European Biophysical Societies’ Association (EBSA) Privacy Notice Approved at the 13th EBSA General Assembly, Vienna, Austria, July 2021, with minor revisions made in May 2025 in connection with the launch of the new EBSA website.
PART 1 – GENERIC PRIVACY NOTICE
EBSA’s responsibilities under data protection legislation include the duty to ensure that we provide individuals with information about how we process personal data. We do this through the publication of privacy notices. Our privacy notices comprise two parts – a generic part and a part tailored to the specific processing activity being undertaken.
Data Controller
The Data Controller is The European Biophysical Societies’ Association (EBSA). If you would like more information about how EBSA uses your personal data, please send your questions via the contact form.
Retention
EBSA keeps personal data for as long as it is needed for the purpose for which it was originally collected.
YOUR RIGHTS IN RELATION TO YOUR PERSONAL DATA
Privacy notices and/or consent
You have the right to be provided with information about how and why we process your personal data. Where you have the choice to determine how your personal data will be used, we will ask you for consent. Where you do not have a choice (for example, where we have a legal obligation to process the personal data), we will provide you with a privacy notice. A privacy notice is a verbal or written statement that explains how we use personal data.
Whenever you give your consent for the processing of your personal data, you receive the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Where withdrawal of consent will have an impact on the services we are able to provide, this will be explained to you, so that you can determine whether it is the right decision for you.
Accessing your personal data
You have the right to be told whether we are processing your personal data and, if so, to be given a copy of it. This is known as the right of subject access. You can find out more about this right by contacting the EBSA Treasurer via the contact form.
Right to rectification
If you believe that personal data we hold about you is inaccurate, please contact us via the contact form and we will investigate. You can also request that we complete any incomplete data. Once we have determined what we are going to do, we will contact you to let you know.
Right to erasure
You can ask us to erase your personal data in any of the following circumstances:
- We no longer need the personal data for the purpose it was originally collected;
- You withdraw your consent and there is no other legal basis for the processing;
- You object to the processing and there are no overriding legitimate grounds for the processing;
- The personal data have been unlawfully processed;
- The personal data have to be erased for compliance with a legal obligation;
- The personal data have been collected in relation to the offer of information society services (information society services are online services such as banking or social media sites).
Once we have determined whether we will erase the personal data, we will contact you to let you know.
Right to restriction of processing
You can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in the following circumstances:
- You believe that the data is inaccurate and you want us to restrict processing until we determine whether it is indeed inaccurate;
- The processing is unlawful and you want us to restrict processing rather than erase it;
- We no longer need the data for the purpose we originally collected it but you need it in order to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim;
- You have objected to the processing and you want us to restrict processing until we determine whether our legitimate interests in processing the data override your objection.
Once we have determined how we propose to restrict processing of the data, we will contact you to discuss and, where possible, agree this with you.
Making a complaint
If you are unsatisfied with the way in which we process your personal data, we ask that you let us know so that we can try and put things right. If we are not able to resolve issues to your satisfaction, you can refer the matter to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO can be contacted at:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF,
UK
Telephone: +44 303 123 1113
Website: Information Commissioner’s Office
PART 2 – TAILORED PRIVACY NOTICE
This section of the Privacy Notice provides you with the privacy information that you need to know before you provide personal data to EBSA for the particular purposes stated below.
Types of personal data collected and held by EBSA, and method of collection:
- We hold the names, addresses, and email addresses of the Presidents and Secretaries of the EBSA National Society members;
- We hold the names, addresses, email addresses and photographs of the members of the EBSA Executive Committee;
- We hold the names and email addresses of members who have agreed to join the EBSA Newsgroup;
- The EBSA Treasurer holds Bank Details, for when payments by EBSA are required;
- Partial CV details of Travel Bursary applicants are shared with the EBSA Executive Committee;
- Partial CV details of Congress Bursary applicants are shared with the EBSA Executive Committee;
- Partial CV details of nominees for EBSA Awards are shared with the EBSA Executive Committee;
- Partial CV details of nominees for the EBSA Executive Committee are shared with the EBSA Executive Committee and with EBSA members at the EBSA General Assembly.
How personal data is stored by EBSA:
The EBSA website https://www.ebsa.org/ is hosted hosted by the company One.com, whose registered address is:
Kalvebod Brygge 24, DK-1560 København V, Danmark
One.com states that it complies with applicable regulations, including GDPR. Details about the One.com GDPR compliance may be found at:
https://help.one.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000253649-How-does-One-com-comply-with-the-GDPR-
The Presidents and Secretaries of the EBSA National Societies’ data are available on the EBSA website;
The EBSA Executive Committee data are available on the EBSA website;
The Newsgroup data are held in a proprietary database at the University of Hamburg, Germany, with access limited to Professor Arwen Pearson, University of Hamburg, Germany.
