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Disclaimer, Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

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Disclaimer

This site results from co-operation between the Council of Europe and the European Union. It is a non-institutional site. The opinions expressed in this work are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of the Council of Europe.

Privacy Notice
Introduction

The Council of Europe is committed to protect your personal data and to respect your privacy. The processing operations described below are subject to the Council of Europe Regulations on the Protection of Personal Data (Regulations).

The information in this statement is provided in accordance with Article 7 of the Regulations.

This privacy notice explains how the Council of Europe processes personal data for the purpose of creating and maintaining a database of knowledgeable institutions and experts in the field of history education and their events, projects, publications, and opportunities (calls for applications, proposals, partnerships, etc.) via user profiles and a common calendar and news board, which shall facilitate the search for suitable project partners or consultants in this thematic area, etc.)  and to stay on top of the debate through the information provided by the users. The processing of personal data is carried out by Council of Europe and, in particular, by the project team of the HISTOLAB Joint Project under the supervision of the Head of History Education and Schools of Political Studies Division of the Council of Europe and the Executive Director of the Observatory on History Teaching in Europe.

1. Who is responsible for data processing?

The Council of Europe is the “data controller”, which means that we have the decision-making power concerning the data processing.

Where necessary and within the limits of the purpose of the processing already presented in the Introduction, data processing might be carried out on behalf of the Council of Europe by “data processors”. In that case, the safeguards outlined in Article 9 of the Regulations will apply.

2.  What data do we process and for what purpose?

The HISTOLAB Digital Hub provides a nodal point for history educators worldwide. Through its interactive functions the hub creates the HIST-CONNECT database of experts and institutions in the field of history education that facilitates the search for suitable consultants, organisations, researchers, mentors or project partners in a particular area of interest. Besides that, the Hub will provide a common history education calendar and bulletin board in which news about events and exhibitions, projects, new publications, or opportunities (calls for applications, cooperation, etc.) in the field of history education are announced. This information is provided via user profiles in a decentralised manner. This means that users can apply to become HISTOLAB members in order to be included in the HIST-CONNECT database and to include their news and events in the common calendar and bulletin board. The data provided during the registration process is used as a basis to determine the applicant’s eligibility for membership of the HISTOLAB Digital Hub, as defined in the terms of service.

Upon approval of the application, information stored in the user profiles that has been determined for public or semi-public use (see below), is presented in the user’s profile pages and also serves as a basis for searching the HIST-CONNECT database, in which the respective users can be found, and their profiles accessed. The decentralised approach in which users provide data directly to the hub themselves and can change or delete it as they see fit, ensures not only that the information provided in the hub is  up to date, but also allows the users concerned to have control over the data they provide to the greatest extent possible.

In general, HISTOLAB provides two types of membership: institutional or individual, and a sub-category for junior researchers. You can apply for membership via a dedicated registration form and choose the type of membership to which you wish to apply.

2.1 Registration form

When applying for membership on our HISTOLAB digital hub, we ask you to provide us with a set of relevant personal data that allows us to determine whether we can grant you the desired membership status based on our terms of service.

2.1.1 Individual membership application

In order to register you as a member of the HISTOLAB digital hub we ask you to submit your personal data and fill in the registration form. Consequently, we may process some or all of the following categories of data: identification data (i.e. name and date of birth); contact data (i.e. country of residence, e-mail address, language(s) that you speak), as well as data that allows us to understand your professional background such as the organisation that you are affiliated with, an academic degree that you have obtained, your fields of expertise and professional skills and information about your work experience and academic publications that can be provided via  documents (e.g. CVs), links to professional websites (e.g. professional websites or professional appearances on social media platforms) or via manual input. You will also be asked whether you wish to apply under the early career status.

In the course of the registration, you will be asked whether you wish:

a) that your profile is publicly accessible and included publicly in the HIST-CONNECT database of experts and organisations in the field of history education, or

b) that your profile is included publicly in the HIST-CONNECT database of experts and organisations in the field of history education only for logged-in HISTOLAB members and your profile can be only accessed by this group of persons, as well, or

c) that the visibility of your profile is private, meaning only visible to HISTOLAB administrators (i.e. the project team). In this case, your profile will not be included in the HIST-CONNECT database.

