The information on this site is subject to a disclaimer, a copyright notice and to the COST Data Protection policy.

Disclaimer

The COST Association tries to keep this information timely and accurate. However, the COST Association does not give any warranty or other assurance as to the content of the material appearing on the site, its accuracy, completeness, timelessness or appropriateness for any particular purpose.

The COST Association also tries to minimise disruption caused by technical errors. However, the COST Association does not give any warranty or other assurance as to the operation, quality or functionality of the site. Access to the site may be interrupted, restricted or delayed for any reason.

To the full extent permissible by law, the COST Association disclaims all responsibility for any damages or losses arising from the use of, or inability to use, this site or any material appearing on it, or from any action or decision taken as a result of using this site or any such material.

Hypertext links from this website may lead to third party sites. The COST Association is not responsible for and has no control over the content of such sites. Information on COST, or information available via hypertext link from COST, is made available without responsibility on the part of the COST Association. The COST Association disclaims all responsibility and liability (including for negligence) in relation to information on or accessible from this site. COST has no control over the information on these sites and therefore assumes no responsibility. You are encouraged to review their privacy policies.

Use of Technical Information

The COST website also uses cookies, files which are transferred to your computer’s hard disk by a website. Cookies can store information about your preferences and other information which you need when you visit a website. Some COST web pages use “session cookies” to facilitate a visitor’s activity within a single session, but these cookies are not written as files to your computer’s hard drive.

The COST website uses cookies to monitor our website traffic, to ensure better service levels and in order to provide you with certain features such as the customised delivery of certain information. The ‘About this Site’ section in the  FAQ  contains detailed information on the cookie policy in place.

Statistical and analytical information collected through the standard operation of our internet servers and logs provides us with general and not individually specific information. The COST Association will make no attempt to identify individual users, or to associate any technical information collected with any individual user.

Copyright notice

© COST 2014-2020
Unless otherwise stated, the copyright, database rights and similar rights in all material published on this site are owned by the COST Programme. You are permitted to print or download extracts from this material for your personal use, other than in the case of images, diagrammes or other material from other copyright holders. This material is allowed to be used for public use, provided the source is acknowledged. None of this material may be used for any commercial use.

Personal Data Protection and Privacy Statement

The COST Programme is committed to user privacy.

You can browse through most parts of this website without giving any information about yourself (see also use of technical information below). In some cases, however, personal information is required in order to provide the services you request.

COST Data Protection Policy (27 May 2008, updated 16 October 2012 and 1 October 2014)

Introduction

In accordance with the Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 24 October 1995 and with Belgian Law of 8 December 1992 on Privacy protection in relation to the processing of personal data modified by the implementation law of 11 December 1998 and of 26 February 2003, the COST databases and website have been declared at the Belgian Data Privacy Commission:  Commission de la Protection de la Vie Privée (CPVP)/Commissie voor de Bescherming van de Persoonlijke Levenssfeer (CBPL)  in Belgium.

Data Collector and Data Controller

As the Data Collector and the Data Controller, the COST Association is legally responsible for ensuring that the personal data held in our database and displayed on our website is processed in accordance with the above directive and laws.

For any request or further information please contact:
COST Association
Avenue Louise 149
1050 Brussels (Belgium)
[email protected]

Confidentiality and security

Any information which is provided by you will be treated with the highest standards of security and confidentiality.

We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorised access to or unauthorised alteration, disclosure or destruction of data.

Recipients and purposes of the processing

We restrict direct access to personal data to the COST Association, as well as to the COST Grant Holders and, where relevant, to the European Commission in order to operate the COST activities, in Webo in order to operate the Strong Authentication (electronic signature) and beecc gmbh in order to manage the 7sheep software (mailing list for COST newsletters and COST events).

These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet these obligations.

Examples of such purposes include (i.e. non-exhaustive list):

1. The delivery of our services, including allowing experts to carry out evaluations and assessments;
2. The creation of statistics which we provide to COST experts or use to analyse, assess and improve our activities;
3. Customer relations related to event management and general communications activities.

We process personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected and in accordance with this Policy. The data will, under no circumstances, be used for commercial purposes.

We review our data collection, storage and processing practices to ensure that we only collect, store and process the personal information needed to provide or improve our services.

Right of access to and right to rectify the data

You have a right to access your personal data either to correct it if it is inaccurate or to ask for deletion of such data if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes.

If at any time after giving us personal information you decide that you no longer wish us to hold or use this information, or in the case that the information becomes out of date, you are free to notify us, and we will remove or rectify the information within a reasonable time and in accordance with legislative requirements. We may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, or if they put at risk the privacy of others, or for which access is not otherwise required.

Specific provisions for e-COST

In case you have an e-COST profile, the following applies in addition to the ‘Right of access to and right to rectify the data’ above.

You have the right to access your personal data via  https://e-services.cost.eu  and can correct it at all times by logging in with your username and password.

Please note, however, that a registered personal profile, with complete information for all mandatory fields, is a requirement to gain access to COST activities or to be reported by COST  Actions  or the COST Association as participant.

You can also request the deletion of your personal profile, but only for reasonably justified reasons. Your requests will be processed within a reasonable time and in accordance with legislative requirements, and will be accepted unless data retention is otherwise required by law or for legitimate business purposes. If you request the deletion of your profile or of mandatory fields therein, you understand that you will lose access to COST activities.

Similarly, if you are a COST  Action  participant, your  Actions  may not be able to report your participation for assessment purposes. We may decline to process deletion requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic or that prevent us from delivering our services, our contractual obligations, our legal duty which could impose on us unreasonable constraints, or put at risk the privacy of others, or for which access is not otherwise required.

Amendments

The COST Association reserves the right in its sole discretion to amend this Policy at any time, and you should regularly check this privacy policy for any amendments and always refer to the latest available version.