Data Protection Notice

Processing operation: European Sustainable Energy Week.

Data Controller:

European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency, established by the European Commission (hereafter CINEA)

CINEA Head of Unit A1

Chaussée de Wavre 910

W910 03/034

BE – 1049 Brussels

Email: cinea-eusewec [dot] europa [dot] eu (cinea-eusew[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)

The following entity is processing the personal data on behalf of CINEA: VO EUROPE (eusew2025vo-europe [dot] eu (eusew2025[at]vo-europe[dot]eu)) in order to provide you with information about the specific meeting or event (before, during and after) and to process your application for participation to the European Sustainable Energy Week.

Record reference: https://ec.europa.eu/dpo-register/detail/DPR-EC-01063.1

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Why and how do we process your personal data?
3. On what legal ground(s) do we process your personal data?
4. Which personal data do we collect and further process?
5. How long do we keep your personal data?
6. How do we protect and safeguard your personal data?
7. Who has access to your personal data and to whom is it disclosed?
8. What are your rights and how can you exercise them?
9. Contact information
10. Where to find more information?

1. Introduction

The European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) is committed to protect your personal data and to respect your privacy. CINEA collects and further processes personal data pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council 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.

This Data Protection Notice (DPN) explains the reason for the processing of your personal data in the context of the European Sustainable Energy Week. It explains 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 processing operation of the European Sustainable Energy Week, undertaken by the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), is presented below.

2. Why and how do we process your personal data?

Purpose of the processing operation: the Controller collects and further processes your personal data to provide you with information about the European Sustainable Energy Week (before, during and after).

• Registration of participants to online and physical events in the framework of the European Sustainable Energy Week, management of their participation online, and inclusion in participant lists;
• Management of applications for the EUSEW Awards (evaluation, selection, announcement, promotion and feedback);
• Management of applications for hosting Policy Conference sessions (evaluation, selection, announcement, promotion and feedback);
• Management of applications for the Energy Fair (evaluation, selection, announcement, promotion and feedback);
• Management of submissions of European Sustainable Energy Days (assessment, selection, publication, promotion and feedback);
• Management of follow-up meetings and other related follow-up actions, such as the collection of feedback, the distribution of contact lists, invitations, news, reports, other publications and information material, and sending of emails informing on future activities related to EUSEW;
• Management of the EUSEW Community – for receiving further information related to the topic and activities of the European Sustainable Energy Week;
• Collection of event statistics.

The objective of this data protection notice is to inform participants, speakers and Awards candidates participating in the European Sustainable Energy Week about the processing activities related to their personal data. The data subjects concerned by this notice are participants (including moderators, awards finalists, experts, etc.) and speakers participating in the European Sustainable Energy Week.

Live web-streaming and audio-visual recording at the the European Sustainable Energy Week of the speakers, organisers and participants, as well as photographs of the speakers and organisers will be taken and published in the context of the the European Sustainable Energy Week on the event websites (https://sustainable-energy-week.ec.europa.eu/, https://interactive.eusew.eu/ and other inter-linked Europa.eu websites).

Participants that do not wish to be part of the above web-streaming and recording/publishing activities have the possibility to object to processing by turning off their camera to avoid any video recording, or by contacting the Controller at the functional mailbox indicated in chapter 9.

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

The data controller shall not be held accountable for any processing of personal data that you might carry out on your own initiative during or after the event. For instance, if you decide to take photographs/audio-visual recordings of participants of the European Sustainable Energy Week and/or publish them online, you assume full responsibility for these actions.

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

The processing operations on personal data, linked to the organisation, management, follow-up and promotion of the European Sustainable Energy Week (including web-streaming, photos, audio-visual recording) are necessary for the management and functioning of the Commission, as mandated by the Treaties. Those provisions are in particular Article 11 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 15 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Consequently, those processing operations are lawful under Article 5(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 (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).

The processing operations on personal data of the speakers for the European Sustainable Energy Week with whom a contract is concluded, are carried out in line with the contractual provisions. Consequently, that processing is necessary and lawful under Article 5(1)(c) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 (processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract).

Your consent is required for:

• The processing of your personal data relating to the creation of your online account;
• The sharing of the European Sustainable Energy Week participants list containing your name and affiliation with other participants for networking purposes solely within the event platform;
• The sharing of the European Sustainable Energy Week attendee list containing your name and affiliation among participants, in order to create working groups to continue the collaborate work launched during the event;
• The processing of your personal data for inviting you to future events the data controller may organise;
• The processing of your personal data for managing your subscription to a newsletter of the data controller.

If you opt-in, you are giving us your explicit consent under Article 5(1)(d) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 to process your personal data for those specific purposes. You can give your consent via a clear affirmative act by ticking the box(es) on the online registration form.

