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).
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.
This privacy statement concerns the processing of personal data by the Commission when handling requests for information related to the Financial Transparency System (FTS), undertaken by Unit C5 in the Directorate-General for Budget (hereafter ‘the FTS Team’, horizontal Data Controller on behalf of the European Commission) and respectively, by the units responsible for dealing with requests for information about commitments published on the FTS, in the competent Commission departments or services (de facto Data Controller on behalf of the European Commission).
Purpose of the processing operation: DG BUDG (referred to hereafter as Data Controller) collects and uses your personal information in order to reply to your inquiries about the Financial Transparency System (related to Article 38 of the Financial Regulation), which are sent directly to the FTS Team via e-mail messages BUDG-FTS@ec.europa.eu).
Moreover, the Commission collects and uses your personal information in order to reply to your questions about a specific commitment published on the FTS. Such inquiries are initiated via the “Request more information” button (FTS Analyse webpage), and sent by your e-mail client, in a form of e-mail messages, to the units responsible for dealing with requests for information about commitments published on the FTS in the Commission departments or services managing the specific commitment (the de facto Data Controller). The FTS Team (BUDG-FTS@ec.europa.eu) is also in carbon copy of these e-mail messages.
The data is received through a functional mailbox and used solely to reply to the question(s) of the applicant.
Your personal data will not be used for an automated decision-making including profiling.
The European Commission processes your personal data, because:
In particular, the European Commission needs to make available, in an appropriate and timely manner, information on recipients of funds financed from the budget, as per Chapter 8 – Transparency, Article 38 of the Financial Regulation.
In order to carry out this processing operation, the Commission collects the following categories of personal data:
The provision of other personal data is not mandatory, but an e-mail address is necessary for returning a reply to the sender.
The European Commission only keeps your personal data for the time necessary to fulfil the purpose of collection or further processing.
The FTS Team keeps your personal data in a dedicated functional mailbox for a period of 6 months counted from the date of receipt of your e-mail message. After the indicated period, an automatic deletion of the messages is performed. The same period and automatic deletion process are also applied to replies, which are sent to you by the FTS Team.
All personal data in electronic format (e-mails, documents, databases, uploaded batches of data, etc.) are stored either on the servers of the European Commission or of its contractors. 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.
The European Commission’s contractors are bound by a specific contractual clause for any processing operations of your personal data on behalf of the European Commission, and by the confidentiality obligations deriving from the transposition of the General Data Protection Regulation in the EU Member States.
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.
Access to your personal data is provided to:
This is done according to the ‘need to know’ principle. Such staff abide by statutory, and when required, additional confidentiality agreements.
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, 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) on grounds relating to your particular situation.
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 section 'Contact information' 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 section ‘Where to find more detailed information?’ below) in your request.
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-02099.
