Cookies and GDPR
IFOAM Organics Europe is committed to protecting your privacy
To ensure that we communicate with our supporters and members through their preferred channels, and to enable us to share updates about our work, we need to collect different types of information, including personal data. We understand the trust that our supporters place in us when sharing their data, and we will always do our utmost to respect that trust and protect their personal information.
Our full privacy policy is explained below, but the main points to note are:
- We will only collect your personal data for a defined purpose in a transparent, honest and fair way
- We will always respect your rights for the process of your personal data and your preferred communication channels
- We will put appropriate security measures in place to protect your personal data
- We will never sell your personal data
Should you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact [email protected].
Privacy notice and policy
This is the privacy policy of IFOAM Organics Europe.
IFOAM Organics Europe is both a controller and a processor of your information under the conditions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which entered into force on 25 May 2018.
Contact information
The IFOAM Organics Europe office is located at:
Rue Marie Thérèse 11
1000 Brussels
Belgium
Tel: +32 2 280 12 23
You can contact [email protected] for all GDPR related questions.
Introduction
At IFOAM Organics Europe we take your privacy very seriously and we’re committed to protecting your personal information that you’ve shared with us.
The statement below explains how we collect and process your data.
We aim to safeguard your privacy whilst providing a personalised and valuable experience. Collecting personal information is necessary if we are to satisfy the expectations and requirements of our supporters.
Our commitment to you:
- We will collect, process and use your personal data in a way that is fair, transparent, and honest
- We will only hold and use your personal data according to your preferences
- You have the right to amend or withdraw your consent about your personal data processing at any time
- As a responsible organisation, we will always comply with our responsibilities and obligations as detailed in the data protection legislation
- We might share your personal information with other organisations we are working with (such as IFOAM Organics International) either based on given consent or based on legitimate interest. You can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us
- We will protect your personal personal data through reasonable technical and organisational safeguards and measures
- We will make sure we manage your data in line with the rights that you have under the GDPR including the right to object or restrict the ways in which we process your data, and your right to request the erasure of your data
All the data we use is held in accordance with the requirements laid out in the current data protection legislation. If you have any requests concerning your personal information or any questions about how we manage our data, please contact [email protected].
Ways in which we use your personal information
In some areas of our website and other communications, we ask you to provide personal data that will enable us to enhance your site visit or contact you with information you request or that may be of interest to you, e.g. when you subscribe to our emails or newsletters. We also collect your details when you email or call us with an enquiry or complaint so we can respond effectively to you. We also collect information about the things you do on the website. This includes personal information such as your name, postal address, phone number and email address.
We keep your personal data only for as long as required for the purposes for which it’s supplied. Where your information is no longer required, we will always make sure it is disposed of in a safe and secure manner.
We will only ever use your data in line with our commitments to you.
Our communications
We will only ever contact you directly using the methods for which you have given your clear consent.
We want to give you as much control over the ways we communicate with you as possible. If you’d prefer we did things differently – or even stop contacting you entirely – all communications from us will always explain how to opt-out of future communications. Our aim is to give you complete control over how we use your personal data.
How we hold and process your personal data
To ensure that we communicate with you through your preferred channels (e.g. post, email, phone or text message), you can update your preferences at any time. To change your preferences, please contact [email protected].
To be compliant with GDPR, we need to have a legal basis through which we may hold and process your personal data. Having completed the relevant assessments, IFOAM Organics Europe is using legitimate interest as our legal basis for communication with the following groups: our members, employees of our members, policymakers, journalists, members of one of IFOAM Organics Europe’s internal working groups. For newsletter subscription and events’ registration emails sent to our contacts outside of the above groups, our legal basis for processing will be consent.
Sharing your data
We will never sell your details to other organisations.
If you’ve given your specific consent for us to share your data, we may share your contact details with other organisations that we work with, for example IFOAM Organics International.
Keeping your details up to date
The accuracy of your personal data is important to us. If you change your home or email address, or if any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or changes in any way, or even if you simply wish to check that the data you have shared with us is up to date, please contact [email protected].
Security
We know how much trust you place in us when you share your personal data. Because of that we place great importance in keeping your personal data safe and protected. This applies both to the physical security of the data that we hold, and digital security features that we use.
We take care to protect your personal data. We take steps to ensure that access to personal data is restricted to employees who need it and that all IFOAM Organics Europe staff who handle personal data are fully trained and kept up-to-date on our data management, security and privacy practices. Our employees are notified and reminded about the importance we place on privacy, and what they can do to ensure your information is protected.
Website tracking
As part of our security measures, every time our website is accessed, we record the date, time and the IP address used. In some circumstances this may mean that record is linked to the personal data you have shared. Sometimes the device used to access the website (e.g. a mobile phone, tablet, laptop) may provide us with further information, such as the device and operating system. Using this information helps us to improve our site performance for example by understanding the times of day and days of week at which we see peak traffic, and to assess the popularity of different areas of the site.
Use of cookies
Cookies are small pieces of information sent by a web server to a web browser, which enables the server to collect information from the browser. Like many websites IFOAM Organics Europe uses cookies to provide you with a more personalised web service, including monitoring the performance of our web pages, building a profile of the ways in which you use our website and finding people with similar profiles to you, which helps us to provide personalised content on social media sites you visit.
Changes
We may make changes to this policy from time to time. If we change our Privacy Policy we will post the changes on this page. When we make significant changes to this policy we will communicate with our supporters to tell them what has changed. Please revisit the policy when you want to confirm how we use your personal information.
This policy was last revised in August 2020.
Access to your personal information
Under the GDPR, you have the right to request and be sent:
- confirmation that your data is being processed;
- access to your personal data; and
- other supplementary information that we hold about you.
You can make a request by contacting [email protected]. We will not charge you for providing the information that you request. We will respond to your request within one calendar month of the request, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Your rights and acceptance of this policy
We use the legitimate interest for the visit of our website and the processing of your personal data.
Information retention
We will hold your personal data on our systems for the period defined by our privacy policy. If you ask for your personal data to be deleted we will manage your request in a transparent way, and in line with our data retention policy.
Whilst we will take all reasonable steps to protect and secure your personal data, we cannot guarantee the confidentiality of any messages transmitted between you and us via email as these are potentially accessible by the public. We will not be liable to you or anyone else for any loss relating to any email message sent by you to us or by us to you.
Sensitive information
When using or subscribing to our services, you may choose to provide us with information which is defined as sensitive personal information under the terms of the GDPR. Examples of sensitive information include details of your ethnicity or state of health. As with all the personal data, we shall use and store this data carefully in accordance with this privacy policy.
This privacy policy is governed by the law of Belgium.
Access to your personal information in the context of the EU Organic Awards
If you submit an application for the EU Organic Awards, the European Commission, the European Committee of the Regions, the European Economic and Social Committee, IFOAM Organics Europe, Copa and Cogeca will jointly process your personal data for the organisation of the EU Organic Awards. The linked privacy statement details the processing of your personal data in the context of the awards.