Privacy Statement for the Internet Website of the Commission's Taxation and Customs Union Directorate-General

1. The Taxation and Customs Union DG's Internet Website

The website developed and managed by the European Commission΄s Taxation and Customs Union Directorate-General describes and disseminates information on the Commission΄s work in the areas of taxation and the customs union (see also our mission statement).

On the website you may subscribeto the Directorate-General's newsflash "EU Tax & Customs News" providing advance notice of EU tax and customs initiatives.

The website is under the overall responsibility of Mr Iosif Dascalu, Head of Unit responsible for information, training and management of programmes, and managed by Mr Robert Andrecs, Head of the DG's Information and Communication sector. The taxation and customs databasesare managed by the DG's units responsible for information technology: "Customs and Taxation Trans-European Systems" (A3) and "Customs and Taxation Automated Services " (A4).

2. What personal information do we collect, for what purpose and by which technical means?

2.1. Identification Data

The information collected is the following:

Enquiries

In order to respond to your enquiries addressed to the Taxation and Customs Union Directorate-General via this website's contact page:

Person's name, first name, e-mail address (see contact form)

Subscriptions

Your subscription requests for the newsflash "EU Tax & Customs News" entered online are processed by the Commission's "MailMas" mailing lists management tool.

Person's e-mail address only is mandatory (apart from the password chosen by the subscriber).

2.2. Technical information

The MailMas application is composed of two separate applications:

• The external application (on EUROPA), used by the end-users (everybody on Internet)
• The internal application, used by the internal DG users, responsible for maintaining the service and the user addresses and for sending mail.

In the internal application, a non-visual part performs scheduled tasks, as, for example, the emission of mail messages and cleaning operations.

Both parts share a common database, containing the necessary information about the service definition and the user subscriptions.

Both parts use a Commission directory system, to authenticate and authorise users to connect with their Commission login.

The internal part also connects to the SMTP gateway to send the mail messages.

3. Who has access to your information and to whom is it disclosed?

Enquiries

With regard to information enquiries submitted via this website's contact form a team of Commission officials responsible for this mailbox has access to your data. Please note that your personal data is collected only to the extent necessary to send you an answer. If the mailbox management team is unable to answer your question, it will forward your e-mail to the appropriate service.

Subscriptions

Regarding the newsflash service "EU Tax & Customs News" the webmaster of the Taxation and Customs Union Directorate-General is interfacing with the "MailMas" management tool. As individual responsible for maintaining the service, overlooking the user addresses and solving unforeseen problems he has access to your information.

For all subscription requests you enter online, your data - e-mail address - is added to a mailing list database managed by "MailMas".

For further information please read this "privacy statement".

4. How do we protect and safeguard your information?

The data collected via the contact form, or for the purpose of subscribing to the newsflash "EU Tax & Customs News", will not be communicated to anyone outside the European Commission.

Only duly authorised officials of the Taxation and Customs Union Directorate-General are allowed to access the submitted personal data using a UserId and a Password.

5. How can you verify, modify or delete your information?

Subscriptions

For subscriptions to newsflash "EU Tax & Customs News":

You can modify your data at any time via our Web interface. You have the possibility to:

• change your identification data (your e-mail or your password)
• change your personal data
• change your subscriptions

or even completely unsubscribe from the service. In this case, all your data will be erased from our database after one month.

Enquiries

For enquiries sent by e-mail via this website's contact page:

You have no direct access to the stored data. If you wish to modify or delete any of the data you supplied, or if you have a question or request concerning this information, please let us know by completing the contact form you will find on this website.

6. How long do we keep your data?

Enquiries

All personal data which we receive from your information requests sent by e-mail via our contact page, are stored for as long as needed to answer your request, up to maximum of 18 months. After that period, personal data will be kept in an anonymous way for statistical purposes, unless they need to be kept for a longer period to establish, exercise or defend a right in a legal claim pending before a court and without prejudice to a possible transmission to the bodies in charge of a monitoring or inspection task in conformity with Community law.

Subscriptions

In order to respond to your subscription requests, the data is kept in the mailing list database until the person cancels the subscription in question (see privacy statement above).

7. Legal basis

More information on the European Commission's legal commitment with respect to user privacy can be found on our important legal notice page.

8. Contact information

European Commission
Unit responsible for information, training and
management of programmes (A2)
Rue du Luxembourg 40
B-1049 Brussels

(see the Commission Directory)

Contact form on web site

In case of conflict in relation with the processing of their personal data, Data Subjects can address a complaint to the European Data Protection Supervisor.