Privacy Policy

PROTECTION OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA
Processing operation: Processing of personal data in connection with the Teaching with Europeana blog (https://teachwitheuropeana.European Schoolnet.org/), by its visitors.
Data Controller:European Commission, Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT), Directorate G, Unit G2
Data Processor: EUROPEAN SCHOOLNET Partnership aisbl
1. Introduction
The European Commission (hereafter ‘the Commission’) and European Schoolnet are committed to protecting your personal data and to respecting 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) n° 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 “Data processing on Teaching with Europeana Blog”. This blog is maintained by European Schoolnet on behalf of the Commission as part of the common European data space for cultural heritage project, which is co-financed by the Digital Europe Programme of the European Union, as represented by the European Commission. In this context, the Commission has entered into a service contract with a consortium of contractors led by the Europeana Foundation, with EUROPEAN SCHOOLNET being one of the contractors. According to the terms of the service contract, the Commission’s Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT), Directorate G, Unit G2 serves as the data controller and the contractors, including EUROPEAN SCHOOLNET act as the data processor. Service contract number LC01901432 from September 2022 to August 2025.
2. Why do we process your personal data?
European Schoolnet through the Teaching with Europeana blog collect your personal data when you:
- Visit the blog.
- Register to the blog trough EUN.
- Voluntarily register for events/webinars/conferences/competitions/courses announced on the blog.
- Comment on published Learning Scenarios, Stories of Implementation, or other blog posts.
- Contact the data controller and/or European Schoolnet directly via social media, phone, or e-mail.
3. On what legal ground(s) do we process your personal data
We process your personal data on several grounds:
- Article 5(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725: this 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. Indeed, informing the broad public is a task resulting from the European Commission’s own prerogatives at institutional level, as provided for in Article 58(2) (d) of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2018/1046 of 18 July 2018 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (OJ L 193, 30.7.2018, p. 1). We ensure that adequate and specific safeguards are implemented for the processing of personal data, in line with the applicable data protection legislation.
- Article 5(1)(d) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725: for the processing activities consisting of:
- Registration to the blog trough EUN
- Comment on published Learning Scenarios, Stories of Implementation, or other blog posts your consent is necessary. In compliance with Article 3(15) and Article 7 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725, the consent must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous. We have obtained your consent directly from you. You may have expressed it by an email, or in any other written form.
4. Which personal data do we collect and further process?
In order to carry out this processing operation, EUN on behalf of the European Commission, the controller,collects the following categories of personal data:
a. Registration to the Blog
Visitors have the option to create an account to access unique features reserved exclusively for registered users. For the registration process, we collect the following personal data:
- Name, surname and email address
Please note that at this time (2025) new account registration is not available.
b. Blog visits
As a general policy, you are not required to disclose your personal data as a condition of using the Teaching with Europeana blog. No basic identity information, such as your name, postal address, or email address is automatically collected from your visit to the blog. However, we automatically collect technical information (IP address, Internet Service Provider (ISP), web browser, operating system) and information about your visit through cookies, as detailed in section 6 below.
c. Registration to events/webinars/conferences/competitions/courses
When you visit the Teaching with Europeana blog, you may want to register to the events, webinars, conferences, competitions and courses organised by European Schoolnet, or the other contractors, acting on behalf of the data controller.
The types of personal data collected when you register for the events, webinars, conferences, competitions or courses are described in their own privacy statements. The privacy statements will give you details of the purpose and legal grounds of the processing, who will have access to your personal data and the period of time for which the data will be kept. In addition, the privacy statements for each event/webinar/conference/competition/course will detail your rights in respect of the data collected, where you can get further information on the privacy statements and the official organisations to which you can complain in the event that you feel that your data protection rights have been infringed.
We use Microsoft Teams to organise online events. MS Teams is a feature of Microsoft 365. The processing of your personal data for the purposes of participating in our online events will be subject to the privacy statement of each event as well as to the terms and conditions of https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-privacy.
We also use Microsoft Forms and/or EUSurvey to collect and process the data you submit to register for events/webinars/conferences/competitions/courses available at the blog. In addition to the own privacy statement for each event, the processing of your personal data may also be subject to the privacy statement of Microsoft and/or EUSurvey. The privacy statement of EUSurvey can be found athttps://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/home/privacystatement).
d. Comment on published Learning Scenarios, Stories of Implementation, or other blog posts
Registered users of the blog may publish comments on updates on the project, Learning Scenarios and Stories of Implementation.
