Privacy Policy

Overview  

This policy governs the way European Life After Stroke Forum obtains, uses, maintains, and discloses information collected from you. It is your responsibility to review and understand this Privacy Policy prior to providing your personal data to us. If you do not accept and agree to the Privacy Policy,  please refrain from providing your personal data to us.  

Who we are  

European Life After Stroke Forum is an event launched and managed by SAFE to create an opportunity at least once a year for those who wish to operate in this life after stroke area, whether researchers,  scientists, medical professionals, health policymakers, advocacy, or support groups, stroke survivors and their carers to come together and share and network.  

This Privacy Policy applies to the European Life After Stroke Forum 

SAFE – Stroke Alliance for Europe 
Rue Washington 40, 1050 Brussels 
Belgium 

Purpose  

This Privacy Policy explains when, why, and how we collect personal information about participants of European Life After Stroke Forum.  

European Life After Stroke Forum is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy policy.  

Our Commitment  

European Life After Stroke Forum is fully committed to handling personal information in accordance with data protection legislation and data protection and information security best practices. This  means that your personal information will be:  

  • Processed lawfully, fairly, and in a transparent manner  
  • Collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes  
  • Only collected so far as required for our lawful purposes  
  • As accurate and up to date as possible  
  • Retained for a reasonable period of time, in accordance with retention policies  • Processed in a manner which ensures an appropriate level of security  

How do we collect personal information?  

We collect information about you in a central database when you use any of the European Life After  Stroke Forum website or registration systems.  

In addition, like most organisations that handle personal information, there are various ways in which  we collect information from the people we deal with; 

  • Email and written correspondence  
  • Telephone discussions  
  • Social media  
  • Application forms and other information requests  
  • Direct contact at events and elsewhere  

In nearly all instances, it will be obvious to you when we are collecting your personal data. We also  collect information when you voluntarily complete surveys, provide feedback or provide personal  images. Website usage information is collected using cookies. The personal information most  commonly collected includes:  

  • Name and job title  
  • Contact details (including address, business address, e-mail – both work and personal, telephone number)  
  • Demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests  
  • For visitors to our website – your IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed  and when  
  • Other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers  
  • Records of enquiries, meetings and other direct engagement  
  • Copies of physical and electronic correspondence  

We collect information about you when you register with us to attend European Life After Stroke Forum. 

Why do we collect personal information?  

We may use your information to:  

  • Keep our delegate lists up to date  
  • Carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered with you  
  • Notify you of updates, developments and changes to European Life After Stroke Forum. 
  • Maintain your personal achievement records of awards, course completion certificates, attendance  at conferences and webinars, and other participation 
  • Seek your views or comments on our conferences in order that we can improve them  
  • Send you communications which we think may be of interest to you. These may include  information about events, conferences, or services delivered by European Life After Stroke Forum in  pursuit of its educational objectives.  

Marketing Activity 

As a conference provider with specific educational objectives, we will contact you about European  Life After Stroke Forum’s future conferences, events and other European Life After Stroke Forum initiatives and news which we think will be of help in furthering your own, and European Life After 

Stroke Forum’s, educational objectives. We will restrict our e-mail marketing activity with you to the  minimum required to keep you updated of European Life After Stroke Forum’s developments and  activities while being mindful not to burden you with excessive and unnecessary communications.  

We will provide you with an opportunity to opt-out of the use of your personal information for these  specific marketing purposes and will not share your information for marketing purposes with other  organizations. Third parties commissioned by European Life After Stroke Forum, such as Conference  Organisers and other ‘joint data controllers’ and ‘data processors’, will not share your personal  information without your express permission.  

We use your information collected from our website to personalise your repeat visits to the website.

What is the lawful basis for European Life After Stroke Forum’s processing activities?  

We will only process personal information where we believe we have a lawful basis to do so. The  basis for processing will vary from activity to activity. In some instances, processing may have more  than one lawful basis. The following information summarises the basis on which we process personal  information:  

  • Processing is necessary for us to meet our legitimate interests as a company providing services to  the users and delegates registered on our database  
  • Delivering services in pursuit of our educational objectives using our own IT applications and  platforms and/or the services of ‘joint data controllers’ and ‘data processors’  
  • Independent review of abstracts submitted for conferences, papers submitted for consideration  • Processing carried out in the public interest  
  • Regulatory activity  
  • Processing necessary for us to comply with our legal obligations  
  • Providing information to statutory bodies, independent auditors and law enforcement agencies. 
  • Processing necessary for the performance of a contract with our staff members and individuals  enrolled on our conferences, courses and other  
  • Where we use third party suppliers for processing data such as maintenance of our website, online  services and administration of conferences and other events  
  • Corresponding with delegates and users in respect of the delivery of our services within our terms  and conditions e.g. corresponding with an individual in the run up to an imminent conference for  which an individual has registered  
  • General administration for maintaining our delegate database  

Third parties  

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties and we will not share your information with  third parties for marketing purposes.  

When we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is  necessary to deliver the service. A contract is in place that requires them to keep your information  secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. 

We may transfer your personal information to a third party if we are under a duty to disclose or  share your personal data to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use  or to protect the rights, property or safety of our delegates. However, we will take steps with the aim  of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.  

When you are registering via our website, your transaction is processed by a third-party payment  processor who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card  transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us.  

How long do we retain personal information? 

