Privacy Statement VoteMatch Europe

1 March 2024.

We at VoteMatch Europe take your privacy very seriously. During the processing of personal data VoteMatch Europe work conform the requirements of the applicable data protection legislation, like the General Data Protection Regulation. This means we:

  • clearly specify our purposes before we process personal data, by using this Privacy Statement;
  • limit our collection of personal data to only the personal data needed for legitimate purposes;
  • first ask for explicit permission to process your personal data in cases where your permission is required;
  • take appropriate security measures to protect your personal data and we demand the same from parties who process personal data on our behalf;
  • respect your right to access, correct or delete your personal data held by us.

Who is behind VoteMatch Europe?

ProDemos, House for Democracy and the rule of law is the party responsible (the controller) for all data processing. In this privacy statement, we will explain what kind of personal data we collect and for which purposes within our website VoteMatch Europe. We recommend that you read it carefully.

If you have any questions regarding the processing of personal data, feel free to contact us.

ProDemos, House for Democracy and the rule of law Hofweg 1H 2511 AA The Hague privacy@prodemos.nl 0031707570200

Which technical data do we process in order to have proper server traffic?

To make sure the server of VoteMatch Europe works properly we store the following technical data:

  • The fact you start VoteMatch
  • The time of starting VoteMatch
  • What device you use
  • What system you use
  • What browser you use

The technical data will be stored for thirty (30) days at most. Thereafter the data will be deleted.

Which personal data do we process in order to let VoteMatch Europe function properly?

We will use your personal data to show you how your answers compare with the positions of political parties of other Member States.  

We receive personal data from national level voting advice applications (VAA’s) hosted by partners organizations within the EU. ProDemos made agreements concerning the transfer of personal data with all partner organizations. These agreements stipulate that the data will only be transferred to the servers of ProDemos after your explicit affirmative consent.  

We use the following personal data to give you insight in your result on the EU-level: 

  • Your answers on the 15 generic statements;  
  • The number of times your answers correspond to the answers of political parties, calculated in a percentage;  
  • The country of the national level VAA; and 
  • Technical information (such as your chosen language). 

For what purposes do we process your personal data?

We process your personal data for the following purposes:

  • to enable your use of VoteMatch; 
  • to ensure the safety of VoteMatch; 
  • to keep statistics on the use of VoteMatch Europe; and 
  • to show you how your answers compare with the positions of the political parties in other member states.  

For how long will the personal data be stored? 

When you close VoteMatch Europe, all your answers and other data will be subsequently deleted from the VoteMatch Europe server. 

How do we process your data?

We process your data with the upmost confidentiality. We do not under any circumstance provide your personal data to other parties, companies or organizations, unless we are required to do so by law (for example, when the police demands access to personal data in case of a suspected crime). We only receive data from national level VAA’s  with which we have a data transfer agreement stipulating strict arrangements concerning security and privacy.

Which analytical data are gathered by Matomo? 

VoteMatch Europe uses Matomo to analyse the use of our website so we can make it more user-friendly. We don’t use cookies and we don’t store recognizable IP-addresses. The data we receive are stored on our own servers. These servers are located in the Netherlands and are maintained by our own team. The data we store, are: 

  • Masked IP-address; 
  • The webpages (title and url) that you visited, plus date and time of your visit;
  • Referrer url (the page where you clicked a link that sent you to VoteMatch);
  • Used outlinks (hyperlinks to an outside domain that you clicked on) ;
  • Estimated location (based on your browser language);
  • Screen resolution, your local time, website speed, browser language;
  • Browser version, operating system version, device (laptop, smartphone, tablet etc.).

These analytical data will be deleted after 16 months. 

Security

We take security measures to reduce misuse of and unauthorized access to personal data. We take responsibility in the security of your personal data. We renew our security measures to ensure safe storage of personal data and keep track what might go wrong.

Data protection officer

We have appointed a so-called data protection officer. This person is responsible for privacy matters within our organisation. Our data protection officer is available by email (privacy@prodemos.nl) or phone (0031707570200) for all your questions and requests.

Changes to this Privacy Statement

We reserve the right to modify this statement. We recommend that you consult this statement on a regular basis, so that you remain informed of any changes.

Inspection and modification of your Data

You can always contact us if you have any questions regarding our privacy policy or wish to review, modify or delete your personal data.

You have the following right:

  • Right of access: you have the right to see what kind of personal data we processed about you.
  • Right of rectification: you have the right to rectify any personal data we have processed about you, if this information is (partially) wrong.
  • Right to complain: you have the right to file a complaint against the processing of your personal data by us, or against direct marketing.
  • Right to be forgotten: you can file a request with us to remove any personal data we processed of you.
  • Right to data portability: if technically possible, you have the right to ask us to transfer your processed personal data to a third party.
  • Right to restriction of processing: you can file a request with us to (temporarily) restrict the processing of your personal data.

If you exercise any of the rights mentioned above, we will ask you to identify yourself. Because we do not store any personal data that make you identifiable, we may have to ask you for some information to verify your information. This can be your IP address for example.

We will usually comply to your request within 30 days. This term can be extended if the request is proven to be complex or tied to a specific right. You will be notified about a possible extension of this term.

Complaints

If you have a complaint about our use of your personal data, you can contact us by sending us an e-mail to privacy@prodemos.nl.

If we fail to resolve the matter satisfactorily, you can file a complaint with the Dutch DPA. The Dutch DPA monitors the use of personal data in the Netherlands.

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