All comments are subject to approval by a European Schoolnet moderator; in order to publish a comment, a user has to provide a name that will be stored on EUN servers.
e. Contacting European Schoolnet and/or the data controller
Your personal data (e.g. your full name, email, professional title, organisation name, and any other personal data you choose to share) is also collected when you voluntarily contact European Schoolnet and/or the data controller through social media, phone or e-mail. If you choose to contact us directly, we will only use the personal data you have provided us with for the purposes of responding to your message and, in case, providing the service you require.
5. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web analytics tool that uses cookies to track visitor interactions, helping website owners understand how visitors engage with their website. Google Analytics customers can view a variety of reports about how visitors interact with their website so that they can improve it. Google Analytics collects information without identifying you directly. It reports website trends to its users such as ourselves without identifying individual visitors. Specifically, and depending on whether Google has access to this information, users can get information on the visitors’ age group, gender, interests, language preference, location, browser, device and operating system. You can opt out of Google Analytics without affecting how you visit our site – for more information on opting out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites you use, visit this Google page.
6. Cookies
To make this blog work properly, we sometimes place small data files called cookies on your device. Most big websites do this too.
6.1 What are cookies?
A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. It enables the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login, language, font size and other display preferences) over a period, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another.
6.2 How do we use cookies?
On our blog, we only use a very limited number of cookies: User preferences: These cookies help to improve a user’s experience of a website by providing a more personalised service, without having to ask you every time again; more specifically, our Blog stores a limited number of user preferences, such as:
More detailed information about the type of cookies we are using can be found on Table 1:
Name | Type | Purpose |
i/jot | X | Pairing service which facilitates real-time bidding for advertisers |
local_storage_support_test | X | This function allows the web site to load faster by pre-loading certain procedures |
_gid | Google analytics | It helps in identifying unique visitors for 24 hours. |
_gatutmz | Google analytics | It is used to calculate traffic drivers e.g. search engine traffic, ad campaigns and navigation within the site |
_gidutmb | Google analytics | It is used to establish and continue a user session with your site. |
collect _utmc | Google analytics | It is used to send data about the visitor’s device and behavior. Tracks the visitor across devices and marketing channelsIt keeps track of the number of times a visitor has been to the site pertaining to the cookie, when their first visit was, and when their last visit occurred. |
NID | Registers a unique ID that identifies a returning user’s device. The ID is used for targeted ads. |
Table 1. Cookies
6.3 YouTube Videos Cookies
Some pages on the blog display embedded YouTube videos, for which we use Privacy-Enhanced Mode. In this case, YouTube shall not install cookies when you visit those pages on our site unless you decide to interact with the videos (play, share, etc).
YouTube has its own cookie and privacy policies over which we have no control. There is no installation of cookies from YouTube until you consent to YouTube cookies and then are redirected to the YouTube website.
6.4 How to control cookies?
You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer, and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some services and functionalities may not work.
7. How long do we keep your personal data?
European Schoolnet, on behalf of the data controller, only keeps your personal data for the time necessary to fulfil the purpose of collection or further processing, when we asked for your consent, up until such time when you withdraw your consent. As a general rule, we will de-identify your personal data when they are no longer necessary for the purposes outlined above or when the retention period as explained in this section has expired.
All personal data we collect through our interactions with you via the Teaching with Europeana blog will be kept for as long as required to communicate with you, but also to keep an historical archive of our communications. This allows us to revert to earlier communications if you return to us with new questions, requests, or other input.
For our events/webinars/conferences/competitions/courses, surveys/calls and surveys/, the period of retention will be indicated in the separate privacy policy for the activity concerned.
For personal data collected from visitors at the time of their registration to the blog: 5 years
For personal data collected through Story of Implementation Tool: 5 years
Beyond this period, your data won’t be retained except in an anonymised form, or insofar as required to show that we’ve performed the activities in accordance with applicable laws and the EU’s audit regulations.
8. How do we protect and safeguard your personal data?
The Teaching with Europeana blog has implemented and continues to maintain appropriate state-of-the-art technical and management measures to keep your personal information secure and safe from loss, damage, corruption or deletion.
