1.1 About FTTH Council Europe ASBL
The FTTH Council Europe ASBL is an industry organisation with a mission is to accelerate ubiquitous fibre based connectivity empowering a leading Digital Society throughout Europe.
1.2 Controller of your personal information
This Privacy Notice explains how FTTH Council Europe ASBL collects, uses and protects your personal information. The following company is the controller of the personal information you supply to FTTH Council Europe ASBL:
FTTH Council Europe ASBL, Rue de la Presse 4, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
Contact Person: The Data Controller, FTTH Council Europe – email: privacy@ftthcouncil.eu, tel: +32 (0) 460 97 46 97
2. What information and data we collect
This section summarises the personal information that we may collect and use when you:
- Register or a third party makes a registration for you to attend our webinars, events, conferences and trade shows using the www.ftthconference.eu (or sub-domain of) website;
- Subscribe to receive email information from the FTTH Council Europe through the www.ftthcouncil.eu (or sub-domain of) website;
- Use contact forms or tools (e.g. Find Your Fibre expert) available on the www.ftthconference.eu (or sub-domain of) website;
- Download one of our publications or assets from the www.ftthcouncil.eu (or sub-domain of) website.
2.1 Your personal information
In this Privacy Notice, the term “personal information” refers to the types of information we may collect and use, which includes:
- Contact details, including your first name, last name, professional position, job title, job function, company, company focus, email address, postal address and telephone number;
- Gender, educational, nationality, professional background information and interests;
- Any personal information provided directly by you during a (physical or virtual) event, conference, webinar or trade show organized by us;
- Any personal information provided directly by you in contact forms on the www.ftthconference.eu (or sub-domain of) website;
- Geo-location information at a physical conference (if you attend a conference where we are using RFID-enabled badges).
We collect and use your personal information for the following purposes:
- As contact data which may include individual, member and/or corporate contact data
- In connection with our events and trade show visitors, exhibitors, speakers, conference visitors and attendee data, as further detailed in Section 3.2 below.
2.1.1 Special categories of information
Certain types of personal data are more sensitive as they include information on racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic or biometric data.
We may collect and use the following types of special information:
- Dietary requirements that imply specific religious beliefs or medical conditions.
- Any physical or mental disability or impairment you may disclose to us.
We collect and use this personal information to provide you with hospitality services during the Conference.
- Medical data that imply the COVID-19 vaccination status of the attendee, and/or the absence of infection with COVID-19.
We collect and use this medical data to comply with the legal obligations imposed on the organisation of large events during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the continuous changes in the pandemic situation, we will publish the legal obligations in the coming weeks including (i) applicable implementation laws for the processing of medical data in Austria, (ii) the specific rules for the control and scanning of covid safe passes or vaccination passports, and (iii) the specific conditions and rules to organise large events in Austria. In case you do not wish to abide by such obligations once they are published, then you will be entitled to cancel your registration and receive a refund.
2.2 Collecting personal information
We collect personal information when:
- You register for and/or attend our events, conferences, webinars, trade shows and/or activities associated with our events;
- A third party makes a registration for you to attend our events, conferences, webinars, trade shows and/or activities associated with our events;
- You ask us for information about one of our events, including through the downloading of a brochure and/or in case you contact us with a question or complaint;
- You register to participate in or use the Find Your Fibre expert tool on the www.ftthconference.eu (or sub-domain of) website, including by submitting a request for product information;
- You provide any personal data to us or to any of our virtual environment service providers (including e.g. a webinar service provider or a virtual conference service provider) whenever we organize and host a virtual conference, webinar or other event;
- You are scanned using barcode and/or RFID scanner by us as the event/conference organiser and/or an exhibitor at our event, conference and/or trade show;
- Subscribe to receive email information, including newsletters or marketing communications, from the FTTH Council Europe;
- Download one of our publications or assets from the FTTH Council Europe website
3. How and why personal information is used
This section explains how and why we use personal information.
3.1 Lawful Processing in Europe
As we collect and process personal data, the lawful bases we use for this activity in the European Economic Area ("EEA"), as required under the Data Protection Legislation are:
- Where it is necessary, for the FTTH Council Europe to enter into or perform a contract with you;
- Where the FTTH Council Europe has a legitimate interest to do so, provided your rights do not override these interests;
- Where you have consented to the use of your data for the purposes of supplying you with additional email marketing information about our services, conferences, webinars, events and other activities;
- Where you have consented to the use of your data for the purposes of submitting a request for product information or registering as a sales representative in the Find Your Fiber expert tool;
- Where it is in the legitimate interest of FTTH Council Europe to promote its events (including conferences, webinars, etc), for the purposes of sharing your personal information with sponsors of these events to allow those sponsors/exhibitors to send you commercial messages relating to their other products and services that may also interest you;
- Where you have consented to the use of your data for the purposes of analysing session attendance, delegate flow and to manage session capacity;
- Where you have consented to the use of your data for the purposes of providing you with the adequate hospitality services during the Conference;
- Where FTTH has a legitimate business interest to do so for the purposes of operating the Conferences, providing and improving our services, and to manage and promote our business.
