The Zero Waste Cities website (referred to as “the website”) is managed by Zero Waste Europe Vereniging (referred as “we” or “ZWE”) located at WeWork, c/o Zero Waste Europe, Rue du Commerce 31, 1000, Brussels, Belgium.
We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring a positive user experience on our website. This policy outlines our handling practices and how we collect and use the Personal Data you provide during your online and offline interactions with us.
As used in this Privacy Policy, “Personal Data” means any information that can be used to individually identify a person, and may include, but is not limited to, name, email address, postal or other physical address, credit or debit card number, title, and other personally identifiable information.
Zero Waste Europe Vereniging will be the controller of your Personal Data that is provided, collected and/or processed pursuant to this Privacy Policy, except where otherwise expressly stated below. This policy may be updated from time to time for reasons such as operational practices or regulatory changes, so we recommend that you review our Privacy Policy when returning to our website.
Questions regarding the processing of your information and your rights
Should you:
- Have any questions about the use or collection of your personal data;
- Wish to know which personal data are processed;
- Wish to alter, delete, or block some of the information processed concerning you;
please contact [email protected].
We are obliged to request proof of identity before access to personal data is given.
If you would like us to remove your information from our mailing list, please click the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any email we sent to you or contact us directly at [email protected].
Supervisory Authority: In case you are not satisfied with the answers provided to your data and privacy queries by ZWE, you can at all times address a complaint (in French, Dutch or German) to:
Data Protection Authority (DPA) of Belgium
Email: [email protected]
Address: Rue de la Presse 35, B-1000, Brussels, Belgium
How we collect and use information
We may collect your Information when:
- You contact us with a query via our “Contact Us” page,
- You send an email to the email address displayed on our website;
- You contact us by post;
- You apply for a job opportunity or call for tenders/proposals on our “Work with us” page and respective forms;
- Register for a webinar or event;
- Subscribe to our mailing lists or newsletters;
- Make a donation to ZWE or a specific ZWE campaign/project.
We may also maintain records with details of individuals who contact us for (further) information or for help, but only in case we need to contact them later on or provide further information to them in the future.
By providing your email address, you can also subscribe to our mailing list in order to receive updates by email. This data is then managed through Zoho Campaigns – you can read Zoho’s full privacy policy here.
We may share social networking buttons and widgets from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and GiveForms on our website to enable you to easily share ZWE articles, case studies, service offers, and news with your contacts and networks; as well as making donations to ZWE. These social networking sharing buttons and widgets come from web servers that may track your behaviour on our website and may combine this with other information about you originating from other websites. You can install a browser add-on like “Disconnect” for Chrome and Firefox to disable them. ZWE does not have access to any of your details or personal information from these services.
We also gather information automatically about website visitors to help us maintain and improve the design of our website. We use Google Analytics to gather this data and analyse it. You can install the “Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on” to prevent information about your visits to our website from being sent to Google Analytics. This data is anonymised by Google and we have no access to identifiable information.
Information sharing and disclosure practices
We are also interested in sharing testimonials about collaboration moments with ZWE on our website and social media channels, so that our audiences can better understand the benefits and impact of our mission, vision, and work – in this case, we will approach the potential person first and ask for their explicit permission to share their name, organisation, country, role, and feedback/testimonial as such. No feedback or testimonials will ever be shared without their explicit awareness and consent.
We may also disclose and provide access to the information you provided to our contractors who are performing services on our behalf. However, such contractors are not permitted to use your information for any purpose other than providing services to us.
Finally, where we pass your information to service providers or other organisations with whom we work located in countries outside the European Economic Area, we will make sure that they apply the same level of protection to your information as we do. Further information about the mechanisms we will apply to safeguard your personal data can be found at the following link but please do not hesitate to contact ZWE at the email address provided below if you have any specific questions regarding international transfers.
How long ZWE retains your personal data
This section sets out how long we retain your information. Whenever possible, we set out specific retention periods. There may be legitimate reasons for retaining the data for a longer period, but at the end of the relevant period we consider whether the data is still required, perform data cleanups or reach out to those subscribed to our communications to ensure they still want to receive our emails.
We retain your data for only as long as is required, for example, the duration of the relevant contract plus 6-7 years for limitation period purposes. We may retain your data for a longer period of time if we have to do so to comply with legal requirements, e.g., tax.
Criteria for determining retention periods
In any other circumstances, we will retain your information for no longer than necessary, taking into account the following:
- The purpose and use of your information both now and in the future (such as keeping records of transactions, contracts, and agreements for a reasonable duration is essential for our activity);
- Whether we have any legal basis to continue to process your information (such as your consent or legitimate interest);
- How valuable your information is (both now and in the future);
- The levels of risk, cost and liability involved with us continuing to hold the information;
- How hard it is to ensure that the information can be kept up to date and accurate;
- Any relevant surrounding circumstances (such as the nature and status of our relationship with you).