All personal data in electronic format (e-mails, documents, databases, uploaded batches of data, etc.) are stored on the secure servers of the European Schoolnet, based in the EU. Additionally, our blog is hosted on the WordPress platform, a globally recognized, GDPR-compliant service that employs industry-leading security measures such as encrypted data transmission, robust firewalls, and regular security audits, to further ensure that your data is always safeguarded. For further information on how WordPress protects data, please refer to their Privacy Policy.
The Commission has implemented security measures to protect server hardware, software and the network from accidental or malicious manipulations and loss of data in line with the technical security provisions laid down in the Commission Decision (EU, Euratom) 2017/46 of 10 January 2017 on the security of communication and information systems in the European Commission, its subsequent versions, its implementing rules (as adapted from time to time) and the corresponding security standards and guidelines, as well as the Commission Decision (EU, Euratom) 2015/443, of 13 March 2015, on the security in the Commission, and the Commission Decision (EU, Euratom) 2015/444, of 13 March 2015, on the security rules for protecting EU classified information, its implementing rules and the corresponding security notices.
Since data is stored on European Schoolnet’s servers, European Schoolnet (in its capacity as processor) is contractually bound to implement the above-mentioned provisions.
9. Who has access to your personal data and to whom is it disclosed?
Access to your personal data is provided to the European Schoolnet staff responsible for carrying out this processing operation on behalf of the data controller, to authorised staff of the data controller, and of the Commission as well as to the third-party service providers specified in this Privacy according to the “need to know” basis and the data minimisation principle.
The information collected will not be given to any other third party not specified herein, except to the extent and for the purpose it may be required by law.
Upon request, data may be transferred in an anonymous way to third parties for research purposes. Some of your personal data as specified under Section 4 above will be made publicly available in the Teaching with Europeana blog and thus made freely accessible on the Internet. In these cases, you have the right to ask for your data to be deleted as explained under Section
The blog may contain embedded videos hosted on third party platforms (e.g. YouTube). When you visit a page that contains an embedded video hosted on such platforms or watch such a video, your web browser transmits some of your personal data to these platforms. The categories of data transmitted are described in the privacy statements of these platforms but note that it also depends on the settings of your web browser. We draw your attention to the fact that these platforms might process your personal data in third countries. For more information, please consult the privacy statement of the platform in question.
10. Data Transfers
Your personal data may be transferred to and stored at a destination outside the European Union (”EU”)/European Economic Area (”EEA”) in which our third-party service providers specified in this Privacy Notice are located or have servers. We ensure that the recipient of your personal data offers an adequate level of protection, by engaging in data processing agreements with our third-party service providers, which provide for standard contractual clauses for the transfer of data as approved by the European Commission. Your personal data may also be accessible to parties outside the EU/EEA via European Schoolnet’s social media pages, links to which are embedded in this website. An exception might also be where you are located outside the EU/ EEA, and we need to follow up with you regarding your submission. Apart from the above-mentioned circumstances, your personal data are not sent outside the EU/EEA by us.
11. Privacy Policies of Other Websites
The blog contains links to other websites, including Europeana website. This Privacy Policy applies only to this blog, so if you click on a link to another website, you should read their privacy policy.
The blog also includes links to third-party websites, including the project’s Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn social media pages. Clicking on those links may allow third parties to collect or share personal data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their use of your personal data. We recommend that you read any privacy notices on their websites carefully.
12. What are your rights and how can you exercise them?
The processing should respect the following rights of data subjects (i.e. you)
Article 17 – Right of access by the data subject
Article 18 – Right to rectification
Article 19 – Right to erasure (right to be forgotten)
Article 20 – Right to restriction of processing
Article 21 – Notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing
Article 22 – Right to data portability
Article 23 – Right to object
Article 24 – Rights related to Automated individual decision making, including profilingFurthermore, for those processing operations to which you have consented (see Section 3 above), you can withdraw your consent at any time by notifying the data controller and/or European Schoolnet. The withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of the processing carried out before you withdrew your consent.
You can exercise your rights by contacting the data controller and/or EUROPEAN SCHOOLNET (i.e. data processor), Their contact information is given under Section 13 below.
13. Contact Information
- 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 Unit G2, Directorate G, Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT) of the European Commission: CNECT-G2@ec.europa.eu
- the data processor: European Schoolnet Partnership aisbl, Rue de Trèves 61, B-1040 Brussels, Belgium, privacy@European Schoolnet.org
- 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.
- You have the right to have recourse (i.e. you can lodge a complaint) to the European Data Protection Supervisor (edps@edps.europa.eu) 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 processor on behalf of the data controller.