BioRural (“our”, “us” and “we”) is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement ID 101060166.
We will refer to you as “you” and “your”.
We value your privacy and the security of your data and we want to be transparent about the collection, use and sharing of information about you. This Privacy Policy is for your use of our website (http://biorural-toolkit.eu/), also called ‘BioRural Toolkit.’ It also applies to your interaction with us through other means such as customer service, direct conversations and events.
We have produced this Privacy Policy to communicate and explain how we process personally identifiable information that we collect about you when you use the BioRural Toolkit and interact with us such as:
You have choices about the use of personally identifiable information which we hold about you. You can access, update and request the removal of the information we hold about you. If you don’t agree with the Policies, please do not access or use the BioRural Toolkit, or interact with us.
What information do we collect about you?
BioRural respects the privacy of its users and complies with the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 of the EU. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard user information.
We collect information to provide the BioRural Toolkit. In order for us to provide the BioRural Toolkit to you, we need to collect and use personally identifiable information as described in this Privacy Policy and the other Policies. The collection and processing of personal data by us is necessary to enable the relationship we have with you, and when that isn’t the case we have a legitimate interest in collecting the information. We collect information about you when you provide it to us through use of the BioRural Toolkit as well when it is provided by another source – we talk more about this below. For the purposes of the applicable data legislation, we are the ‘data controller’ in respect of your personal data. In general, we are responsible for the Policies and the handling of your personal data.
Information you give us. This includes personally identifiable information that you provide to us when you use the BioRural Toolkit by directly inputting it.
Here are some examples where you may give us personally identifiable information:
Account and Profile Information – This includes the name, email address, address, stakeholder type, bioeconomy theme and password you provided at the time of registering for the BioRural toolkit. It also includes information you input into your profile, any information you provide to us by other means such as e-mail or forms, as well as any data you provide while using the Service.
Users who register to the BioRural Toolkit can make their profile information publicly available through the platform, for this to happen users must consent by ticking the box ‘Visible on map and open to sharing contact details,’ Users can withdraw their consent at any time and their profile will become not publicly available immediately.
To send their information the user must consent to the privacy policy conditions described in this point.
Information you give when you are asking for support or we are providing it – You may choose to give us information about a problem you are having, or ask us how to use the BioRural Toolkit and in doing so you may provide us with information by e-mail.
Information we get automatically when you use the BioRural Toolkit. This is personally identifiable information we receive and that is collected by automated systems involved in delivering the BioRural Toolkit or when you take specific actions while using the BioRural Toolkit.
How we use the personally identifiable information we collect.
Our use of the personally identifiable information we collect depends on how you use the BioRural Toolkit, as well as the settings and preferences you’ve provided to us.
we provide your name, affiliation, e-mail address and other information to other users and publicly available on the Toolkit only when you have given consent to do so;
Providing other users of the BioRural Toolkit with information about you – We might also use your personally identifiable information to suggest that others connect or interact with you where we think this might be in your best interests. For example, by connecting you with a user of the BioRural Toolkit that is conducting an event in your area;
To improve safety and security of the BioRural Toolkit – We use information about you to identify suspicious activity, to investigate potential violations of the Policies and to verify user accounts;
To market, promote and drive engagement with the BioRural Toolkit – We use information about your use of the BioRural Toolkit, your contact information and other personally identifiable information about you to send you communications that may be of specific interest to you. This type of use has the goal of alerting you when there are events in respect of the BioRural Toolkit which we think you’d like to know about, or to provide information, products and services we think you may be interested in. You can control what communications we provide to you in the settings section of the BioRural Toolkit, which includes the option to unsubscribe from all communications from us other than core service messages and system functions, such as password reset;
To provide you with support – We use your personally identifiable information to resolve issues you have using the BioRural Toolkit and to reply to your requests;
In relation to our legal rights and legitimate business interests – We will use personally identifiable information about you as required by law and when we believe it is necessary to protect our legal rights/interests, the rights/interests of others and in relation to any legal claim, regulatory requirements, audits, disclosures in the event of an acquisition, merger or sale and compliance activities;
To generate research and reports – We write and publish information, articles and content in relation to start-ups, industries, markets and other areas related to our community. This might include information we hold about you that you have provided that is generally visible in the BioRural Toolkit, information we generate on our own or aggregated anonymised data derived in part from your own personally identifiable information;
For marketing purposes – This means advertising, commercial affiliation, interacting with social media, remarketing and behavioural targeting, interacting with online survey platforms and public relations;
To improve the BioRural Toolkit – We use feedback, aggregated data and may use your information as well to make the BioRural Toolkit work better, faster, more securely and more in line with user needs. As an example, we use the search terms that users look for on the BioRural Toolkit to identify new features that are in demand and which we believe we should develop further;
To communicate with you about the BioRural Toolkit– We use information about your use of the BioRural Toolkit, your contact information and other personally identifiable information to send you transactional communication that relate to your use of the BioRural Toolkit. You can control what communications we send to you in the settings section of the BioRural Toolkit, which includes the option to unsubscribe from all communications other than core service messages and system functions like password reset.
Legal basis of our processing of your personal data
We will only collect and process your personally identifiable information where we have a valid legal basis for doing so.
In general, we collect and use your personally identifiable information where:
As set out above, in some cases, the legal basis for the processing of your personal data is your consent. This is the case, for example, if you agree to us emailing you with relevant information. In other cases, the processing will be necessary for the purposes of our providing you with the BioRural Toolkit as referred to in this Privacy Policy and the other Policies. An example of processing personal data in accordance with our legitimate interest is protecting our legal rights, engaging in research and development or offering products and services of value to you. As mentioned above, processing of personal data by us based on our legitimate interests will only take place provided that those interests do not outweigh your rights and interests.