After approval of your application, your profile will be automatically created and the following data will be displayed in the manner and to the circle of persons that you have selected during the application process: Your name, country of residence, institutional affiliation, degree, language(s), fields of expertise and top skills, early careers status (If applicable). The following data will be hidden by default but can be made visible by the user anytime through their user profile: E-Mail address, and as far as provided, links to their websites (including professional social media appearances), CV or manually typed descriptions of their work experience and publication list. Your date of birth will only be visible to the administrators of the HISTOLAB digital hub (i.e. the HISTOLAB Project Team). You can request a change of all information provided except for the date of birth any time after the activation of your user account, and also change the visibility settings at any time. Please notice that the HISTOLAB administrators reserve the right to deactivate or delete your account, if information provided at a later stage contradicts the information initially provided to determine your eligibility for membership in the digital hub.

2.1.2 Institutional Membership

For this type of membership application we mainly ask for institutional information, rather than for personal information. However, by submitting the application the applicant confirms that s/he is authorised to create a membership application on behalf of her/his institution. We ask for the name of the person who is applying on behalf of the institution in order to ensure accountability. This data will however not be displayed publicly anywhere and is only visible to the platform administrators, meaning the HISTOLAB project team. Upon request of an authorised staff member (management level) or owner of the named institution, the applicant however permits the project team to disclose the name of the person who has applied for the registration of a user account on behalf of the institution concerned. We encourage the use of shared or functional e-mail addresses for the purpose of creating institutional accounts (such as e.g. info@organisation.org) rather than personal addresses (such as name@organisation.org) in order to protect personal data as much as possible, as for institutional profiles e-mail addresses are displayed by default and cannot be hidden. If the applicant chooses the use of an email address containing her or his name instead of  the institutional domain, the applicant gives the authorisation to the HISTOLAB project team to publicly display this information. Institutional accounts are included publicly in HIST-CONNECT and publicly accessible by default and cannot be hidden.

 

2.2 User Profiles
2.2.1 User Profiles of individual members

Upon the approval of the application, the user accounts will be created respecting the preferred visibility settings of the applicants, as specified during the registration process. Users have the possibility to change all data provided during the registration process, except for the date of birth, and can make visible the data provided in the registration process that are hidden by default (except date of birth, which cannot be publicly displayed) such as e-mail address, CV, links to personal websites, manual input of work experience and publication list. It is possible to hide these data again at any point.

Besides the data already provided during the registration process, the user can provide additional personal data, namely, an “about me” text, a profile photo, as well as an indication of what HISTOLAB members look for or offer professionally (such as research tasks, consultation, membership, project partners, etc.) to enhance her or his appearance on the HISTOLAB Digital Hub. The provision of the mentioned data is optional and provided data can be deleted autonomously by the user anytime. Additionally, there is the possibility to temporarily hide the “look for / offer section.”

2.2.2 User profiles of institutional members

Upon the approval of the application, the user accounts will be created and all information provided during registration publicly displayed, except for the name of the person who has registered on behalf of the institution concerned, which will only be visible to the administrators of the platform. Users can provide additional information about their institutions in the same scope as defined for individual members’ profiles under 2.2.1. For this kind of profile, this data is however institutional in nature and not personal and thus, do not have additional options in term of restricting visibility.

2.3 Use of your contact details for transmitting information

We will use your contact details (i.e. e-mail address) to provide you with the relevant information concerning your activity on the HISTOLAB digital hub  and to connect you with other registered HISTOLAB members, as well as with unregistered visitors of the HISTOLAB digital hub. As it regards the email addresses linked to individual members’ profiles, the email addresses are hidden by default. However, as the purpose of a database of experts in the field of history education implies also the necessity to provide a channel through which such an expert can be contacted, we provide the possibility to visitors (external, if public visibility setting of the profile is selected, or only to logged-in members, if the respective visibility section is selected) to contact the registered members with public or semi-public profiles through a contact form that enables the possibility to contact HISTOLAB members while keeping  their email addresses hidden. Thus, if a visitor wishes to contact a HISTOLAB member who does not wish to publicly display her or his email-address, a contact form will appear that will transmit the message including information about the sender to the member concerned. Only if the contacted member wishes to respond to that message via their own e-mail address, then the member will share her or his contact data with the person who sent the contact form in the first place. E-mail addresses of institutional members are displayed in any case as they are not personal but institutional in nature. We discourage the use of personalised email addresses for institutional profiles.