How personal data is processed by EBSA:
The Treasurer requests details of payee bank accounts so that bursary, meeting support and committee expenses can be paid. These details are used for no other purpose.
The representative of the EBSA EC for bursaries for working visit requests personal, host laboratory, financial and scientific details, as indicated in the application form. These are used to evaluate the eligibility of the applicants, the purpose and quality of the applications, and the cost of the working visits. These details are used for no other purpose.
The representative of the EBSA EC for sponsoring scientific meetings and schools that promote biophysics in Europe requests the name, address, phone and e-mail of the applicant as well as scientific, financial and organizational details as indicated in the funding application form. They are used to evaluate the quality of the application and if it is in line with EBSA rules. These data are only used for this evaluation.
Details in the form of a brief scientific CV of nominees for the EBSA Young Investigator’s Award are submitted to the EBSA Secretary, or for the Avanti Polar Lipids – EBSA Award to the EBSA President, and are shared with the EBSA Executive Committee.
The EBSA News group Coordinator uses the email information of its subscribers to forward messages sent to the Newsgroup to the newsgroup subscribers.
Who EBSA shares personal data with:
EBSA does not share data with third parties.
How long personal data is held by EBSA:
No personal information will be kept any longer than necessary.
How to object to EBSA processing your personal data:
Objections can be made by email to either the EBSA Treasurer or the EBSA Secretary.
Visitors to our websites/webpages:
Visitors of ebsa.org need to be aware that we use Google Analytics to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns (e.g. the number of visitors to particular web pages). The information collected is purely anonymous. Identities of our visitors cannot be deduced based on this information.
On those occasions when we do collect personal data it will always be made clear when we collect personal information and we’ll explain what we intend to do with it.
Use of cookies by EBSA:
Some minimal set of cookies are vital for functionality of our website. Those, together with others responsible for security and accessibility are set and are not deleted by the site.
We also use cookies on our website to remember consent for the optional cookies we use.
Links to other websites:
Where we provide links to websites of other organisations, this privacy notice does not cover how that organisation processes personal information. We encourage you to read the privacy notices on the other websites you visit.
Changes to this privacy notice:
This notice will be reviewed biennially.
Further information:
Further information can be obtained from either the EBSA Treasurer, or the EBSA Secretary.
PART 3 – EBSA NEWSGROUP PRIVACY NOTICE
This section of the Privacy Notice provides you with the privacy information that you need to know before you provide personal data to EBSA for the particular purposes stated below.
Types of personal data collected and held by the EBSA Newsgroup and the method of collection:
The personal data collected for the EBSA Newsgroup are Name and email address. This is collected from Newsgroup subscribers in connection with their subscription.
How personal data is stored by the EBSA Newsgroup:
The data will be stored on servers of the University of Hamburg (https://lists.uni-hamburg.de/mailman/listinfo/ebsa.phys). The data protection statement is available from https://www.uni-hamburg.de/en/datenschutz.html. Access will be limited to members of the committee who run the EBSA Newsgroup.
How personal data is processed by the EBSA Newsgroup:
Your data will be used to disseminate information relating to Biophysics. This includes details of job advertisements, conferences and meetings, awards and prizes, bursaries and matters relating to research funding and policy.
Who the EBSA Newsgroup shares personal data with:
The EBSA Newsgroup does not share data with third parties.
How long personal data is held by the EBSA Newsgroup:
No personal information will be kept any longer than necessary in order to fulfil the purpose of sending Newsgroup emails.
How to object to EBSA processing your personal data:
If you ask us to, by unsubscribing from the list, it will be deleted. You can unsubscribe by following the link at the bottom of every newsgroup email, or by sending a request via the contact form. You can change your contact preferences at any time by sending a request via the contact form.
Use of cookies by the EBSA Newsgroup:
The servers of the University of Hamburg use cookies in order to operate their service.
Information on these is available at https://www.uni-hamburg.de/en/datenschutz.html.
Changes to this privacy notice:
This notice will be reviewed biennially.
Further information:
Additional requests for information can be made to the EBSA Newsgroup Coordinator Professor Arwen Pearson via the contact form.
If you have questions, or would like further information related to any of the points raised, please send them via the EBSA contact form.