European Society of Cornea and Ocular Surface Disease Specialists (EuCornea) respects your right to privacy and complies with its obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The goal of this website privacy policy is to help you understand how the Society deals with any personal data you provide when you visit its websites or interact with the Society online.

By visiting any EuCornea website you are accepting the terms of this website privacy policy.

This website may contain external links to other websites but the Society is not responsible or liable for the privacy policies of any third-party website.

What types of information do we collect?

We collect technical information from you (such as IP address and which browser you used), when you visit our website, register for a Congress/Meeting/Course online, place an order, subscribe to any of our publications, or fill out a form.   You may browse our site anonymously but certain functions and pages may be unavailable to you.

When registering for an event as an exhibitor, or if you act as agent for an exhibitor, you will be asked to provide personal details such as name, job title, email address, postal address and phone number.  You may also be asked for certain payment information.

When registering for an event as a delegate, or accessing a product on our website, you will be asked to provide personal details such as name, email address, main field(s) of interest, membership status, postal address, phone number or payment information as needed. You may also be asked to provide professional information such as present and/or past profession, field of practice, research, study, etc.

If you attend one of our virtual events we will collect personal data to allow you to register and attend our virtual meetings.

If you choose to submit an abstract for consideration, you will be asked for details including financial interests and the names of any co-authors. If you are invited to speak at an event we will photograph, film, or otherwise record and use your name, likeness, image, voice, comments and any other material you provide to us.

EuCornea does not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16. If you are under the age of 16, please do not submit any personal information to us.   We encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s internet usage and to help enforce this Policy by instructing their children never to provide personal information online without their permission.

What do we use your information for?

The law requires that there be a legal basis for the Society to process your personal data.  In general, this will be one, or a combination, of the following:

• your consent
• the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with you
• compliance by the Society with a legal obligation to which it is subject
• the pursuit of the legitimate interest of the Society, except where such interests are overridden by your interests or your fundamental rights and freedoms.

The Society can also process your personal data in the rare event that it is necessary in order to protect your, or another person’s, vital interests or in the performance of a task being carried out by the Society in the public interest.

In practical terms, the information the Society collects from you may be used in one or more of the following ways:

Membership records

To keep up to date and accurate details of your membership of the Society.

To register you for an Annual Congress or sub-specialty day

We will use your information to register you for your chosen event and to provide you with updates and information relating to it.  This can be via specific Congress e-mail updates (some of which may be industry sponsored) or via eTimes, if you receive this publication.   At any time, you can unsubscribe from receiving future emails from the Society by clicking the ‘Unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of every email.

Personal information provided when registering for an event as an exhibitor, or agent for an exhibitor, will be used to provide you with updates and information relating to the Congress and associated exhibition. This can be via specific Congress e-mail updates or via our Exhibition Newsletter.  Personal information may also be shared with our specific third-party suppliers to facilitate participation in the exhibition. At any time, you can unsubscribe from receiving future emails from the Society by clicking the ‘Unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of every email.

If you choose to submit an abstract we will use your information to keep you updated on its status including whether it has been accepted for inclusion at the Annual Congress concerned.

To process payments, fulfil online orders and confirm transactions

When completing online transactions or when paying an event registration fee, we will use your personal data to complete your order and to follow up, where relevant or requested, by email, phone or post on any transactions and issue payment receipts.

To provide online Virtual Conferences 

If you communicate with us by video or audio conference using the Internet by attending one of our virtual events , your personal data will be collected and processed by the provider of the respective conference tool and by us. The conferencing tools collect all information that you provide/access to use the tools (email address and/or your phone number). Furthermore, the conference tools process the duration of the conference, start and end (time) of participation in the conference, number of participants and other “context information” related to the communication process (metadata).

Furthermore, the provider of the tool processes all the technical data required for the processing of the online communication. This includes, in particular, IP addresses, MAC addresses, device IDs, device type, operating system type and version, client version, camera type, microphone or loudspeaker and the type of connection.

Should content be exchanged, uploaded or otherwise made available within the tool, it is also stored on the servers of the tool provider. Such content includes, but is not limited to, cloud recordings, chat/ instant messages, voicemail uploaded photos and videos, files, whiteboards and other information shared while using the service.

To administer online educational tools

We will process your personal data to control access to the educational platform and, if appropriate, to keep an ongoing record of your personal activity. We will also send you notifications of new articles published in the EuCornea Journal.

To keep you informed about Society events and activities

If you have previously signed up for an Annual Congress or any of EuCornea’s publications you will be sent updates on an ongoing basis about the Society’s activities including details of future events and meetings.  Some of these communications may be industry sponsored.   At any time, you can unsubscribe from receiving future emails by clicking the ‘Unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of every email.

To improve our website and provide a personalised experience for you

We continually try to improve our website based on the information and feedback we receive from you.   We want your visit to our website to be a useful one, making sure you are able to find the information that you are looking for and that is relevant to you.

You must not disclose any personal information on any online forums operated by EuCornea.  The posting of any sensitive data, including medical records, that can be identified with any natural person is strictly prohibited.

