Privacy Policy – Belga

1. General

Belga News Agency, located at Arduinkaai 29, 1000, Brussels has taken the measures stated in this privacy policy to protect your privacy. We believe protecting the private lives of our clients, subscribers, readers, viewers, visitors, and users is important. With this privacy policy, we want to inform you as best as possible about what data we collect, why we collect it and how you can exercise control over it.

By purchasing our products or services, or by using our services, websites and applications, we expect you to be aware of the provisions and measures in this privacy policy, understand them and agree with them. Belga reserves the right to change this privacy policy at any time, provided that we inform the users of this through the website or by e-mail. The changes will automatically enter into force after publication.

The processing of personal data at Belga is subject to Belgian legislation and regulations.

2. Collecting personal data

Belga collects, registers and processes the personal data of its clients, visitors and the users of its services and applications, news sites, apps and web shops.

‘Personal data’ is defined as data relating to an identifiable person and (i) that you give us, (ii) that we assign to you in order to use our products and services, (iii) that we receive through the use of our products and services and (iv) that we have received from third parties.

2.1. Explicitly shared personal data:

Certain personal data must explicitly be shared for matters such as taking a subscription, purchasing products, using some parts of a website or app, registering for an event, participating in a competition or promotion, or creating a user account or login. These data are expected to be given to us by you voluntarily.

Depending on the service used, it could regard, among others, the following categories of personal data:

• Surname, first name, title, gender or language preference.
• Postal address, postal code, city, e-mail address, telephone number or mobile number.
• Professional data (profession, position, etc.).
• Data that relate to the subscription or an indication of the reasons for cancelling the subscription.
• Answers to questions about feedback regarding our products and/or services in the context of satisfaction surveys or market research.
• When relevant, financial data and data in connection with your creditworthiness.

As prescribed, we do not process any sensitive data such as data about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, sexual preference or health.

You guarantee that the data you provide are correct and complete. Sharing incorrect data or data that belongs to third parties can lead to the user being temporarily or permanently refused access (in whole or in part) to Belga’s products and services.

2.2. Automatic collection of personal data:

Other data are collected automatically when using our websites, apps or digital applications, through the use of cookies or other systems that register information such as IP address, device used, use of the site or application, language and browser type, etc. With a number of applications, websites or apps, you must identify yourself/log in before using the application.

Depending on the service or application used, it could involve the following data:

• If you sign in on one of our websites or apps using your user account from a social network site (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.), then we can obtain information for the profile created on our website, insofar as you have given your consent to do so.
• With the use of digital applications (websites, tablet or smartphone apps, etc.), the following matters can be registered:
  • Location data: this information lets us establish your location (approximately).
  • Time, frequency and duration of use.
  • How you make use of our newsletters, websites or what articles, videos, photos, pages you view, read or share.
  • How you arrived at our website (by which referrer or search word).
  • If you use ad blocking software when visiting our websites.
  • What smartphone or device, what operating system or browser you use.

Among others, we use these data to offer our clients a better and more personalised experience and to be able to tailor and improve our offers and products.

3. Storage and access to personal data

The personal data that are explicitly or automatically shared or collected are stored and processed in the Belga News Agency database located at Arduinkaai 29, 1000, Brussels.

Belga is the controller for the processing of these personal data and verifies the processing other parties carry out for them upon request. Belga will not keep your data for longer than legally allowed and necessary for the purposes stated in this document.

4. Processing of personal data

The data as described above can be collected and combined to better tailor our offers, products and/or services to your personal needs. Your personal data can be enriched or complemented with additional data, which is either publically available or comes from external partners or data suppliers.

‘Processing data’ means any processing of personal data. Among others, the concept of processing covers collecting, capturing, organising, saving, updating, requesting, consulting, using, distributing or in any way whatsoever disclosing, bringing together, combining, archiving, deleting or finally destroying personal data.

We process personal data for various purposes, where only the data necessary to achieve the intended purpose is processed every time.

We use personal data:

• When we have obtained consent
• In the context of preparing or carrying out a contract or agreement
• To comply with the legal or regulatory provisions to which we are subject
• When Belga has a legitimate interest in this data, in which case we still strive to achieve a balance between that interest and respecting the privacy of the data subject.

In some cases, we use anonymous, aggregated data for commercial purposes or for external reporting. These data can never be traced back to a specific individual.

5. Purposes of the processing of personal data

Provided we have obtained consent insofar as required, we collect and process personal data for the following concrete purposes:

• Providing products and services

• Managing client administration with a view to provide products or services, such as managing your subscription, sending and delivering a purchased product, managing registrations for an event or seminar, or picking winners for competitions in which you have participated.

• Direct marketing

• Contacting you for marketing purposes and informing you about new products, existing products, services, competitions, deals, and special offers.

• Personalisation and targeting

• Tailoring our website(s), newsletters, digital applications and in particular our advertisements to your preferences or profile.
• To send you special offers and promotions tailored to you, suited to your preferences or profile, or to avoid sending you the same message several times through various channels.

• To combat fraud and/or misuse of our digital platforms and applications.
• Market research and analysis

• We can use your data and consumer profile to evaluate our products and services.

• To comply with our legal obligations.

• It could happen that we are legally obliged to store and/or share certain personal data about you with government agencies. In the context of a police or judicial investigation, we could be obliged to share certain data with the necessary authorities in a confidential way.
• To keep track of studies, tests and statistics, for trend analysis, among others
  • For example, we can use anonymous, aggregated data to report internally and externally about the use of our services, how much use is made of certain websites, apps or digital services, or if certain programmes or television channels have been viewed. The data used for this cannot be traced back to an identifiable individual. We use the information obtained from this analysis to evaluate our current products and services portfolio and process and adapt them based on new developments.
• New purposes
  • We can use your data for new purposes not yet covered by our privacy policy. In that case, we will contact you by e-mail or through the website before using your data for these new purposes, to keep you informed of the changes to our privacy rules and to give you the chance to object.