- Where FTTH Council Europe has a legitimate interest to do so for the purposes of supplying you with additional email marketing information about our conferences, webinars, events and other activities;
- Where it is necessary, for you to share data with us to comply with our legal obligations.
3.2 Event and Exhibition Management
If you have agreed to participate in one of our events (which include among other things physical or virtual conferences and online webinars) as a sponsor, exhibitor or attendee, personal data is used in connection with the running of the event, to handle payments, invoicing and/or for other purposes, as is necessary to deliver the service and/or for performing the contract entered into.
If you are a presenter at one of our events, we will collect information about you including your name, employer and contact information, and photograph, and we may also collect information provided by the event attendees who evaluated your performance as a presenter. We may also make and store a recording of your voice and likeness in certain instances. The FTTH Council Europe relies on a legitimate interest basis for collecting, storing and process this information.
At our events, your name badge may contain some of your personal data that you have provided to us, which may include your name, job title/function and company. When scanned, this information will be made available to us or the relevant exhibitor and processed in the manner as described above. By allowing the exhibitor to scan your badge you are consenting to have FTTH Council Europe provide the exhibitor with your contact information and therefore you may be contacted by the exhibitor post-event. If you do not wish the exhibitor to contact you, please communicate this directly with the exhibitor at the Conference or thereafter.
If you attend a Conference where we are using RFID-enabled badges, the geo-location data of your badge will be collected to determine session attendance, to understand the flow of delegates around the workshops, conference and exhibition hall and to manage session capacity. Data collected from badge scanning will be anonymised and aggregated and will only be used to determine a total number of attendants in the exhibition hall, at each of the workshops and at each of the conference sessions.
If you attend a Conference where we are using a Mobile Application for information and communication purposes, which allows for Direct Messaging and/or Meeting or Appointment setting via the Mobile Application, and in case you have opted in to be included on an attendee list, then we will share the personal data you provided during the registration process and/or via the Mobile Application with other delegates for the purpose of them Direct Messaging you and/or making Meetings/Appointments with you via the Mobile Application.
If you participate in one of our virtual events and you access the virtual exhibit of one of our sponsors or you decide to otherwise engage with any such sponsor, this is a clear affirmative act by which you consent to us sharing your contact information with that specific sponsor for the purpose of allowing them to connect with any event attendees who may be interested in the products and/or services offered by them. You may therefore be contacted by that sponsor during or after our virtual event. Please note that the sponsor's processing of your personal data is subject to your direct relationship with that sponsor and will be in accordance with the sponsor's own privacy policy. If you do not wish the sponsor to contact you, please communicate this directly with the sponsor at the event or thereafter.
In addition, we sometimes take photos and videos at our events, which may feature attendees, speakers, sponsors or exhibitors. Where photos and videos are taken that feature you as an attendee, speaker, sponsor or exhibitor, we may use those photos and videos for promotional purposes unless you have specifically requested in writing that we do not use your photo or video.
4. How we protect personal information
Any personal information given to us will be treated with the utmost care and security. This section sets out some of the security measures in place.
A variety of physical and technical measures are used to keep data safe and prevent unauthorised access to and/or use or disclosure of personal information.
Electronic data and databases are stored on secure computer systems and we control who has access to the information, using both physical and electronic means.
All reasonable steps are taken to ensure that your personal information is kept secure from unauthorised access, but we cannot guarantee it will be secure during the transmission process to this website because this transmission is not controlled by us. We make use of HTTPS (HTTP Secure) whereby the communication protocol is encrypted via Transport Layer Security for secure communication over a computer network. The website is loaded via HTTPS, represented by the lock icon in your web browser, 6 which ensures the transmission is secure and is demonstrated by a certificate issued by an official security certificate authority to us.
5. Who we share personal information with
Unless otherwise previously stated, we share the personal information we collect with third parties to assist in the provision and promotion of our products and services relating to our conference and events.
For the purpose of organising, hosting and managing our events, conferences and trade shows, we may share your personal data with any event agency contracted by the FTTH Council Europe ASBL, any companies providing exhibition stand building or audio-visual supply services on behalf of FTTH Council Europe ASBL, any conference venue, any sponsors that exhibit at an FTTH event or conference when you access their (physical or virtual) exhibit or when you decide to engage with them, Hotel Booking Services agency, IT service providers, registration service providers and virtual environment service providers in case of virtual events.
