Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy governs the way Board of European Students of Technology, registered in Brussels, Belgium ("BEST") collects, uses, maintains and discloses your information in BEST.eu.org websites ("Sites").

As you review our policy, keep in mind that it applies to all BEST brands, products and services that do not have a separate privacy policy.

Personal Information means information about an identifiable individual. It includes information that you have provided to us. For example, we collect information when you visit our Sites, send us an email, sign up to receive email, request information, register on our Sites, create an account, fill out a survey, communicate with us via third party social media sites, or otherwise communicate with us or use the services, features or resources we make available on our Sites.

This Privacy Policy is intended to explain our privacy practices and covers the following areas:

  • What Personal Information about you we may collect
  • How we may use your Personal Information
  • Who we may share your Personal Information with
  • How we protect your Personal Information
  • Contacting us & your rights to prevent marketing and to access and update your Personal Information
  • Our Cookies Policy
  • How changes to this Privacy Policy and the Cookies Policy will be made

We will collect and process all or some of the following Personal Information about you:

  • Information you provide to us: Personal Information that you provide to us.

There are two types of information we collect:

  1. Personal Information which is required to be provided in order to be able to create an account for you;
  2. Personal Information which is optional to be provided.

In types of information we collect may include your name, email address, social media handles, birth date, postal or mailing address, phone number, mobile number, location, demographic information such as education and gender, t-shirt size, passport number, diets and allergies, and other contact or identifying information you choose to provide. We collect information only if you voluntarily submit such information.

The Personal Information which is required to be provided in order to be able to create an account includes: first name, last name, email address, gender, date of birth and citizenship. The other type of Personal Information collected is optional to be provided.

We collect the content and other information you provide when you use our Services, including when you sign up for an account, create or share, and message or communicate with us and other through our Sites.

Our websites may contain links to other third party websites. If you follow a link to any of those third party websites, please note that they have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for their policies or processing of your Personal Information. Please check these policies before you submit any Personal Information to such third party websites.

  • Our correspondence: if you contact us (through email or through our Helpdesk system), we will typically keep a record of that correspondence;
  • Information about how you use our services: such as information about the amount of time you use our products/services for, your typing patterns, the pages you visit, and other information about your activities while using our Sites. We collect this in order to develop our products and services, and to understand what your usage patterns and preferences are in order to improve the services we offer you;
  • Survey information: we may also ask you to complete surveys that we use for research purposes. In such circumstances we shall collect the information provided in the completed survey;
  • Device Information: such as information about your operating system, browser, software applications, IP address, geolocation, security status and other device information in order to improve your experience, to protect against fraud and manage risk;
  • Website and communication usage: details of your visits to the Sites and information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies including, but not limited to, your IP address and domain name, your browser version and operating system, traffic data, location data, web logs, other communication data, and the resources that you access;
  • Activities on Social Networking Sites (SNS): if you choose to participate (for example, by "liking" BEST's profile on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, posting a message, or answering a poll), we will have access to the information you divulge which may include Personal Information, depending on your SNS privacy settings.

When you access or use our Sites, we automatically collect information about you, including:

  • Log Information: We log information about your use of the Sites, including the type of browser you use, access times, pages viewed, your IP address and the page you visited before navigating to our Sites.
  • Device Information: We may collect information about the computer or mobile device you use to access our Sites, including the hardware model, operating system and version, device identifiers and mobile network information.
  • Information Collected by Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies: We use various technologies to collect information, and this may include sending cookies to your computer or mobile device. Cookies are small data files stored on your hard drive or in device memory that helps us to improve our Sites and your experience, see which areas and features of our Sites are popular and count visits. More information about our Cookie Policy can be found at https://www.BEST.eu.org/cookies.jsp.

We may also obtain information from other sources and combine that with information we collect through our Sites. For example, if you create or log into your account through a social media site, we will have access to certain information from that site, such as your name, account information and friends lists, in accordance with the authorization procedures determined by such social media site. We may also use such information for list matching purposes.

In this section, we set out the purposes for which we use Personal Information that we collect via our Sites.

We may use information about you for various purposes, including to:

  • register you with an account;
  • provide, improve and develop our Services, personalize content, and make suggestions for you by using this information to understand how you use and interact with our Services and the people or things you’re connected to and interested in our Services;
  • provide, maintain and improve our sites and send you confirmations, technical notices, updates, security alerts and support and administrative messages;
  • respond to your emails, submissions, comments, questions and requests, provide customer service, request feedback, and otherwise contact you about your use of the Sites;
  • send you newsletters to provide you with information or services you request;
  • monitor and analyze trends, usage and activities about our Sites;
  • conduct surveys and research;
  • carry out any other purpose for which the information was collected;
  • comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

We may share information about you as follows or as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy:

  • With your consent, your CV will be shared with companies and universities which are interested in your profile; this information will only be accessible to third parties if you will opt-in to our Career services. The user's information is by default visible to all partners of BEST with access to the database.
  • In case you are applying to a Partner Organisation Event (this is marked in the "Type" category of the event), the application and the personal information of the applicant will be shared with the Partner Organisation organising the event.

We also work with third party companies who help us provide and improve our Services. We transfer information to partners who globally support our activities, such as providing technical infrastructure services, analyzing how our Services are used, measuring the effectiveness of services, providing customer service, or conducting academic research and surveys. These partners must adhere to strict confidentiality obligations in a way that is consistent with this Privacy Policy and the agreements we enter into with them.

You may find advertising or other content on our Sites that link to the sites and services of our partners, sponsors, and other third parties. We do not control the content or links that appear on these sites and are not responsible for the practices employed by websites linked to or from our Sites.

In addition, these sites or services, including their content and links, may be constantly changing. These sites and services may have their own privacy policies and customer service policies. Browsing and interaction on any other website, including websites which have a link to our Sites, is subject to that website's own terms and policies.

We will use reasonable endeavours to ensure that your Personal Information is accurate. In order to assist us with this, you should notify us of any changes or mistakes regarding the following type of Personal Information that you have provided to us: first name, last name, date of birth, gender, citizenship, the assigned Local BEST Group, by contacting us through Helpdesk at https://BEST.eu.org/helpdesk/helpdesk.jsp.

If you have any questions in relation to our use of your Personal Information, you should first contact us via our Helpdesk at https://BEST.eu.org/helpdesk/helpdesk.jsp. Under certain conditions, you may have the right to require us to:

  • provide you with further details on the use we make of your information;
  • provide you with a copy of information that you have provided to us;
  • update any inaccuracies in the Personal Information we hold;
  • delete any Personal Information the we no longer have a lawful ground to use;
  • where processing is based on consent, to withdraw your consent so that we stop that particular processing;
  • object to any processing based on the legitimate interests ground unless our reasons for undertaking that processing outweigh any prejudice to your data protection rights; and
  • restrict how we use your information whilst a complaint is being investigated.

Your exercise of these rights is subject to certain exemptions to safeguard the public interest (e.g. the prevention or detection of crime) and our interests (e.g. the maintenance of legal privilege). If you exercise any of these rights we will check your entitlement and respond in most cases within a month.

If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy practices, the privacy of your Personal Information or you want to change your privacy preferences, please let us know at [email protected].

We use cookies on the websites. To find out more about how we use cookies, please see our Cookies Policy at http://www.BEST.eu.org/cookies.jsp.

We may change the content of our websites and how we use cookies and consequently our Privacy Policy and our Cookie Policy may change from time to time in the future. If we change this Privacy Policy or our Cookies Policy, we will update the date it was last changed below. If these changes are material, we will indicate this clearly on our Website.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 25 May 2018.