6. Minors

Belga makes sure that the privacy of minors is protected and encourages parents to actively be involved in their children’s online activities.

Belga will not deliberately or purposefully collect the personal data of minors.

Belga encourages minors, should they visit a Belga website, to inform their parents about their online activities and ask for their opinion before sending Belga any personal data.

Belga encourages minors, should they want to create an account, to carefully read the privacy policy together with their parents.

Parental consent is required for requesting subscriptions, products and services offered by Belga through its websites. Subscriptions, products and services are always subject to Belga’s terms and conditions.

7. Protecting your personal data

Belga has taken suitable and necessary organisational and technical security measures to protect your personal data and privacy to avoid loss, unauthorised use or the alteration of information we have received. This is a commitment and not an actual result.

The number of Belga employees who have access to your personal information is limited and carefully selected. These employees have access to your personal information insofar as they need this information to properly carry out their tasks.

Our websites sometimes mention links to third-party sites (for example, social media, organisers of events we sponsor) of which the conditions of use do not fall under the scope of this privacy policy. Please read their policy regarding the protection of your personal data carefully.

As for the international transfer of personal data, we protect your data in accordance with the protection level required by European legislation.

8. Transferring personal data

We do not sell or transfer personal data to third parties or commercial partners unless:

• We do so to our legal successors for the same purposes stated in this privacy policy. We see to it that these third parties, like us, store your data in a safe and respectful manner with due care.
• There is a legal obligation to transfer data or upon request of legal authorities or police services.
• You have given us your consent to do so.

Should Belga transfer personal data to third parties in a different manner than mentioned above, this must take place with explicit communication in which you are given an explanation about the third party, the purposes of the transfer and the processing. Where legally required, we will explicitly request your consent. You also have the possibility to object.

9. Right of access and rectification

You have the right to access, rectify, delete and object free of charge to the processing and transfer of your data. For this you can contact us by e-mail at [email protected] or by post at Belga News Agency, Arduinkaai 29, 1000, Brussels.

To exercise your right to access and to avoid any unauthorised disclosure of your personal data, you must send us proof of identity. We would therefore ask you to attach a copy of the front of your ID card to your written request by e-mail or by post in order to exercise your right to access.

10. Right to object to the use of your data for direct marketing or commercial purposes

Without having to provide a reason, you always have the right to object to the use of your personal data for direct marketing purposes and object to a transfer to third parties.

If you give us your postal address:

• You may receive our periodic mailings with information about products, services and events in the future.

If you do not want this, contact us at [email protected] and please include your full name and address.

If you do not want to receive any letters or mailshots from any company, you can register with the Robinson list at www.robinsonlist.be.

If you give us your landline or mobile phone number:

• You may receive phone calls or text messages from us with information about products, services and upcoming events.

If you do not want this, contact us at [email protected].

If you do not want to receive any phone calls from any company, contact the ‘bel-me-niet-meer’ list at www.bel-me-niet-meer.be

If you give us your e-mail address:

• You may receive our e-mails with information about products, services and events.

You can unsubscribe from continued commercial or promotional e-mail using the unsubscribe link found in every e-mail campaign (at the bottom of the e-mail).

If you want to unsubscribe from all possible commercial or promotional Belga e-mails, contact us at [email protected].

Please note that we reserve the right to contact you electronically to carry out your contract or if the law obliges us to do so. As a subscriber, we can call you or contact you by e-mail regarding your registration or subscription.

11. Belga’s cookie policy

By visiting a website or using a digital application or app of Belga, cookies, files and technologies can be used which store information on your hard drive (computer, laptop, smartphone, tablet, etc.) or get access to information already saved on your hard drive.

Visitors of our websites, apps or applications accept the use of these cookies, files and technologies by our company. If you disable cookies in your browser, we cannot ensure the website will function optimally.

These files and technologies can consist of cookies, web beacons or pixel tags, log files, settings and information on your hard drive and the likes:

• Cookies are small files that are placed and/or read on the hard drive of your device when you visit and use our website.
• Web beacons or pixel tags are often invisible graphic images that can be found on a website or in an e-mail. They are used to obtain insight into the behaviour of visitors when visiting our website and opening and reading our information sent by e-mail. Web beacons are part of third-party technology we use to monitor the activities of visitors on our website. Web beacons enable us to keep track of which computer has visited certain parts of the website, when this happens and from which location (country/city) it happens.
• Log files can collect information about your web browser activities, among others.
• Your computer, laptop, smartphone and tablet, and the available applications can contain information about the type of device, application settings, etc. These settings can be read.

We ensure that the files and technologies Belga uses do not contain any viruses or other harmful applications. These files and technologies are sometimes temporary (session cookies, which are removed when you close a browser), sometimes permanent (persistent cookies, which stay until they expire or are deleted), or sometimes both.

Some of these cookies, files and technologies are placed and managed by third parties and are necessary to share information on social media and/or to make certain uses possible on our applications, among others. When third parties use such files and technologies through a Belga website to automatically collect, process and possibly enrich data, Belga is not responsible for this.

Some of the files and technologies used that are described here contain data that can directly or indirectly identify you. For more information and your rights with regard to the processing of personal data, please refer to our privacy policy.