Privacy policy

1. Introduction

AIPC values your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data in accordance with applicable privacy laws.

This AIPC Privacy & Cookie Policy (the “AIPC Privacy Statement”), explains how we collect and use your personal data. Personal data means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person; one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, by reference to an identifier such as name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier, or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.

2. Who and what is this Privacy & Cookie Policy for?

This AIPC Privacy Statement applies to any visitor of our website, any Member / Business Partner of the AIPC network (prospect, existing or former AIPC Member/Business Partner), any supplier of AIPC providing goods/services to AIPC. For our Members and Business Partners, since they are not individuals, this notice actually applies only to physical persons who are legal representatives, directors, shareholders or authorized staff/contacts of our members.

By providing personal data to us, you understand and agree to the collection, processing, international transfer and use of such information as set forth in this AIPC Privacy Statement. Where required by applicable law we will ask your explicit consent.

3. Data Controller

For the purposes of this notice, AIPC (Association Internationale des Palais de Congrès) with registered office at Amazonestraat 55, 1060 Sint-Gillis (Belgium) ("AIPC", "we", "us" or "our") is the controller of your personal data and is therefore responsible for the processing of said personal data in compliance with this notice and the applicable data protection law, and specifically with the European General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 ("GDPR").

4. Categories of Personal Data

We collect personal data in a variety of ways through our normal business activities both online and offline. This includes, for example when you become a member of AIPC, when you communicate with us, or attend one of AIPC’s professional development activities, or visit and use the AIPC website. We also receive personal information from our members in order to perform services on their behalf.

The categories of personal data we may collect and process includes:

  • professional identification and contact details which allow us to communicate with you, such as your name, job title, prefix, username, mailing address, telephone numbers, email address or other addresses that allow us to send you messages, AIPC information, registration information and any other relevant information you provide us with (e.g. through e-mail or post);
  • financial information such as bank account number, credit history, credit reference information;
  • transactional information such as information required when you attend an AIPC event, survey information when you have completed our AIPC event surveys, business related interest when you provide us your business card, so we can interact with you; and
  • online activity information via the members only section and the online conference registration module.

5. Purposes of Processing

AIPC uses your personal data for the following purposes:

  • managing our business needs, such as payment processing, services development, member audit and account management (including our interaction with you via our e-Bulletin, and newsletters sent via post), organization of Professional Development programs, surveys, governance, audit, and legal compliance;
  • communication with you about  AIPC Professional Development programs (content, logistics, updates, payment details, including conference apps - mobile app developed to help attendees and meeting planner to manager their conference experience), and managing our ongoing relationship with you following your attendance at one of our events, including interacting with you on other events;
  • offering and providing of information on our services, member contact and maintenance of the relationship with you, e.g. when you registered to our newsletter via our website contact form;
  • responding to your requests received via email, ordinary post, or otherwise; and
  • website improvement: maintaining, customizing and improving the website.

6. Legal ground for processing your personal data

We will normally process personal data from you only where:

  • we need the personal data to carry out a contract with you or the entity you represent;
  • we have a legal obligation to which AIPC is subject, for example to comply with specific tax obligations;
  • we have obtained your consent to the processing of your personal data, for example, we may ask your consent to process your data in order to provide you with our e-Bulletins and newsletters. We may seek your consent in writing or electronically. When seeking your consent, we will inform you about how your data will be used, including the identity of the data controller and the purposes. When you have provided your consent, you can withdraw it at any time by contacting secretariat@aipc.org; or
  • the processing is in our legitimate interests, for example, when processing your personal data to communicate with you, to send you our e-Bulletins and newsletters, to pursue our business activities and objectives, to improve our services and business operations in general, to comply with legal and regulatory obligations, standards, codes of conducts and/or the maintenance and improvement of AIPC’s position on the market.