You have the right to withdraw your consent to use your personally identifiable information for a specific purpose at any time. Removing your consent will not change any processing that has already occurred. If you do withdraw your consent, and if we do not have another legal basis for processing your personally identifiable information, then we will stop processing your personal data. If we do have another legal basis for processing your personally identifiable information, then we may continue to do so subject to your legal rights. If we are processing your personally identifiable information because we or a third-party have a legitimate interest you have the right to remove consent.
How we share information we collect
The BioRural Toolkit aims to accelerate the development of the bioeconomy and to encourage stakeholders to interact and collaborate. This means that information is sometimes shared with third-parties. Our business is not to sell personally identifiable information, rather our goal is to offer you the best collaborative community possible.
Sharing with third-parties
When we need to comply with applicable laws and requests – When we believe that sharing your personally identifiable information with third-party is required to comply with an applicable law, regulation or request by a government entity, to protect ourselves, our users or others from harm or illegal actions, to respond to an emergency that threatens a person, to fulfil your support requirements and/or to generally protect the security and integrity of the BioRural Toolkit.
Our Partners – Third-parties help us deliver some parts of the BioRural Toolkit.
Service Providers – We share information with third-parties in order to provide, market, improve and support the BioRural Toolkit, and these third-party service providers are essential to us in providing you with the BioRural Toolkit. This includes service providers that perform services for us such as data hosting, analytics ( Google Analytics (Google Ireland Limited) Google Analytics is a web analysis service provided by Google Ireland Limited (“Google”). Google utilises the Data collected to track and examine the use of this Website, to prepare reports on its activities and share them with other Google services. Google may use the Data collected to contextualise and personalise the ads of its own advertising network.
Support infrastructure and many other areas. The use of these services requires the relevant third-party to access or use personally identifiable information about you. We monitor these third-party service providers carefully and have policies and procedures in place to maintain the security of your information.
With your consent – We share your information with third-parties when you give us your explicit consent to share it.
With regard to sharing your data with other BioRural Toolkit users and third-parties, please note that we will comply with your requests with regard to all future access to your information but your requests will not apply to any existing off-line information held by another BioRural Toolkit user.
How we store your information
We collect information globally and primarily store that information in the European Union on our own servers and that of our service providers as part of providing the BioRural Toolkit. In countries which may have different data privacy standards and protections than those which apply to us in the European Union we take steps to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Privacy Policy.
International transfer of information we collect – Sometimes we operate outside of the European Union and in doing so we transfer personally identifiable information using service platforms and service providers so that we can deliver you the BioRural Toolkit as described in the Policies. Some of the countries where these service providers are located and where our team members work may not have privacy and data protection laws which are similar to or as protective as the laws of EU (Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016). In the event of the cross-border transfer by us of personally identifiable information which we collect from the European Union, we ensure that appropriate safeguards for the protection of such information are in place. These may include signing the EU approved Standard Contractual Clauses, binding corporate rules or any other appropriate safeguard available from time to time to ensure adequate security for transfers of your personally identifiable information.
Your Account Information – This personally identifiable information is retained as long as your account is active and you have not requested its deletion, and nor has it been deleted under the Policies. We may keep some of your personally identifiable information to the extent needed to be in compliance with our legal obligations, to resolve disputes and enforce any agreements we have with you;
Apart from what we’ve described above, we’ll archive and stop processing any personally identifiable information about you in accordance with our data retention policy when you delete your account (and we’ll continue to act in line with the other parts of the Policies) or when it’s no longer necessary or required for us to process your personal information for the BioRural Toolkit, whichever comes first.
How long we retain your data
BioRural will keep the data from the users registered in the toolkit for as long as the project lasts (August 2025). Users can ask their information to be deleted at any time by sending an email with the request to toolkit@biorural.eu. The information of the user will be deleted immediately upon request.
Security of your information
We take security of your data seriously and work hard to avoid loss, misuse, unauthorised access or disclosure. No security system is perfect and despite our efforts and the distributed nature of the Internet, we can’t guarantee that your personal data will be absolutely secure, either while it is being transmitted or while stored on our systems.
Access and Control of your Information
You have rights with respect to your personally identifiable information. BioRural respects this privacy and the BioRural toolkit complies with the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 of the EU.
Cookies
This website uses cookie files to deliver services. You can determine the conditions of storage and access to cookie files in your web browser. Cookie files (so-called „cookies”) are data files containing information, especially in text file format, stored in the website user’s terminal equipment. The entity storing cookie files in the User’s terminal equipment and having access to them is the website Operator. Cookie files are used to ensure proper functioning of the website. The Internet website browsing software (internet browser) usually allows for storing cookie files in the User’s terminal equipment by default. Website User’s may block automatic handling of cookie files by changing the settings of their browser. Internet browsers allow for deleting cookie files. Users may also automatically block storing those files. Detailed information about cookie file handling options and methods is available in the settings of your browser. Restrictions on cookie files may affect certain functionalities on the Website pages
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Analytics
This website uses Google Analytics services to understand how the website performs, how the USER interacts with the website, keeping our BioRural Toolkit secure, to provide the user with a better and improved user experience and help speed up future interactions with the website.
For more information on the cookies used in order to carry out this task, visit our Cookie Policy.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update Our Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify You of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page.
We will let You know via email and/or a prominent notice on the BioRural Toolkit, prior to the change becoming effective and update the “Last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy.
You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, You can contact us:
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expresssed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Research Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can by held responsible for them.