Privacy statement

This privacy statement provides information about the processing and the protection of your personal data

Processing operation: Transition Pathways Stakeholders’ Support Platform

Data Controller: European Commission, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, Unit G.1 Tourism, Textiles

Record reference: DPR-EC-24268

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 detailed information?

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.

The information in relation to processing operation “Transition Pathways Stakeholders’ Support Platform” undertaken by the Data Controller is presented below.

Access to the general part (overview) of the platform will be regulated through the EU login. Processing of data related to the EU login-based control, will be performed by EC services (Processing operation: Identity & Access Management Service (IAMS); Data Controller: EC DIGIT D3; Record reference: DPR-EC-03187).

On top of the general part of the platform, the Transition Pathways Stakeholders’ Support Platform will consist of a set of closed communities. Community is a subset of stakeholders who wish to communicate amongst themselves and/or with the service provider or the European Commission on a specific topic. The communities will correspond to the industrial ecosystems that are developing, implementing and monitoring their Transition Pathways. This additional personal data processing for registering into a community will be covered by this privacy statement.

Purpose of the Data Controller processing your personal data:

The services of the European Commission and of the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (“EISMEA”) or the Transition Pathways Stakeholders’ Support Platform’ developer and authorized administrators/managers of communities that the data subjects wish to join, will collect and use the personal information to allow:

1) Identification and verification of identity of the users which will allow for the access to the specific community.

2) Identification and verification of users and administrators/moderators who wish to communicate with each other and to disseminate their views, news, documents, studies, projects, learning opportunities, events, calendar, funding, support and investment opportunities, surveys and/or questionnaires, relevant legislative developments and varied types of information.

3) Verification of other users who wish to comment on policies/topics presented on the platform or on the output of stakeholder/working groups.

The individual's personal data is only to be used for legitimate reasons, i.e. to manage memberships or to contact members of the platform/communities and allow for data subjects to communicate among themselves.

These data is compulsory and is stored in the Commission's EU login system: username, surname, given name, e-mail address and password. For each community member: Position or job title/Employment affiliation, location or physical address.

Additional data processes: Picture, videos, descriptive ('About Me') information and interests within the community topics (non-compulsory). 

Your data will not be used for an automated decision-making, including profiling.

Article 195 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union establishes that the Union shall complement the action of the Member States in the tourism sector, in particular by promoting the competitiveness of Union undertakings in that sector. To that end, Union action shall be aimed at: (a) encouraging the creation of a favourable environment for the development of undertakings in this sector, and (b) promoting cooperation between the Member States, particularly by the exchange of good practice. 

The updated EU industrial strategy (COM(2021)350 final) asks for all industrial ecosystems to develop transition pathways to accelerate the twin transitions to become more sustainable, greener and digital. This should be done by engaging the stakeholders in a co-creation process to identify actions, targets and conditions for the transition, but also for its implementation and completion. 

On 4 February 2022, DG GROW published the Transition Pathway for tourism (TTP), a plan jointly created with actors of the tourism ecosystem detailing key actions, targets and conditions to achieve the green and digital transitions and long-term resilience of the sector. Active involvement of all actors including public and private stakeholders in the sector is key for the success of the green and digital transition. One of the Commission’s actions requested by the stakeholders in the Transition pathway for Tourism (as the first transition pathway prepared) was an integrated support platform for users, which would provide the necessary resources, tools and connections to support implementing and following individual transition pathway actions.

To develop such task, the Single Market Program [C(2022) 724 final 17.2.2022] , in its working programme for 2022, foreseen the creation of a “European portal to provide integrated support for tourism SMEs and stakeholders” [C(2022) 724 final ANNEX 2].

The portal would provide a gateway to the existing networks and support mechanisms in the Member States and at regional level and provide a structured way to facilitate interactions and best practices exchanges within stakeholder groups across Europe on thematic issues for tourism services development. The infrastructure created for the tourism ecosystem would allow the same technical implementation to be used for other industrial ecosystems that are developing, implementing and monitoring their Transition Pathways, and to establish and manage the content and interactions of their stakeholder communities based on their strategic priorities and identified transition pathway actions.

Being a tool to support the Transition Pathways, it will thus serve all ecosystems that are developing, implementing and monitoring their Transition Pathways.

The stakeholders’ support platform will provide an integrated access point, with a user-friendly entry point for the stakeholders: 

1) to access actively updated information and links to official and community resources relevant for the transition pathways and their actions, including on funding opportunities and relevant legislative developments;

2) to find constantly updated knowledge on ongoing projects, activities and events relevant for the transition pathways and their actions;

3) to provide means to connect with and work together with the members of specific stakeholder communities; and

4) to search or be alerted about topical current funding and learning opportunities or other relevant developments.

Moreover, the platform will support the implementation of the transition pathways and provide a key tool for monitoring and supporting the transition for the ecosystems, including facilitating the collection and publication of stakeholder commitments.

The content will be actively built and updated by the platform contractor and/or specific community developers/managers/administrators, also linking with other existing platforms, networks, communities and websites, as well as national and regional information provided by stakeholder communities relevant to support the identified transition pathway priorities. As one of the transition pathway strategic actions, the platform will also function as a key resource and information hub for the Pact for Skills partnerships – for tourism and similarly to other ecosystems.