Your consent for any of these services can be withdrawn at any time, e.g. for unsubscribing from the newsletter by clicking on the ‘unsubscribe button’ if any, or by sending an email to the contact point of the Controller indicated in Heading 9.

4. Which personal data do we collect and further process?

The categories of personal data collected and used for the processing operations are:

Title, first name, last name, nationality, organisation, function, (professional/personal) e-mail address, phone number, social media accounts (if any), pictures and videos of recorded events, and browser-generated information, cookies or other technologies used to analyse users’ activity related to the EUSEW event. In some specific cases, data collection may also include gender and year of birth. Moreover, for speakers, Awards finalists, and experts, their biographies and CVs are also collected based on the information that they provide themselves. This information is mandatory for the purposes outlined above (except for phone number, social media accounts, pictures and videos which are based on your explicit prior consent or where differently stated, e.g. EUSEW Community).

In addition, the following non-mandatory personal data are collected: speakers’ photos, dietary restrictions when relevant, mobility assistance when relevant, and questions about the event in regard to the organisation of the event onsite. For onsite participants, please note that the event will be (partly) web-streamed and it is possible that you will be recorded. It is also possible that photographs of you will be taken during the event and might be used for related communication purposes via EUSEW website, EUSEW social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), participants’ social media accounts and promoting communication channels (international press). Upon registration, you give your explicit consent to have your image/voice recorded and published on related communication channels. In the absence of your consent, the organiser will try to find suitable alternatives, so that you can fully take part in the event, e.g. by offering an alternative area to follow the event.

5. How long do we keep your personal data?

The Data Controller only keeps your personal data for the time necessary to fulfill the purpose of collection or further processing.

For each of the categories of personal data that is processed, please find below the retention details and the reference to the relevant record of processing

• All personal data related to the organisation and management of the European Sustainable Energy Week (this includes the information given during the registration, before, during or after the event) will be deleted five years after the last action in relation to the annual edition of the European Sustainable Energy Week;
• Recordings from the web-streamed European Sustainable Energy Week will be kept for two years before being deleted. More information is available in the Record of Processing DPR-EC-00306 (Web-streaming of Commission events);
• In case of onsite audio-visual recording of the European Sustainable Energy Week, the recordings will be kept for eighteen months after the European Sustainable Energy Week before being deleted. More information is available in the Record of Processing DPR-EC-01937 (Audio-visual recording of meetings);
• Personal data shared with the controller for future mailing purposes (e.g. for receiving newsletters or invitations to similar events) are processed in line with the Record of Processing DPR-EC-03928 (Management of subscriptions to receive information) and the specific privacy statement prepared by the organising Commission service);
• Selected service providers for organisational purposes (such as caterers, travel agents or event management organisations) are contractually bound to process personal data on behalf of and in line with the instructions of the data controller, keep confidential any data they process and protect it from unauthorised access, use and retention.

6. 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 (and of its contractors if contractors are engaged to assist the controller in the organisation and management of this event]. All processing operations are carried out pursuant to 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. 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 given processing operations.

The Commission’s contractors are bound by specific contractual clauses for any processing operations of your personal data on behalf of the Commission and by the confidentiality obligations deriving from the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’ - Regulation (EU) 2016/679).

7. Who has access to your personal data and to whom is it disclosed?

All recipients are on a "need to know" basis: The recipients of your data will be authorised staff of CINEA and the European Commission in charge of the organisation of the event and the follow-up communication activities, authorised staff of EUSEW partner organisations (all the organisations that co-organise EUSEW - e.g. organisations who organise a session, a networking activity, an Energy Day, etc. and strategic and media partners.), and bodies charged with monitoring, inspection tasks or proceedings in application of EU law (e.g. internal audit services, Court of Auditors, European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF), European Ombudsman, the European Court of Justice or the national judge as well as the lawyers and the agents of the parties in case of a legal procedure, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office or the European Data Protection supervisor). EUSEW partner organisations and EUSEW participants will have access to registered participants profiles on the event platform.

Where necessary, we may also share your information with service providers for the purposes of organising the European Sustainable Energy Week, namely VO EUROPE:

• VO EUROPE (Event Agency) ;
• Brevo (Emailing Services - Interactive);
• Level27 (Domain name) (Interactive);
• Cisco Systems (Slido - Webex);
• Youtube (streaming platform)
• Vimeo (streaming platform)
• Innocraft (Analytics - Interactive)
• Stageflow (Event management system) (Interactive)
• Firebase/Firestore (Database – Interactive)
• Jitsi (Networking call and chat, Interactive)
• Meilisearch (search module – Interactive)
• Walls.io (Twitter wall – Interactive)
• Livechat (Chat support - interactive)
• Meta

Cookies

Cookies are short text files stored on a user’s device (such as a computer, tablet or phone) by a website. Cookies are used for the technical functioning of a website (functional cookies) or for gathering statistics (analytical cookies).