Furthermore, we only share personal information with such third parties to the extent necessary for them to provide such assistance.
For the purpose of acceding to your request for product information on the Find Your Fibre expert tool, we may share your personal data with the company (including through their agents, employees or representatives) selling the product about which you have requested information.
In addition, where it is in the legitimate interest of FTTH Council Europe ASBL to do so for the purposes of promoting its events (including conferences, webinars, etc), we may share your personal information with sponsors of these events.
In some circumstances, we may be legally required to disclose your personal information, because a court, the police, another judicial or law enforcement body, or government entity has asked us for it.
6. Is your personal data transferred outside the EEA?
For the purposes described in this policy, your personal data will be kept within the EEA and transferred outside the EEA only to a country or countries which have been recognised by the European Commission to provide an adequate level of data protection.
7. How long information is kept
We will only retain your personal information for as long as is necessary and as permitted by applicable laws.
We will retain your personal information while we are using it, as described in the section above and may continue to retain it after these uses have ended where we have a legitimate business purpose.
The length of time for which we will retain personal information will depend on the purposes for which it is retained. After we no longer need to retain your personal information, it will be deleted or securely destroyed.
8. How to update your information
We wish to ensure you remain in control of your personal information. We seek to ensure that the personal information held about you is accurate and up-to-date.
If at any stage you would like to update or correct such personal information, please email: privacy@ftthcouncil.eu or write to us at: Database Manager, FTTH Council Europe ASBL, Rue de la Presse 4, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.
9. Your Rights
FTTH Council Europe ASBL operates in countries with data protection laws that may provide individuals the right to be able to access and control their information. We will enable you to exercise those rights as provided by data protection laws.
EU data protection laws give individuals a number of rights, where their data and information is processed by companies established in Europe. Under General Data Protection Regulation these are:
- The right to confirmation whether or not we have your personal data and, if we do, to obtain a copy of and review the personal information we hold. This is known as a subject access request;
- The right to have inaccurate data rectified;
- The right to have your data erased. You have the right to erasure of all the personal data processed by as described herein in case it is no longer needed for the purposes for which the personal data was initially collected or processed or in other instances foreseen in the Data Protection Legislation;
- The right to request the restriction or suppression of personal data in certain circumstances described in the Data Protection Legislation. We will stop using the data but we may continue storing it;
- The right to obtain your personal data that you have provided to us, on the basis of consent or performance of a contract, and where technically feasible, transmitted in a common electronic format to you or directly to another company;
- The right to object to the use of your data. Under certain circumstances described in the Data Protection Legislation, you may object to the processing of your personal data, including to the processing for direct marketing purposes;
- The right to withdraw your consent. If your personal data is processed on the basis of your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time you choose and on your own initiative. You can do so by contacting us via privacy@ftthcouncil.eu. The withdrawal of your consent will not affect the lawfulness of the collection and processing of your data based on your consent up until the moment where you withdraw your consent.
There are exceptions to the rights above and we will always try to respond to your satisfaction, although there may be situations where we are unable to do so.
Depending on the laws of the country where you live, you may have other rights in respect of your personal information. If you wish to exercise any legal right in respect of your personal information, please contact us via one of the methods set out in section 11 below.
In some cases, we may be entitled to decline a request you have made regarding your personal information, in accordance with application laws. We will explain if that is the case. Otherwise, we will meet your request as promptly as we reasonably can.
If you have unresolved concerns, you have the right to lodge a complaint with an EU data protection authority where you live, work or where you believe a breach may have occurred.
10. What rules apply to children?
We do not knowingly collect of solicit personal data from anyone under the age of 18 or knowingly allow such persons to register for events, conferences or trade shows.
In the event we learn that we have collected personal data from a child under the age of 18 without verification of parental consent, steps will be taken promptly to remove that information. If you believe that we have or may have information from or about a child under 18 of age, please contact us at privacy@ftthcouncil.eu.
11. Contacting us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or our use of your information, please contact us by writing to FTTH Council Europe ASBL, Rue de la Presse 4, 1000 Brussels, Belgium - Contact Person: Emilija Borchers, Project Assistant, email: privacy@ftthcouncil.eu Mobile: +32 (0) 460 97 46 97.
We hope to resolve any privacy concerns you may have. If you are not happy with our response, or you believe that your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed, you can complain to any supervisory authority or other public body with responsibility for enforcing privacy laws.
12. Changes to Privacy Notice
To keep up with changing legislation, best practice and changes in how we process personal data, this Privacy Notice may be revised at any time without notice by posting an updated version on this website. We will provide adequate notice of any material changes before they become effective.
This Privacy Policy was last updated on 8 August 2023.