents accurately an officially adopted text. Only the Official Journal of the European Union (the printed edition or, since 1 July 2013, the electronic edition on the EUR-Lex website) is authentic and produces legal effects.

Some data or information on our site may have been created or structured in files or formats that are not error-free, and we cannot guarantee that our service will not be interrupted or otherwise affected by such problems. Neither we nor the European Commission accept any responsibility with regard to such problems incurred as a result of using this site or any linked external sites.

This disclaimer is not intended to limit liability in contravention of any requirements laid down in applicable national law nor to exclude its liability for matters which may not be excluded under that law.

External link disclaimer

This website may contain “external links” to other websites over which we and the European Commission services have no control and for which we assume no responsibility.

When visitors to our website choose to follow a link to any external website, they are subject to the cookie, privacy and legal policies of the external website.

Compliance with applicable data protection and accessibility requirements of external websites linked to this website, falls outside our control or the control of the European Commission and is the explicit responsibility of the external website.The purpose of any linked reference from this website to any specific external resource, online service or a website, is to enhance the information available and help visitors. Such linked references do not constitute endorsement by us or the European Commission of the specific external resource, online service or website, nor endorsement of the information, contained in the linked reference, nor endorsement of the organisations owning the external websites.


Privacy Policy

Who we are

Our website address is: https://www.voicesofculture.eu/

Goethe-Institut Brussels (“us”, “we”, or “our”) operates the https://www.voicesofculture.eu/ website (the “Service”).

This page informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of personal data when you use our Service and the choices you have associated with that data.

We use your data to provide and improve the Service. By using the Service, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms and Conditions, accessible from https://www.voicesofculture.eu/

Information Collection And Use

We collect several different types of information for various purposes to provide and improve our Service to you.

Types of Data Collected

Personal Data

While using our Service, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you (“Personal Data”). Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:

  • Email address
  • First name and last name
  • Address, State, Province, ZIP/Postal code, City
  • Cookies and Usage Data

Usage Data

We may also collect information how the Service is accessed and used (“Usage Data”). This Usage Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

Tracking & Cookies Data

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track the activity on our Service and hold certain information.

Cookies are files with small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your device. Tracking technologies also used are beacons, tags, and scripts to collect and track information and to improve and analyze our Service.

You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our Service.

Examples of Cookies we use:

  • Session Cookies. We use Session Cookies to operate our Service.
  • Preference Cookies. We use Preference Cookies to remember your preferences and various settings.
  • Security Cookies. We use Security Cookies for security purposes.

Use of Data

Voices Of Culture uses the collected data for various purposes:

  • To provide and maintain the Service
  • To notify you about changes to our Service
  • To allow you to participate in interactive features of our Service when you choose to do so
  • To provide customer care and support
  • To provide analysis or valuable information so that we can improve the Service
  • To monitor the usage of the Service
  • To detect, prevent and address technical issues

Transfer Of Data

Your information, including Personal Data, may be transferred to — and maintained on — computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from your jurisdiction.

If you are located outside Belgium and choose to provide information to us, please note that we transfer the data, including Personal Data, to Belgium and process it there.

Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.

Voices of Culture will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data and other personal information.

Disclosure Of Data    

Legal Requirements

Voices of Culture may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:

  • To comply with a legal obligation
  • To protect and defend the rights or property of Voices Of Culture
  • To prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
  • To protect the personal safety of users of the Service or the public
  • To protect against legal liability

Security Of Data

The security of your data is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Service Providers

We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our Service (“Service Providers”), to provide the Service on our behalf, to perform Service-related services or to assist us in analyzing how our Service is used.
These third parties have access to your Personal Data only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.

Children’s Privacy

Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 18 (“Children”).

We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your Children has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Data from children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.

Changes To This Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.
We will let you know via email and/or a prominent notice on our Service, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “effective date” at the top of this Privacy Policy.

You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.


Terms of Use

Context and Controller

As the Commission service collects and further processes personal data, it is subject to Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 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 freemovement of such data, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC.
Processing operations are under the responsibility of the Controller, indicated in the Call for Expression of Interests or the Invitation to Tender or Grant Application Form, regarding the collection and processing of personal data.

What personal information do we collect, for what purpose, underwhich legal bases and through which technical means?

Legal bases

The legal basis for the processing operations on personal data is Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2018/1046 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 July 2018 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union, amending Regulations (EU) No 1296/2013, (EU) No 1301/2013, (EU) No 1303/2013, (EU) No 1304/2013, (EU) No 1309/2013, (EU) No 1316/2013, (EU) No 223/2014, (EU) No 283/2014, and Decision No 541/2014/EU and repealing Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 (OJ L 193 of 30.7.2018, p.1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.2016.119.01.0001.01.ENG) , (hereafter “the Financial Regulation”) in particular Articles 160-179 for the procurement procedures, Articles 180-200 for the grant application and Articles 237-238 for selection of experts.