When you visit the website(s) of the European Sustainable Energy Week and when you register, we will keep the browser history of your visit for a maximum of two years. This information will then be deleted. The collection, aggregation and anonymising operations are performed in the data centre of the European Commission under adequate security measures.

Enabling these cookies is not strictly necessary for the website to work but it will provide you with a better browsing experience. You can delete or block these cookies, but if you do that, some features of the meeting/event website may not work as intended.

The cookie-related information is not used to identify data subjects personally and the pattern data is fully under the Commission’s control. These cookies are not used for any purpose other than those described here.

Should you wish to opt your personal data out of our anonymised, aggregated statistics, you can do so on our cookies page. In particular, you can control and/or delete those cookies as you wish.

The website also stores first-party cookies to guarantee you an optimal user experience:

Third party IT tools, including Social Media

We use third party IT tools to inform about and promote the European Sustainable Energy Week through widely used communication channels, including the social media. For detailed information about the use of social media by the European Commission, see the Record of Processing DPR-EC-00073 (Social Media Use by the European Commission).

You may be able to watch our videos, which we also upload to our social media page(s) on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

In order to protect your privacy, our use of third-party IT tools to connect to those services does not set cookies when our website pages are loaded on your computer (or other devices), nor are you immediately redirected to those social media or other websites. Only in the event that you click on a button or “play” on a video to watch it, a cookie of the social media company concerned will be installed on your device. If you do not click on any social media buttons or videos, no cookies will be installed on your device by third parties.

In order to view such third-party content on our websites, a message will alert you that you need to accept those third parties’ specific Terms and Conditions, including their cookie policies, over which the Commission has no control.

We recommend that users read the relevant privacy policies of the social media tools used: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. These explain each company’s policy of personal data collection and further processing, their use of data, users' rights and the ways in which users can protect their privacy when using those services.

For the purpose of Q&A, quizzes and polls, Slido, third party tool under CINEA (Data controller) and its contractor VO EUROPE responsibility, collects from sessions organisers, moderators, awards finalists, experts, speakers, participants, and media the following personal data: first name (optional), last name (optional), email (optional), company (optional); IP address, language, website data, geolocation, and browser-generated information (including device information, operating system, device type, system, cookies or other technologies used to analyse users’ activity). It hosts the collected personal data on servers in Europe (Ireland and Germany). For information on how Slido uses cookies and how Slido processes personal data, please consult this link: https://www.sli.do/terms#gdpr. Slido is available on the Register of the European Commission’s Data Protection Officer: https://ec.europa.eu/dpo-register/detail/DPR-EC-06687 

The use of a third-party IT tool does not in any way imply that the European Commission endorses them or their privacy policies. In the event that one or more third party IT tools are occasionally unavailable, we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to their downtime.

Please note that pursuant to Article 3(13) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 public authorities (e.g. Court of Auditors, EU Court of Justice) which may receive personal data in the framework of a particular inquiry in accordance with Union or Member State law shall not be regarded as recipients. The further processing of those data by those public authorities shall be in compliance with the applicable data protection rules according to the purposes of the processing.

The information we collect will not be given to any third party, except to the extent and for the purpose we may be required to do so by law.

8. 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, your personal data and to rectify them in case your personal data are inaccurate or incomplete. Where applicable, you have the right to erase your personal data, to restrict the processing of your personal data, to object to the processing, and 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) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 on grounds relating to your particular situation. Your right to information, access, rectification, erasure, restriction or objection to processing, communication of a personal data breach or confidentiality of electronic communications may be restricted only under certain specific conditions as set out in the CINEA Restriction Decision in accordance with Article 25 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725.

The data will ensure that the data subjects can exercise their right to object to processing whenever possible by the organisers of the meeting/event (for example, on the spot by indicating a non-web streamed seat if requested; or ex-post, by deleting a specific sequence from the online video/voice recording).

You have consented to provide your personal data to the data controller for the present processing operations. You can withdraw your consent at any time by notifying the data controller. The withdrawal of your consent 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.

9. 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:

European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), Head of Unit A1

Chaussée de Wavre 910

W910 03/034

BE – 1049 Brussels

Email: cinea-eusewec [dot] europa [dot] eu (cinea-eusew[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)

• The Data Protection Officer (DPO) of the Commission

You may contact the Data Protection Officer (DATA-PROTECTION-OFFICERec [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 (edpsedps [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.

10. Where to find more information?

The Commission Data Protection Officer (DPO) publishes the register of all processing operations on personal data by the European Commission, which have been documented and notified to him.

You may access the register via the following link: http://ec.europa.eu/dpo-register.

These specific processing operations have been included in the DPO’s public register with the following Record reference: https://ec.europa.eu/dpo-register/detail/DPR-EC-01063.1