Privacy Statement

1. Purpose and Legal Basis for the Processing of Your Personal Data

In the context of building a research community to encourage scientific collaboration the Belgian Plastic Pollution Research Community processes personal data and this on the basis of your explicit consent.

The processing of your personal data will always be done with the utmost attention and care and solely with a view to:

• To maintain a community member directory on this website
• To facilitate scientific collaboration among researchers working on plastic pollution
• To keep you informed about community activities, events, and opportunities

2. Who Is Data Controller and How Can You Contact Us?

The Belgian Plastic Pollution Research Community is a collaboration between Ghent University and Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ). Ghent University and VLIZ are joint data controllers for the processing of personal data.

For questions, comments or suggestions about the processing of your personal data, please contact plasticpollutionrc@outlook.com.

For further questions about the different privacy-related rights and duties, or if you believe that your personal data are unfairly and/or incorrectly processed by the Belgian Plastic Pollution Research Community, you can contact the Data Protection Officer of Ghent University via privacy@ugent.be.

3. Which Personal Data Are Processed?

"Personal data" is data that contains information about an identified or identifiable natural person. In the context of your participation in this research community the following data will be processed:

• Full name
• Email address
• Institution or organization
• Country of organization
• Position or role
• Research focus and interests
• Social profile links (LinkedIn, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, ORCID) — optional
• Membership status (currently active or interested in future opportunities)

Your email address is only published on the website if you have separately consented to this during the application process.

The Belgian Plastic Pollution Research Community does not process any special personal data categories ("sensitive data") that reveal racial or ethnic origin, political views, religious or philosophical beliefs, or union membership, nor does it process genetic data, biometric data for the unique identification of a person, or health data, or data related to a person's sexual behavior or sexual orientation.

4. Who Has Access to Your Personal Data?

To ensure membership database maintenance, form submission data is processed by Netlify in accordance with their privacy policy.

The Belgian Plastic Pollution Research Community ensures that your data is not passed on to third parties, except in the cases mentioned above in this privacy statement, if you have given prior consent or if the access, use, retention or disclosure of your personal data is reasonably necessary (e.g., to comply with the applicable rules and regulations, to detect technical or security issues and to protect the rights, property or safety of the Belgian Plastic Pollution Research Community).

5. For How Long Will Your Personal Data Be Processed?

Your personal data will be retained for as long as you remain an active member of the community. If you wish to leave the community or have your data removed from the website, please contact us and we will process your request without undue delay.

6. Security of Your Personal Data

The Belgian Plastic Pollution Research Community takes the appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data against any form of loss or unlawful processing. As described above the access to your data is restricted and will be stored within the Netlify platform, and thus follows the security guaranty as stated in their privacy policy (https://www.netlify.com/privacy/).

All employees of Ghent University respect the Generic Code of Conduct for the processing of personal data and confidential information (approved on 18 May 2018 by the Executive Board of Ghent University) and have access to online manuals to support them in the correct use of your personal data.

7. Which Rights Do You Have with Regard to the Processing of Your Personal Data?

When we collect and use your personal data, you enjoy a number of rights that you can exercise as described below. Please note that if you wish to exercise a right, we will ask you for proof of identity. We do this to avoid a personal data breach, for example, because an unauthorized person acts as you and exercises a right in your name.

1. You have the right to access your personal data, which means that you can ask us to provide you with information about the personal data we hold about you. You can also request a copy of your personal data. Please note that you must indicate for which processing activities you wish to have access to your personal data.
2. You have the right to request that we correct your personal data if you can demonstrate that the personal data we process about you is incorrect, incomplete or out of date.
3. If we have requested and obtained your consent to collect and use your personal data, you always have the right to withdraw this consent. This withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of the data processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
4. You can request that we delete your personal data if it is no longer needed for the purposes for which we collected it, if it was unlawful to collect it, or if you have successfully exercised your right to withdraw your consent.
5. You can ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data: while we assess your request to correct your personal data; if such processing was unlawful but you prefer a restriction to a deletion; or if we no longer need your personal data but you need it for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.

To exercise your rights, you can contact the Belgian Plastic Pollution Research Community at plasticpollutionrc@outlook.com or the Data Protection Officer at privacy@ugent.be. If the request proves to be well-founded, we will inform you as soon as possible and no later than 30 days after receipt of the request.

If you have a complaint about the processing of your personal data, you can file a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (contact@apd-gba.be) and/or the Flemish Supervisory Committee (contact@toezichtcommissie.be).

8. Amendments to the Privacy Statement

This privacy statement can be amended if new or modified services or functionalities are available and/or to continue to comply with the applicable rules and regulations. If the privacy statement is amended, this will be mentioned on this page with an updated date and as a newsflash on the website.