3. What is the legal basis for our processing of your data?

Your consent is our legal basis for processing your personal data.

On occasion, we will also process your personal data on the basis of the Council of Europe’s legal instruments and its internal rules in order to carry out activities necessary for the performance of the Council of Europe’s tasks.

 

4. Who has access to your data? Do we share your personal data with a third party?

Your personal data is processed by the Council of Europe. Only the Council of Europe staff responsible for the HISTOLAB Joint Project have access to your data.

We also share your personal data with the specialised IT services for the creation, maintenance, and further development of the Digital Hub.

Where we share your personal data for the purposes of transmitting information, as a general rule, we use Mailjet. You can find Mailjet Privacy Policy here

5. How do we collect and store your personal data?

We process personal data that we receive either directly from you or the person you have authorised to transmit such data to us.

We store your information electronically on Amazon cloud servers (AWS) located within the European Union.

We have put in place technical measures to protect the security of your information, including appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being used or accessed without proper authorisation, accidentally lost, altered or disclosed. Organisational measures include restricting access to your personal data solely to authorised persons within the Council of Europe Secretariat, who are only able to access your personal data using password protected accounts.

Where we share your personal data with data processors, we have taken all appropriate measures to ensure that processing carried out by them on behalf of the Council of Europe, complies with the Regulations.

6. How long will your personal data be stored?

We will store your personal data electronically on HISTOLAB platform as long as you consent to it.

In case the membership application is rejected, all data concerning the application will be automatically deleted 30 days after the decision was made and automatically communicated to the e-mail address indicated. A pending membership application for which applicants are asked to submit additional information by the project team is automatically considered rejected if the applicant fails to provide the requested information within 14 days after the user has been informed about the need. 

If you wish to delete your account, please use the dedicated form in your user profile or contact the HISTOLAB project team at histolab@coe.int. If a member (institutional or individual) requests the deletion of her or his account, all personal data will be deleted immediately.

7. What are your data protection rights

You have the right to:

  • -request access to your personal information held by us;
  • request that we correct incomplete or inaccurate personal information  held about you;
  • request that we delete or remove your personal information when there is no valid reason for us to keep it;
  • object to the processing of your personal information on specific grounds relating to your situation.
8. Our contacts and data protection authority

If you wish to exercise the above rights, or for any queries, concerns, or requests you may have in connection with the way your data is collected and used, please contact the Council of Europe by:

  • sending an email to the HISTOLAB project team at histolab@coe.int;
  • sending an email to the Council of Europe’s Data Protection Officer at dpo@coe.int.

If you feel that we have not adequately responded to your request and consider that your data protection rights have been violated as a result of our processing of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Council of Europe Data Protection Commissioner by sending an e-mail to datacommissioner@coe.int.

 

Terms of Service
1. Aims of the Interactive Functions of the HISTOLAB Digital Hub (HIST-CONNECT, History Education Calendar & Bulletin Board)

Via its interactive functions, the HISTOLAB digital hub aims to create and maintain a database of knowledgeable institutions and experts in the field of history education  (HIST-CONNECT) and their events, projects, publications and opportunities (calls for applications, proposals, partnerships, etc.). This information is provided by registered users (“HISTOLAB Members”) themselves through their user profiles and contributions to a common calendar and bulletin news board. This facilitates the search for suitable project partners or consultants in this thematic area, etc.)  and to stay on top of the debate through the information provided by the users.

