Privacy Statement

The following statement outlines our policy regarding the processing of your personal data.

Overview

Online Linguistic Support (hereinafter “OLS”) is an initiative of the European Union. It is part of Erasmus+, the EU programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sport, and the European Solidarity Corps. It is steered by the European Commission, represented by the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture (DG EAC) and implemented by the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (hereinafter “EACEA”).
 
OLS is dedicated to respecting the privacy of its users. It provides a secured and safe environment for mobility participants to learn foreign languages. The following statement outlines the policies by which OLS collects, manages and uses the data provided by its users.
 
As OLS – which encompasses the licence management tool, the language assessment, as well as the language courses – collects and further processes personal data, it is subject to Regulation (EU) No 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, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC.[1]
 
The various tools present on OLS allow users to submit information in order to participate in OLS activities. When registering online and submitting other information, the data is collected and further processed for the purposes detailed hereinafter under point 1. The relevant processing operations thereof are under the responsibility of the Data Controller, who is the Head of Unit A2 – Erasmus +: Platforms, Skills and Innovation at EACEA (see point 6 below for contact information).

1. What personal information do we collect, and for what purpose?

(a) Information relative to mobility participants:

The National Agencies, beneficiary institutions and the European Commission’s DG EAC transmits some personal data to the EACEA, such as your e-mail address. The following information may then be collected directly from you by EACEA through the OLS tool.
 
Mandatory registrant data: last name, first name, gender, contact e-mail, nationality, year of birth, mother tongue, type of mobility, language to test, country of destination, estimated start of the mobility, sending institution, mobility period, time zone, estimated end of the mobility.
 
Results of language assessment and courses

Other optional data submitted by mobility participants on OLS (e.g., messages in forums, online discussions and threads, files, pictures, video/webcam recordings). This optional data is provided on a voluntary basis. Not providing this optional data will not put the participants in a disadvantaged position.

(b) Information relative to staff of National Agencies and Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps sending and receiving institutions/organisations is provided by these institutions and DG EAC to EACEA:

Institutional data: Project number, PIC number, project name, project start date, project end date, project contact person, project contact telephone number, project contact e-mail, number of licences for language assessments and number of licences for language courses.

(c) Purpose of the processing:

The purpose of OLS is to provide a complete and efficient learning language service and a scheme for measuring progress in language skills obtained through mobility activities. The other objective relates to the support of language learning prior to and during the mobility period, up to the level that enables the participant to achieve his/her goals.
 
More specifically, the data processing is necessary to:

  • Enable OLS to function and ensure its quality.
  • Allow registered OLS users to communicate and collaborate in the spirit of mutual trust and respect.
  • Send registered OLS users campaign emails (e.g. monthly newsletters, contest announcements) for motivational purposes,provided that users have given their prior consent.
  • Extract aggregate data for statistical purposes.

2. Who has access to your information and to whom is it disclosed?

Personal data will never be used for marketing purposes.
 
For the purposes detailed above, access to data is strictly limited to:

  • Other registered OLS users may have access to optional data that you submit, e.g., messages in forums, online discussions and threads, files and pictures.
  • European Commission, EACEA and National Agencies: aggregate data only.
  • Service provider Altissia and its providers who act on behalf and under the instructions of EACEA: full set of data.
  • Data related to individual mobility participants is accessible to their sending institution/organisation having an access to the backend licence management system OLS which can then decide on its use.
  • Data related to individual mobility participants is accessible to their receiving institution/organisation teacher who has access to the OLS Licence Management System.
  • For Erasmus+ volunteers/European Solidarity Corps participants, the results will not be communicated to the other organisation(s) in the project.

Whenever possible, data will be processed in an anonymous way, especially if transferred to third parties for research purposes.

3. How do we protect and safeguard your information?

The collected personal data and all related information are stored on the service provider’s (Altissia) secured servers for the duration of the contract with the Consortium UCL – ALTISSIA – CLL.
 
The service provider’s computer centre operations contractually abide to the European Commission’s security directives and provisions, established by the Directorate of Security for these kinds of servers and services. The standard security measures exist for the site hosting the Altissia servers, i.e. most recently patched and updated operating system and software, antivirus protection, firewall, regular security auditing and network security scans, applied IT security policy, vulnerability testing and intrusion detection system.