How do we protect your information?

We use a variety of security measures to securely process and keep your personal information safe when you interact with our website.

We use a secure server so that all supplied sensitive/payment information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted into the database of our payment processing providers (PayPal and Sage Pay).   We do not see or store your full card details when you make an online transaction.

The Society takes, and will continue to take, all reasonable steps (which includes relevant technical and organisational measures) to guarantee the safety of the data you provide to us and we will only use the data for the intended purpose.

However, the nature of the internet is such that we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us via the Internet will be 100% secure.

Do we use cookies?

Yes. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser (if you allow) that lets them recognise your browser and capture and remember certain information.

We use cookies to help us remember and process activity during your visit and compile anonymous data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future.

This website uses Google Analytics to gather anonymous statistics about visitors to the site and which pages are visited.

If you prefer, you can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies via your browser settings. Like most websites, if you turn your cookies off, some of our services may not function properly.

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not disclose your personal data to outside parties except as set out in this policy.

We may disclose your personal data to our trading subsidiary, EuCornea Trading Limited, insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes and on the legal bases set out in this policy.

We may disclose your personal data to European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS), so that you can receive copies of EuroTimes and eTimes.  You can opt out of receiving these publications at any time.

We rely on third-party service providers to perform a variety of services on our behalf, such as Congress and Exhibition registration and management, website hosting, virtual event management, electronic message delivery, payment processing, data analytics and research.  Your information will only be shared with selected third-party service providers, contracted by EuCornea, to the extent necessary for the purpose of providing our services to you and for the completion of contracts entered into by you through our websites and applications or with your consent.

If you receive EuroTimes, we may share your personal data with a third-party auditing organisation (Audit Bureau of Circulation Limited) so they can verify aggregated statistics about circulation and usage of our products or review our policies, processes and procedures for compliance with relevant standards. You can view their privacy policy by following this link https://www.abc.org.uk/privacy-policy.

We may share your personal data where you have given permission.  In particular, should you attend an Exhibition or industry sponsored event at an EuCornea Annual Congress or event and allow your badge to be scanned (for example at the exhibitor’s booth or on entry to a sponsored event) this will be taken as consent to share your contact details with the exhibitor or sponsor concerned so that they can follow up with you directly. This includes the sharing of personal data with exhibitors as part of a virtual exhibition.

We also reserve the right to enforce our site policies in order to protect our rights and the rights of other individuals in a manner that is safe and compliant with the law.

Non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses. For example, we may disclose the total number of visits to our website.

Do we transfer data outside the EEA?

Our website hosting facilities are situated in Europe.

Certain of our key suppliers are situated in the USA, including our Congress and Exhibition management software provider.  Some of the servers used by these parties are located in the USA.

Transfers of personal data to these suppliers are protected by appropriate safeguards, namely the EU-US Privacy Shield or by the use in contracts of standard data protection clauses adopted and approved by the European Commission.

Do we retain data indefinitely?

No.  Our policy is to keep your personal information only for as long as is required by us to administer the charity in an effective manner and to comply with our various statutory obligations.  The data retention periods we use are set out in a data retention policy which is reviewed and updated from time to time.

Your rights under the GDPR

You have various rights under the GDPR. In particular, you may object to the processing of your personal data. When you want to exercise one of these data subject rights – and you are eligible to – EuCornea will respond according to the GDPR.

1. The right of access: you have the right to know whether EuCornea is processing data about you and, if so, you can request access to it.
2. The right to rectification: if your personal data is inaccurate, EuCornea will facilitate its correction once it becomes aware of the inaccuracy.
3. The right to erasure or right to be forgotten: you are able to ask us to delete your personal data if you no longer want it to be processed and there is no legitimate reason for EuCornea to keep it.
4. The right to restriction of processing: you have the right to limit the processing of your personal data.
5. The right to withdraw consent: you have the right to withdraw consent where we have relied upon your consent to process your personal data.
6. The right to be informed:  you have the right to clear and understandable information about who is processing your data, what they are processing and why they are processing it.
7. The right to data portability: you have the right to ask us to transfer your personal data to another service provider.
8. The right to object: you can say if you don’t want processing of your data to be undertaken.
9. The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing: This includes profiling, which produces legal effects or significantly affects you.

If you wish to exercise any of the above rights please send a written request to: compliance@eucornea.org   Alternatively, you may call us on +353 1 288 3674 or post your request to: Compliance, EuCornea, Temple House, Temple Road, Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland.

Online privacy policy only

This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our website and not to information collected offline.

Changes to our privacy policy

We reserve the right to make changes to our web privacy policy at any time without prior consultation; these changes will be posted on this page together with the privacy policy revision date.

Contacting us

If you have any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us at:  Compliance Officer, EuCornea, Temple House, Temple Road, Blackrock, Dublin, Ireland.

Website: www.eucornea.org
Email: compliance@eucornea.org
Telephone: + 353 1 288 3674

Date Last Revised: 
17 July 2020