Security measures
All of your information is stored in Belgium. Depending on the process and purpose (marketing, contracting, etc.), we might use different systems, but the data centres are located in the EU. We refrain from transferring your information outside the EEA or to an international organisation, unless it is essential as part of our operations (example: ZWE is representing other coalitions such as Rethink Plastic Alliance or Break Free From Plastic Europe and is part of GAIA – Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives). In each case, we will ensure appropriate safeguards and protections are in place (specialised IT support, back-ups, antivirus programme, enhanced authentication).
We have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to secure personal data against loss or against any form of unlawful processing. Our service purchasing pages, widgets, and tools are secured using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), a security protocol that provides communications privacy over the Internet in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery.
Only employees who need to access information about supporters and website visitors to perform their work are granted access to this personally identifiable information.
What are your data protection rights?
We would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:
- The right to access – You have the right to request ZWE for copies of your personal data.
- The right to rectification – You have the right to request that ZWE correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request ZWE to complete information you believe is incomplete.
- The right to erasure – You have the right to request that ZWE erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
- The right to restrict processing – You have the right to request that ZWE restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
- The right to object to processing – You have the right to object to ZWE’s processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
- The right to data portability – You have the right to request that ZWE transfer the data that we have collected to another organisation, or directly to you, under certain conditions.
- The right not to be subject to automated decisions, including profiling – You have the right not to be subject to decisions based solely on an automated process, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning you or otherwise significantly affects you.
- The right to withdraw consent – You have the right to withdraw consent where ZWE relies on it to process your personal data.
Information we may receive from third parties
Third parties may pass certain information about your use of its service in relation to ZWE. Information could include, but is not limited to:
- the user ID associated with your account (for example, your Facebook UID);
- an access token necessary to access that service;
- any information that you have permitted the third party to share with us; and
- any information you have made public in connection with that service.
If you allow us access to your friends list, your friends’ user IDs and your connection to those friends may be used and stored to make your experience more social. You should always review and, if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third-party websites and services before linking or connecting them to the ZWE website. You may also unlink your third-party account from the Service by adjusting your settings on the third-party service.
Analytics information
We may directly collect analytics data, or use third-party analytics tools and services like Google Analytics to help us measure traffic and usage trends. These tools collect information sent by your browser or mobile device, including the pages you visit and other information that assists us in improving our website. We collect and use this analytics information in aggregate form such that it cannot reasonably be manipulated to identify any particular individual user.
Links to other websites and services
We are not responsible for the practices employed by websites or services linked to or from the website, including the information or content contained therein. Please remember that when you use a link to go from our website to another website, our Privacy Policy does not apply to third-party websites or services. Your browsing and interaction on any third-party website or service, including those that have a link or advertisement on our website, are subject to that third party’s own rules and policies.
In addition, you agree that we are not responsible and we do not control any third-parties that you authorise to access your User Content. If you are using a third-party website or service (like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, or Twitter) and you allow such a third-party access to your User Content, you do so at your own risk.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to information we collect by other means (including offline) or from other sources other than through the Service.
Cookie Policy
What are cookies and how do we use cookies?
In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like card payments and provide anonymised tracking data to third-party applications like Google Analytics (Google Analytics Privacy Policy) which is used to help us improve your user experience on the site. We use first-party and third-party cookies.
The ZWE website uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your machine to help the site provide a better user experience.
There are different types of cookies:
- First-party cookies – these are set by the website you’re visiting, and only that website can read them. In addition, a website might use a separate company to analyse how people are using their site. And this separate company will set their own cookie to do this.
- Third party cookies – these are set by someone other than the owner of the website you’re visiting. Our website may also contain content from other sites like Facebook or Twitter, which may set their own cookies. Also, if you share a link to our website, the service you share it on (e.g. Facebook) may set a cookie on your browser.
How to manage cookies
As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better. However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. We suggest consulting the Help section of your browser or taking a look at the About Cookies website which offers guidance for all modern browsers.
List of third-party cookies
- YouTube
- Google+
- Zoho
- GiveForms
Analytic cookies
- Google Analytics
Changes to our privacy policy
ZWE keeps its privacy policy under regular review and places any updates on this webpage, as laws evolve or as our processing activities change. If we update this Privacy Policy, we will post a new version on our website. We encourage you to check this page regularly, before providing personal data, to ensure you have access to the most updated version.