The periods for which we retain personal information depends on the purpose for which the  information was obtained but, in general terms, we will retain personal data for so long as required  by law, or as may be required for record keeping and legal claims purposes.  

Where do we store personal information?  

Information which you provide to us will ordinarily be stored on secure servers. However, we do  work with third party contractors, some of whom host and operate certain features of the website.  By submitting personal information, you agree to this storing and processing. We will take all steps  reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy  Policy.  

Personal information is mostly processed by our staff online. To allow us to operate efficient digital  processes, we need to store data in secure servers which are linked to cloud based services. We also  work with third party contractors, some of whom host and operate certain features of the website.  By submitting your personal data, you are agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing.  

To ensure that your personal information does receive an adequate level of protection we have put  in place appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information is treated by those third  parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects the EU and UK laws on data protection:  For example a binding data sharing agreement which includes data access, data security and  information sharing clauses. If you require further information about these protective measures, you  can request it using the contact details below.  

IP Addresses  

We may collect information about the computer or device which is used to access our website. We  use this information to improve the user experience and to help us better understand the ways in  which our website is used. This may include information about:  

  • The computer or device type  
  • IP address  
  • Operating system  
  • Browser type and version  
  • Time zone setting and browser plug-in types and versions 

This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns. It is collected on an  anonymous, aggregated basis, and does not identify individual users security precautions in place to  protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information.. We have put in place suitable physical,  technical and organisational procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect. When  you are on a secure page, a lock icon will appear on the URL bar of the web browser such as  Microsoft Internet Explorer, or the web address will start https://Non-sensitive details (your email  address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be  100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee  the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive  your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have  given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our  websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your  password with anyone.  

Profiling  

We may analyse the personal information which you have submitted to create a profile of your  interests and preferences so that we can develop our conferences to best suit the needs and  requirements of our delegates. 

Cookies  

Our website makes use of cookie files to distinguish you from other users of our site, to provide you  with a bespoke user experience tailored to your individual preferences. A cookie file (a small file of  letters and numbers) will be placed on your computer or other access device each time you visit our  site.  

We also use analytical cookie files. These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors to  our site and to see how visitors move around our site when they are using it. This helps us to  improve the way our site works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are  looking for easily.  

If you wish to delete any such cookie files, please refer to the instructions for your file management  software to locate the file or directory that stores cookies. Our cookies will contain the domain name  fertilityconferences.org within the file name.  

You may refuse to accept cookie files when visiting our site, by activating the setting on your browser  which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you choose this setting, you may not  get an optimal website experience and be unable to access certain parts of our site.  

Other Websites 

Our website and emails may contain links to other websites, such as other fertility organisations or  carefully selected useful databases or partner organisations. We are not responsible for the content  or practices of these other sites and we recommend that you check their own privacy policies. Your  rights where we are processing your information in the UK and EU data protection legislation gives  

certain rights to UK and EU citizens whose information is being collected by European Life After  Stroke Forum and processed by our approved partners. The following is a quick summary of these  rights: 

  • Access to your information – you have the right to request a copy of the personal information  about you that we hold. If you would like a copy of some, or all, of your personal information, please  email or write to us at the address shown below. 
  • Correcting your information – we want to make sure that your personal information is accurate,  complete, and up to date, and so you may ask us to correct any personal information about you that  you believe does not meet these standards  
  • Deletion of your information – you have the right to ask us to delete personal information about  you where:  
  • You consider that we no longer require the information for the purposes for which it was obtained  
  • We are using that information with your consent and you have withdrawn your consent – see  ‘withdrawing consent to using your information’ below  
  • You have validly objected to our use of your personal information – see ‘objecting to how we may  use your information’ below  
  • Our use of your personal information is contrary to law or our other legal obligations  
  • Objecting to how we may use your information – you have the right at any time to require us to  stop using your personal information for marketing or newsletter purposes. In addition, where we  use your personal information to perform tasks carried out in the public interest, or in exercising  official authority vested in us then, if you ask us to, we will stop using that personal information  unless there are overriding legitimate grounds to continue  
  • Restricting how we may use your information – in some cases, you may ask us to restrict how we  use your personal information. This right might apply, for example, where we are checking the  accuracy of personal information about you that we hold or assessing the validity of any objection  you have made to our use of your information. The right might also apply if we no longer have a  basis for using your personal information but you don’t want us to delete the data. Where this right  is validly exercised, we may only use the relevant personal information with your consent, for legal  claims, or where there are other public interest grounds to do so  
  • Withdrawing consent to using your information – where we use your personal information with  your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time, and we will stop using your personal  information for the purpose(s) for which consent was given. Please contact us in any of the ways set  out in the ‘contact information and further advice’ section if you wish to exercise any of these rights.  

Changes to our Privacy Policy  

We keep this policy under regular review and will place any updates on this website.

Paper copies of the privacy statement may also be obtained by emailing safe@serenevents.com.

This privacy statement was last updated in August 2023. 

Your choices  

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications from us you can choose to ‘opt out’ from further marketing communications by selecting the ‘opt out’ option which is provided on every communication from European Life After Stroke Forum.  

You can also change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us by e-mail:  safe@serenevents.com

Contact Information and further advice  

If you have any questions which are not covered in this policy, please email us at  safe@serenevents.com. To help us deal with your query as quickly as possible, we recommend that you include the following in the e-mail subject ‘GDPR Data Request’.  

Complaints  

While we seek to resolve directly all complaints about how we handle personal information, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, Contact us – public |  ICO.