The Transition Pathways Stakeholders’ Support Platform started with a “Project Initiation Request” for the:

• for the technical implementation of the platform as EU-branded website (following the example of the Digital Skills and Jobs platform);
• Content management, development and facilitation for the tourism stakeholder community with a yearly communication and community facilitation work plans, which define weekly and monthly deliverables;
• Reporting deliverables about activities on the tourism stakeholder community, including feedback collection from users for improving platform implementation and content support for the stakeholder community;
• Communication campaign of the platform and its benefits to the tourism stakeholders on EU and national levels, including in face-to-face events with local languages.

Following the “project initiation request”, the call for tenders EISMEA/2022/OP/0018 was launched for the creation of this platform.

We process your personal data, because 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 (Article 5(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725) and the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes (Article 5(1)(d) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725). 

The personal data of the self-registered individuals is processed based on their consent after having read, understood and agreed to this privacy statement. Consent can be withdrawn at any time, by a request of the registered/verified member to the manager/administrator (European Commission/ platform developer/authorized administrators/managers of communities). The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

In order to carry out this processing operation, the Data Controller processes the following categories of personal data:

From your EU Login (mandatory data):

• Your surname
• Your given name
• Your EU Login ID
• Your username
• Your email address
• Your password

From the request to add you to a community (mandatory data):

• The communities to which you have been added  
• Your position or job title/Employment affiliation
• Your location or physical address

From your Profile Page (non-compulsory):

• Your picture
• Your videos
• Your descriptive ('About Me') information
• Your interests within the community topics  (from pre-existing select boxes) to define your profile filters and descriptors.

We have obtained your personal data from you.

The Data Controller only processes and keeps your personal data for the time necessary.

Regarding the personal data from the member/profile, as long as the profile is active the data will be kept. Any data subject can delete themselves and their member profile or present a request to the manager/administrator (European Commission/platform developer/authorized administrators/managers of communities) to delete their member profile and all related data. 

The manager/administrator (European Commission/platform developer/authorized administrators/managers of communities) will delete inactive member profiles (inactive for 2 years).

For the data collected within the documents not related to member profiles, such as documents in the repository, studies, articles, videos of trainings, dates for events, etc, the retention period is 5 years after the Community has ended or terminated its working space within the platform.

No personal data is stored permanently within the Platform.

The only exception is the contributor's name, which remains attached to content or comments provided through the web.

The contributor gives consent prior to posting a content or comments on the platform. These posts can be deleted at any time by the manager/administrator (European Commission/platform developer/authorized administrators/managers of communities) upon request of the contributor.

All personal data in electronic format (e-mails, documents, databases, uploaded batches of data, etc.) is stored on the servers of the European Commission. 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 Commission’s contractors are bound by a specific contractual clause for any processing operations of your data on behalf of the Commission, and by the confidentiality obligations deriving from the transposition of the General Data Protection Regulation in the EU Member States (‘GDPR’ Regulation (EU) 2016/679).

In order to protect your personal data, the Commission has put in place a number of technical and organizational measures. Technical measures include appropriate actions to address online security, risk of data loss, alteration of data or unauthorized access, taking into consideration  the risk presented by the processing and the nature of the personal data being processed. Organizational measures include restricting access to the personal data solely to authorized persons with a legitimate need to know for the purposes of this processing operation.

Access to your personal data is provided to the Commission staff (European Commission/EISMEA) and platform developer/authorized administrators/managers of communities responsible for carrying out this processing operation and to authorized staff according to the “need to know” principle. Such staff abide by statutory, and when required, additional confidentiality agreements.

Your personal data will be visible in the Transition Pathways Stakeholder Support Platform to provide means to connect with and work together with other registered/verified members and to search or be alerted about topical current news, documents, studies, projects, learning opportunities events calendar, funding, support and investment opportunities, relevant legislative developments and varied types of information, and to give visibility to best practices and actions carried out to implement the transition pathway priorities, including stakeholder commitments to support the implementation of the transition pathways.

Access to this information is limited to registered/verified members.

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.

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).

The cookies employed by the Commission on your device for that purpose will be covered by the cookie policy of the Commission, which is available here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/cookies_en.

When you visit the Transition Pathways Stakeholders’ Support Platform (http://transition-pathways.europa.eu/), we will keep the browser history of your visit for a maximum of 6 months. 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.

Cookies are stored by Europa Analytics, the corporate service which measures the effectiveness and efficiency of the European Commission's websites on EUROPA. More information is available in the Record of Processing DPR-EC-00685 (Europa Analytics).

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 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.

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, rectify or erase your personal data and the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Where applicable, you also have the right to object to the processing or 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.

By agreeing to this privacy statement and by registering as member, you have consented to provide your personal data to the data controller for the present processing operation. You can withdraw your consent at any time by notifying the data controller by writing GROW-G1@ec.europa.eu .

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.

Any request for access to personal data will be handled within one month. Any other request mentioned above will be addressed within 15 working days.

• 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 Commission - Unit GROW G1 Tourism, Textiles - E-mail: GROW-G1@ec.europa.eu

• The Data Protection Officer (DPO) of the Commission

In case of disagreement with the Data Controller, you may contact the Data Protection Officer (DATA-PROTECTION-OFFICER@ec.europa.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 (edps@edps.europa.eu or https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/our- role-supervisor/complaints_en) 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.

The Commission 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-24268