2. Eligibility for the creation of a user account (HISTOLAB membership)

(1) The website is open to the general public and targets persons and organisations with an interest in history education. However, the nature of the aims of the interactive functions of the digital hub as defined under article 1 requires the limitation of the circle of persons eligible to create a user account. This is due to the authorisations that are by default linked to an active user account namely the possibility to submit content for the History Education Calendar and Bulletin Board for review for the administrators (upon release), and the right to be included in the HIST-CONNECT database. This possibility implies the need to ensure the relevance and expertise of the persons and organisations included in the database. 

(2) Therefore, the HISTOLAB Digital Hub allows the following profile of persons and organisations to register a user account:

  • Experienced researchers and consultants in the field of history education with long-standing expertise in the field (to be demonstrated via relevant work experience and/or a list of relevant publications).
  • Early career researchers with demonstrated expertise and/or a working focus on history education (to be demonstrated via relevant work experience and/or relevant publications and/or enrolment in a doctoral programme related to history education), who select the option “early career” status, which will be visible in their user account.
  • Practitioners (e.g. but not restricted to teachers and museum professionals) who have an active engagement and demonstrated experience either in:
    • Research related to history education (to be demonstrated via a list of publications and/or relevant work experience, or if the former two criteria do not apply through a proof of enrolment in a related doctoral programme, if an “early career” status is requested; such a status is publicly visible in the user profile upon creation), or
    • Consultancy services related to history education (to be demonstrated via a list of publications and/or relevant work experience), or
    • Cooperation projects with tangible outputs / results fostering innovation in the field of history education.
  • Institutions or organisations that can demonstrate their expertise and activity in the field of history education.

(3) In order to be able to review the eligibility of persons and organisations seeking to create a user account, an online application form needs to be filled-in by the applicants in which the necessary expertise and background can be demonstrated. Thus, successful registration is contingent on the approval by administrators based on the information provided by applicants. Besides the approval or rejection of an application for HISTOLAB membership, administrators may also ask applicants for additional information to process via the email address that was provided by the applicant in order to review the application.

(4) In case of rejection of an application, the applicants have the possibility to object to the decision of the administrators within 14 days from the communication of the decision, by writing an email to histolab@coe.int, which will lead to a re-evaluation of the application. The e-mail shall provide all necessary data to identify the application concerned and in addition a reasoning why the sender objects to the decision of the administrators. As all data will be automatically deleted 30 days after the communication of the rejection, every user has the possibility to submit a new application after 31 days counting from the day in which the rejection decision was communicated to the applicant.

3. Rules of Conduct for Registered Users (HISTOLAB members)

(1) Users shall only submit or portray content that is relevant to the aims and purposes of the HISTOLAB Digital Hub. Submission or portrayal of irrelevant content may lead to a deactivation or deletion of the account of the respective author.

(2) Users are banned from portraying, submitting or advertising content that is against the core values and principles of the Council of Europe, as well as from the use of hate-speech or any other form of language that is discriminatory or praises any form of discrimination, exclusion or violence. A breach of these regulations will lead to the deletion of the account of the respective author. The HISTOLAB project team reserves the right to bring severe cases that may also violate national legislations in this regard to the attention of the respective authorities.

4.  Deletion and deactivation of user profiles

(1) Users can delete their profiles anytime autonomously without the need to provide reasoning.

(2)Administrators may deactivate user profiles after 24 months without log-in to their user profiles in order to ensure that only accurate information is portrayed on the HIST-CONNECT database. Users will be informed of this, and profiles will be reactivated automatically after users have logged-in and reviewed their data.

(3) The violation of rules of conduct set forth under article 3 may lead to the deactivation or deletion of the user account concerned in accordance with the regulations of article 3. Decisions to deactivate or delete user profiles are usually preceded by a warning. In severe cases of breaches of the rules of conduct as defined under article 3 (2), the decision to deactivate or delete a profile can be taken without prior warning. Counting from the communication of the decision, the users have a timeframe of 14 days to object to this decision which will lead to a re-evaluation of the decision. The profiles in question will be immediately deactivated upon communication of the decision. In the cases of deletion after the expiration of the 14 day period, the account will be deleted and all personal data deleted.