Technical means

Your personal data is provided by submission of your grant application, expression of interest or tender.The information is collected in files stored in an isolated secure system. The information is processed by Commission personnel and transferred to Commission systems (as described in point 4.), under the responsibility of the Controller mentioned in the Call for Expression of Interests, Grant Application Form or Invitation to Tender.

  1. Who has access to your personal data and to whom is itdisclosed?
    For the purpose detailed above, access to your personal data is given to the following persons, without prejudice to a possible transmission to the bodies in charge of a monitoring or inspection task in accordance with European Union law:
    • Commission staff members [members of the institutions, agencies and bodies participating in the procurement procedure in case of inter-institutional procurement] as well as external experts and contractors who work on behalf of the Commission for the purposes of management of the expert selection procedure, the procurement procedure and tender evaluation, the grant procedure and grant evaluation, and the bodies charged with a monitoring, audit or inspection task in application of European Union law (e.g. internal audits, Financial Irregularities Panel referred to in Article 93 ofthe Financial Regulation, Exclusion Panel referred to in Article 143 of the Financial Regulation, European Anti-fraud Office – OLAF);
    • Members of the public; In case you are awarded a contract by the Commission, your personal data will be made public, in accordance with the Commission’s obligation to publish information on the outcome of the procurement procedure and on the beneficiaries of funds deriving from the Union’s budget (Article 163, 189(2) and Article38(2) of the Financial Regulation, respectively). The information will concern in particular your name and address, the amount awarded and the name of the project or programme for which you are awarded a contract. It will be published in supplement S of the Official Journal ofthe European Union and/or on the website of the Commission.Additionally, selected experts may be listed in the Register of Expert Groups of the Commission on https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/.For more information on the Register of Expert Groups see notification 2194 to the Data Protection Officer in the registry available on https://ec.europa.eu/dataprotectionofficer
  2. How do we protect and safeguard your information?
    • The collected personal data and all related information are stored:
    • for the duration of the multi-annual programme for which you submitted an expression of interest, or
    • after closure of the procurement procedure, or
    • after closure of the grant procedureon the premises of the Commission and on servers of a computer centre of either DG DIGIT or the Directorate General issuing the call forexpression of interest, call for proposals orprocurement procedure. The Commission premises and operations of all computer centres abide by the Commission’s security decisions andprovisions established by the Security Directorate of Directorate General Human Resources and Security.
  3. How can you verify, modify or delete your information?
    In case you wish to verify which personal data is stored on your behalf by the responsible Controller, have it modified, corrected, or deleted, or restrict the processing, or object to it or to exercise the right to dataportability, please make use of the contact information mentioned in the Call for expression of interest or grant application or invitation to tender, by explicitly describing your request. Any correction of your personal data will be taken into considerationfrom the data protection point of view. Special attention is drawn to the consequences of a request for deletion, as this may lead to an alteration of the terms of the tender and lead to rejection as stated in Article 112 of the Financial Regulation.
  4. How long do we keep your personal data?
    Your personal data are kept:
    • For selection of experts, until the end of the multi-annual programmefor which you submitted an expression of interest in the service in charge of the procedure, and in the archives for a period of 5 years following the end of the programme.
    • Files relating to tender procedures, including personal data, are to beretained in the service in charge of the procedure until it is finalised, and in the archives for a period of 10 years following the signature of the contract. However, tenders from unsuccessful tenderers have to be kept only for 5 years following the signature of the contract.
    • Files relating to grant procedures, including personal data, are to be retained in the service in charge of the procedure until it is finalised, and in the archives for a period of 10 years following the signature of the grant agreements or decisions. However, applications from unsuccessful applicants have to be kept only for 3 years following the finalization of the call.
    • Until the end of a possible audit if one started before the end of the above period.
    • After the period mentioned above has elapsed, the tender and grant files containing personal data are sampled to be sent to the historical archives of the Commission for further conservation. The non-sampledfiles are destroyed.
  5. Contact information
    You have the right to access, rectify or erase or restrict the processing of your personal data or, where applicable, the right to object to processing or the right to data portability in line with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725.Any such request should be directed to the Controller, by using the contact information mentioned in the Call for expression of interest, Grant Application Form or the Call for tenders, and by explicitly specifying your request.You may also contact the Data Protection Officer of the Commission (DATA-PROTECTIONOFFICER@ec.europa.eu).Any information relating to processing of your personal data is detailedin the register of the Data Protection Officer of the Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/dataprotectionofficer/register/index.cfm?TargetURL=D_REGISTER
  6. Resource
    You have the right to lodge a complaint to the European Data Protection Supervisor (https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/our-role-supervisor/complaints_en) if you consider that your rights under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 have been infringed as a result of the processing of your personal data.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us:

  • By email: charlotte.jerie@goethe.de