4. What are your rights concerning your personal data and how can you exercise them?

To exercise your rights, such as the right of access and rectification of inaccurate or incomplete personal data, you may do so yourself online.
 
You have the right to:

  • Request to access the personal data we have on you.
  • Request a rectification of your personal data or make the correction yourself in your profile.
  • Request the erasure of your personal data.
  • Request, under certain conditions, the restriction of the processing of your personal data.
  • Object at any time to the processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your individual situation.
  • Request for your data to be transferred to another organisation in commonly used machine-readable standard format (data portability).
  • Withdraw your consent at any time.

As this processing of your personal data is based on point (1)(a) of Article 5 of the Regulation (EU) No 2018/1725, you have the right to object to the processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your individual situation under the provisions of Article 23 of the Regulation 2018/1725.
 
You also have the right not to be subject to automated decisions (made solely by machines) affecting you, as defined by law.
 
To exercise your rights, you may contact the Controller, as indicated under section 6 below, by explicitly specifying your request.
 
To opt-out from receiving campaign emails, you can edit your profile settings or click on the “unsubscribe” link in the emails.

5. How long do we keep your personal data?

Data related to the user profiles is kept for a maximum of 2 years after the user’s last login, after which the profile will be deactivated permanently. All personal information is then made anonymous.
 
In the case of users requesting deactivation of their profile or the profile is automatically deactivated, no data will be visible to other OLS users.
 
Data related to statistics and research purposes is kept for the entire duration of OLS. At the end of the contract, the Consortium UCL – ALTISSIA – CLL will hand over all information and data to the EACEA and not keep a copy of confidential information, documents and personal data in whatever format. The data remains solely for research and monitoring purposes, at the disposal of the EACEA, the European Commission, NAs and Erasmus+ sending/receiving institutions/organisations, Altissia on behalf of the Consortium UCL – ALTISSIA – CLL and other third parties under the authorisation of the Data Controller in an aggregated, anonymous format.

6. Contact Information

The data processing operations are under the responsibility of the Data Controller:
Head of Unit A.2 – Erasmus +: Platforms, Skills and Innovation
Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency

Avenue du Bourget 1, BOUR, BE-1140 Brussels
 
For any questions on your rights and the exercise of your rights related to the processing of personal data (like access and rectification of your personal data), please feel free to contact the Controller at EACEA-OLS@ec.europa.eu or the Processor at privacy@erasmusplusols.eu.

7. Recourse

In case of conflict on any Personal Data Protection issue, you may contact the OLS Data Controller at the above-mentioned address and functional mailbox. You can also contact EACEA’s Data Protection Officer at the following email address: eacea-data-protection@ec.europa.eu.
 
Should the conflict not be resolved by the OLS Data Controller or the Data Protection Officer, you may lodge a complaint with the European Data Protection Supervisor at any time:

Website – http://www.edps.europa.eu;

Email – edps@edps.europa.eu.

8. Legal basis

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 (Art 5.1.a), and the legal basis is the establishment of the Agency for the management of the delegated programmes, such as Erasmus+ (Regulation No1288/2013).
 
The legal basis for the processing of personal data is:

  • ‘Erasmus+’: the Union programme for education, training, youth and sport, established by Regulation (EU) No 1288/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 and repealing Decisions No 1719/2006/EC, No 1720/2006/EC and No 1298/2008/EC (OJ L 347 of 20.12.2013, p. 50–73)
  • COMMISSION IMPLEMENTING DECISION of 18 December 2013 establishing the ‘Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency’ and repealing Decision 2009/336/EC (2013/776/EU): Article 3 (a).
  • Service Contract signed between EACEA and ALTISSIA (ref: 2014-0321/001-001)
  • Article 5 (e) foresees that “[the Programme shall pursue the following specific objectives] to improve the teaching and learning of languages and to promote the Union’s broad linguistic diversity and intercultural awareness.” In addition, Annex I foresees “The Programme will be monitored closely on the basis of a set of indicators intended to measure the extent to which the general and specific objectives of the Programme have been achieved and with a view to minimising administrative burdens and costs. To that end, data will be collected as regards the following set of key indicators”. The indicator under “Education and Training” specifies “The percentage of participants in long-term mobility declaring that they have increased their language skills”.

Any processing that is not covered by the above legal bases is based on the consent of the data subject (article 5(1)(d) of Regulation 2018/1725).
 
[1] OJ L 295, 21.11.2018, p. 39-98.