This website is managed by the City of Antwerp, with registered offices at Grote Markt 1, B-2000 Antwerp.
The data that you provide and we obtain from you are processed by the City of Antwerp under the supervision of the city's Data Protection Officer, Ms Anne Baré. Please direct any questions and/or comments to the above address or to the city's contact centre (open every working day from 9am to 5pm, on +32 (0)3 22 11 333 or at informatieveiligheid@antwerpen.be.
About the privacy policy
The City of Antwerp considers it important that you can use its services at anytime and anywhere. The City of Antwerp is also working to provide interactive services and services tailored to you. In order to do this, we find it useful to collect and make use of certain personal data.
The City of Antwerp takes protecting your privacy and your personal data very seriously. By means of this privacy policy, we therefore want to explain to you as transparently as possible what personal data we may collect from you, why we want to collect them, how we want to use them and how we intend to handle them.
This privacy policy applies to all services provided by the city.
The City of Antwerp, with registered offices at Grote Markt 1, B-2000 Antwerp, is responsible for this privacy policy. In these terms and conditions, the "City of Antwerp" is also referred to as "we".
The personal data we collect
Why does the City of Antwerp collect your personal data?
The City of Antwerp collects personal data in order to provide better services to its users. We believe that it is important to provide our users with the right content, anywhere and anytime and at any time. That is why we want to get to know our users better, based on some items of personal data, so that we can tailor our services to our users' needs wherever possible. We can also use your personal data if we need to contact you.
In what way does the City of Antwerp collect your personal data?
Personal data you communicate to us.
To use certain City of Antwerp services, you will need to create an account. When you do so, we will ask you for some personal information, such as your email address, name, date of birth, gender and post code. Those items of information will be stored in your A-profile. After registration, we may also ask for additional information which can help us provide even more customised services.
If, for example, you sign up to a special campaign or promotion, or take part in a competition, you will also be asked to provide certain personal information.
In addition, we will collect your personal information when you interact with us, for example if you send an email with questions, reviews or complaints about our services, or attend an event.
Personal data that we collect based on your use of the City of Antwerp’s online services
We collect data about the online services you use and how you use them, such as when you watch a video on our website. That way, we can customise our online services to your needs and interests and better understand how our services are being used.
More specifically, those data include:
- Log file data, such as an IP address, pages opened, mouse clicks, the date and time of your request, your browser, and so on. These data enable us to recognise you and can tell us how you use our services, for example, which articles, audio clips or videos you have read, listened to or watched, and whether you have read, listened or watched all the way to the end.
- Device data, such as your device's IP address, make, type and operating system, and so on. In so far as this would be useful when providing the service concerned, we can also use the data to get a rough indication of your location.
In order to do that, the City of Antwerp uses cookies and other similar technologies.
We may also supplement the personal data we collect with information from other reliable sources, both from online and offline data providers. The City of Antwerp will only do so to the extent that those data were lawfully collected by the third party and it is legally entitled to share them with us. If necessary, the City of Antwerp will also ask your explicit permission to use these data.
Other sources
The online services are a dynamic and innovative environment, which also means that we are constantly seeking to provide improved services tailored to your needs. This may also include new applications, in which we collect and/or wish to use your data in a different way. We will always communicate about this as transparently as possible in this privacy policy.
What do we use the personal data collected for?
To provide the services of the City of Antwerp
We generally use personal data to provide and maintain services. For example, we can notify you of changes or scheduled maintenance to online services, or process your feedback on our services appropriately.
To recognise you as a user of the City of Antwerp
When you use the online services via your A Profile, we apply technology that recognises you as a registered user and immediately provides access to the relevant service. As a result, you do not have to enter your login credentials every time you visit the relevant online service(s) or want to participate in interactive features on the online services such as competitions, for example.
To analyse and improve the services of the City of Antwerp
We use personal data to understand which services and content are interesting and useful to our users. By knowing what you as a user read, listen to, watch or use, we can provide necessary feedback to our programmers and developers to improve our offerings and make them more relevant. In that regard, we may also invite you to take part in a survey. This allows us to continuously improve our services and content and develop new services to make and keep our offerings as relevant as possible to our users.
To personalise online services and advertisements
The City of Antwerp strives to make online services as relevant as possible to each user. By using data that show the user's likely interests, the City of Antwerp can work to develop a more personalised service. That way, for example, the City of Antwerp would be able to recommend content that fits your profile
To be kept informed about the products and services offered by the City of Antwerp
The City of Antwerp may also use contact details and other collected data to inform you about news, future campaigns or events, promotions, new services, and so on. We will only do this if you have given your consent. You can also let the City of Antwerp know if you no longer wish to be contacted about these. You can do that each time using the ‘Unsubscribe link’ at the bottom of each electronic communication, or via your personal profile page.
To prevent and detect abuse or fraud
We may also use data to prevent, detect and investigate illegal or suspected illegal practices, such as fraud (in connection with payment methods, for example), and to enforce our general terms and conditions of use, both in the interests of the City of Antwerp and our users.
Are users' personal data passed on to third parties?
Unless you have given your consent or we are legally required to do so, we will not transfer, sell, etc. your personal information to third parties.
In certain cases, however, certain third parties will be given access to the data we collected about you:
Suppliers to the City of Antwerp
To provide our services, we actually make use of a number of independent companies or service providers, for purposes such as providing some infrastructure or IT services, conducting payment transactions via our services, carrying out surveys, and so on.
Such companies may have access to certain data and information as part of the assignment allocated to them by the City of Antwerp. The City of Antwerp only allows this to the extent that it is necessary in order to carry out their assignment and these companies provide the necessary guarantees concerning access to and the possible use of these data and that information.
Social media
Some online services contain social media “buttons” from social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on. These allow you to share information on those platforms. These buttons are implemented and managed by the social networks themselves. The City of Antwerp has no control over the uses that these companies make of those buttons. We encourage you to review the terms and conditions of use and privacy policies of the social networks themselves. This privacy policy only governs the use of data collected by the City of Antwerp.
Authorities
In certain circumstances, we will need to share your information with or disclose it to the authorities. For example, we may need to do so in order to comply with the law or a court order, to detect and address fraud or security problems, or to protect the rights of the City of Antwerp.
How can you manage and possibly delete your personal data?
You can review the personal data the City of Antwerp processes about you at any time and have any inaccurate or incomplete data corrected or deleted. You can contact the City of Antwerp using the contact information found in the response above. When exercising your rights, please be as specific as possible so that we can address your request specifically and correctly. We also wish to point out that in order to exercise your rights, we must reasonably verify your identity so that we can prevent any other person from exercising them.
You also have the right to oppose the use of your data for direct marketing purposes at any time.
How do we keep your data secure?
The City of Antwerp believes it is important that your data is handled in a secure manner. We therefore use a variety of security technologies and measures to appropriately protect your information from unauthorised access, use, loss or disclosure. The City of Antwerp also has audits of these security measures carried out on a regular basis. Unfortunately, exchanging information over the internet is never 100% secure. Although we make every effort to maintain the security of your data, we are unable to guarantee absolute security.
Update to this privacy statement
The City of Antwerp will occasionally update this privacy statement if any changes are made to the services provided or in response to customer feedback or changes to privacy laws.