7. Who do we share your personal data with?

In connection with the purposes of processing described above in Section 5, we may need to share your personal data with third parties, so-called ‘recipients’:

  • AIPC discloses your personal data to its third-party service providers who provide data processing services to us. This may be in connection with the services they provide to us, including to support us in areas such as IT platform management or support services, infrastructure and application services, sending out of our e-Bulletins or surveys. We implement clauses in our contracts with these third parties to protect your personal data.
  • AIPC discloses your personal data with our auditors, advisors, legal representatives and similar agents in connection with the advisory services they provide to us for legitimate business purposes and under contractual prohibition of using the personal data for any other purpose.
  • AIPC may also provide your personal data to public bodies such as regulatory, government agency, court or other third party such as but not limited to, the Police Authorities, the Financial Supervisory Authorities and the Tax Agencies, where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or (iii) to protect your interests or those of any other person.

8. Retention period

AIPC will retain your personal data no longer than necessary for the purposes for which they were collected, e.g. as long as necessary to perform our contractual engagements with you, until you request us to remove your personal data from our e-mailing database (e.g. opt-outs).

Personal data collected for conference registration and management is retained for the duration of the relevant event or longer if the event repeats (e.g. such as our Annual Conference).

9. International data transfers

AIPC has members all around the world, so we may process personal data outside the EEA. However, we have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your personal data will remain protected in accordance with this notice. These include implementing data transfer clauses with our third-party service providers and partners.

10.   Data security and quality

We apply risk-appropriate measures and processes that are reasonably designed to protect personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure or access, and against other unlawful forms of processing. Access to personal data is restricted to authorized recipients on a need-to know basis.

We require our website users registered on our members only section of our website to verify their identity (e.g. login ID and password) before they can access or make changes to their account. This is aimed to prevent unauthorized accesses

If there is a security breach resulting in a personal data breach, AIPC has a Data Breach Procedure in place.

11.   Data subject rights

The right to access

You have the right to access your personal data. Please send your request to secretariat@aipc.org, if you wish to access the personal data AIPC holds about you.

The right to rectification

If the personal data AIPC holds about you is inaccurate, not complete or up to date, you have the right to ask us to rectify or update it. If such personal data has been disclosed to a third party in accordance with this notice, then we shall also ask them to rectify or update your personal data. Please send your request to secretariat@aipc.org, if you need us to rectify or update your information.

The right to erasure

This is sometimes called ‘the right to be forgotten’. If you want to request AIPC to erase all your personal data and we do not have a legal ground to continue to process and hold it, please send your request to secretariat@aipc.org.

The right to restrict processing

In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask AIPC to restrict how we process your personal data. This means we are permitted to store the data but not further process it. If you want us to restrict processing of your personal data, please send your request to secretariat@aipc.org

The right to data portability

In certain circumstances, AIPC allows you to obtain the personal data we hold about you in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and to transmit those personal data to another controller without any hindrance. Please contact secretariat@aipc.org if you want information on how to transfer your personal data elsewhere. This right only applies to personal data that you have provided to us as the data controller. The personal data must be processed by us on the basis of your consent or for the performance of a contract and processing of your personal data must be carried out by automated means.

The right to object

In certain circumstances, you have the right to object to AIPC processing your personal data. If you wish to object, please contact secretariat@aipc.org

The right to complain to a data protection authority

You have the right to complain to your local data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal data if you feel that AIPC has not sufficiently addressed any concern of complaint. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority.

12. Consent

If you have given us your consent to process your personal data but would change your mind later, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, and AIPC will then stop processing your personal data. You can withdraw your consent by sending  an e-mail to secretariat@aipc.org.

You have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by clicking on the “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” link in the e-Bulletins we send you or send an e-mail to secretariat@aipc.org to opt-out of our communities, newsletters and general interest areas. To opt-out of other forms of marketing (such as postal marketing or telemarketing), please contact secretariat@aipc.org.

13.   Updates

We may need to update this AIPC Privacy Statement in response to changing legal, technical or business environment. When we update it, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make. We will obtain your consent to any material notice changes if and where this is required by law.

You can see when this notice was last updated by checking the “last updated” date displayed at the top of this notice. The most up to date version will be the one kept on the website. It is advised to regularly consult the AIPC Privacy Statement.

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