Privacy statement

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) and Decision No 1247/2002/EC.

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 information in relation to the processing operation of personal data entered in the Access2Markets portal, undertaken by the European Commission, Directorate General for Trade, is presented below.

Why and how do we process your personal data?

DG Trade, Unit F1 “Single entry point for enforcement, Market access and SMEs” (referred to hereafter as the Data Controller) collects and uses your personal information for the following reasons:

  • personal data provided via the contact form are requested in order to be able to reply to general questions related to the content of the website,
  • to establish a contact for the market access as well as for trade and sustainable development complaints,
  • to know who has reported an incident,
  • to grant access to users who wish to have access to the protected part of Access2Markets from outside of Europe (access requests from EU embassies personnel).

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:

  • 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;

This is in accordance with the Council Decision of 24 September 1998 on the implementation by the Commission of activities relating to the Community market access strategy (98/552/EC).

Which personal data do we collect and further process?

In order to carry out the processing operation the Data Controller collects the following categories of personal data: first and last name, organisation, telephone, address, email and IP (Internet) address.

How long do we keep your personal data?

The Data Controller only keeps your personal data for the time necessary to fulfil the purpose of collection or further processing. When sending through the contact form, an e-mail to a functional mailbox is generated containing personal data. This e-mail as well as the answer to it are stored in the for 6 months. DG TRADE opens a ticket in its ticketing system at the same time. Personal data of tickets is kept for 24 months. After this period of time, closed tickets are filtered and made anonymous to allow reporting and statistics of quality assessment for IT equipment, software and services, whereby DG TRADE has access to it for 13 months.

DG TRADE sends to the Europe Direct Contact Centre (EDCC) requests for general information on the website. The EDCC keeps your personal data for the time necessary to fulfil the purpose of collection or further processing, including handling of later complaints, namely for maximum 3 years after the date of reception of your request.
Please see here their privacy statement: https://europa.eu/european-union/contact/data-protection_en.

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.

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.

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 have consented to provide your personal data to DG TRADE Unit F1 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.

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

DG Trade Unit F1 TRADE-F1-SEC@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.

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-09887.1.

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