GDPR - Privacy Policy | The Synergist

Last updated: September 2022

The Synergist is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect and use your personal data (as further defined) in the context of operating its business activities via its websites (the "Websites") and the Synapse platform and which rights and options you have in this respect. Please also refer to our Cookie Policy which explains the use of cookies and other web tracking devices via our website.

Who is responsible for your personal data?

The Synergist is responsible for your personal data in its capacity as data controller. The Synergist comprises of The Synergist ASBL – BE0536 681 303, headquartered at Avenue Louise 231 – 1050 Brussels - Belgium, Synergist Services SPRL – BE0642 918 077, headquartered at Avenue Louise 231 – 1050 Brussels – Belgium.

Which personal data do we collect?

For the purpose of this privacy policy, "personal data" is defined as any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.

The categories of personal data we collect and further process in accordance with this privacy policy may include:

Contact and identification information: name, postal address, including your home address, where you have provided this to us, business address, telephone number, mobile phone number, and email address.
Business information: information necessarily processed in a project or client contractual relationship with The Synergist or voluntarily provided by you, such as instructions given, sponsorings made, requests, and all data related to projects, resources, initiatives, events, trainings, that user are able to add on the platform or website;
Profession and job-related information: employment details, stakeholder group you consider yourself part of, employer, job title, bios, career, photos, attendance to events, and public actions and preferences processed over the website.
Authentication information: Your password and other account details for the Synergist Websites and Synapse platform, where you have such account;
Electronic identification data: IP addresses, device identifier, cookies
Special categories of personal data. In connection with the registration for and provision of access to an event or seminar, we may ask for information about your health for the purpose of identifying and being considerate of any disabilities or special dietary requirements you may have. Any use of such information is based on your explicit consent. If you do not provide any such information about disabilities or special dietary requirements, we will not be able to take any respective precautions;
Usage data: information related to how you use Websites or the Synapse platform and your preferences, where it is relevant to legal services that we provide; and/or
Details of your visits to our premises.

How do we collect your personal data?

We may collect personal data directly from you in a number of circumstances:

When you use or contact us in the context of any of our services in connection to one of our initiatives such as Patient Focused Medicines Development, From Testing To Targeted Treatment, Break Dengue, Maternal Health Alliance, Safe Motherhood Week, and Pregnancy and Medicine Initiative, or any future initiatives we may launch;
When you browse, make an inquiry, or otherwise interact on our Websites;
When you attend a seminar or another Synergist event or sign up to receive personal data from us, including training; or

When you or your organisation offer to provide, or provide services to us. In some circumstances, we collect personal data about you indirectly, from a third party source:

We collect personal data from your organisation, other organisations with whom you have dealings, government agencies, an information or service provider, or from a publicly available record.
We collect information from publicly available resources such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Google or Facebook;

Are you required to provide personal data?

There are certain circumstances in which The Synergist cannot take action without certain of your personal data, for example, because this personal data is required to process your instructions or orders or to enter into a contract, provide you with access to a web offering or to carry out a legally required compliance screening. In these cases, it will unfortunately not be possible for us to provide you with what you request without the relevant personal data and we will notify you accordingly. At the time when we obtain your personal data, we will indicate to you whether you are obliged to provide certain personal data. Other personal data that is not mandatory may be provided by you voluntarily and if you do not wish to give such optional personal data, this will not have any detrimental effects on you.

For which purposes will we use your personal data?

We may use your personal data for the following purposes only (see "Permitted Purposes" below):

Permitted Purposes	Categories of personal data	Legal basis
Synapse platform management
To enable you to create your account To enable you to enter information on our platform and further access/manage them To communicate with you on questions and requests you may have To share platform functional updates and notifications To manage our contractual relationship with you To offer you personalised services, which are contractually agreed To give visibility to your published resources to the user community	Contact and identification information; Business information: Authentication information; Profession and job-related information;	Contractual necessity
To analyse and improve our services and communications to you For the administration, maintenance, improvement, and security of our platform	Usage data Contact and identification information;	Our legitimate interests in enhancing our platform by better understanding your needs (and those of our other clients)
To enable you to participate in our events / informational activities. For example, this includes promoting your profile at events in which you may participate, and to participate in our surveys.	Contact and identification information Profession and job-related information Public user interests published over the platform (eg: a user is speaking at, participation in or is interested in an event)	contractual necessity*
To send you our newsletter	Contact and identification information	Sending you our newsletter (upon your request): When you enter voluntarily your contact details on our website for receiving our newsletter, we rely on our legitimate interest to inform you of our news and activities. Sending you our newsletter (outside any request from you): In other cases, we will rely on your consent to send you our newsletter.
To analyze the use of our platform, increase its visibility via social networks, and place advertising cookies	Electronic identification data Usage data	Your consent* on cookies For more information on our use of cookies and on the conditions where we are required to obtain your consent, please refer to Cookie policy.
To promote our events and activities through marketing and promotional materials	Photos or videos taken at our events, quotes from you, data regarding your participation in our events Contact and identification information	- Our legitimate interest in promoting our events and activities, when the photos or videos used do not target specific individuals - Your consent when we use targeted photos or videos (e.g. for interviews)
Websites management
To communicate with you on questions and requests you may have	Contact and identification information Profession and job-related information Geographical location	Our legitimate interests in managing the application for involvement in our work program and your membership
To gather your opinion, feedback or input that enables the advancement of various activities, tools development etc	Contact and identification information; Business information: Profession and job-related information;	Your consent*
To improve your participation in our events / informational activities. For example, this includes promoting your profile at events to which you may participate, and to participate in our surveys.	Contact and identification information Profession and job-related information	Our legitimate interest in improving our events
To enable you to apply for a job position	Contact and identification information Profession and job-related information	Our legitimate interest in handling job candidates’ applications
For the administration, maintenance, improvement, and security of our Websites	Usage data Contact and identification information;	Our legitimate interests in enhancing our Websites by better understanding your needs (and those of our other clients)
To send you our newsletter	Contact and identification information	Sending you our newsletter (upon your request): When you enter voluntarily your contact details on our website for receiving our newsletter, we rely on our legitimate interest to inform you of our news and activities. Sending you our newsletter (outside any request from you): In other cases, we will rely on your consent to send you our newsletter.
To analyse the use of our Websites, increase visibility via social networks, and place advertising cookies.	Electronic identification data Usage data	Your consent* For more information on our use of cookies and on the conditions where we are required to obtain your consent, please refer to Cookie policy.
For administrative and legal obligations
To comply with our legal declarations to public authorities; To comply with our legal obligations (including tax and accounting laws)	Contact and identification information; Financial and business information: Authentication information;	Compliance with our legal obligations
For the establishment, exercise, and defense of legal claims;	Contact and identification information; Financial and business information: Authentication information;	Our legitimate interests in defending our legal interests in the context of a claim

(*): If we have collected and processed your personal data based on your consent (or explicit consent), then you can withdraw your consent at any time. However, withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect the processing of your personal data conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds.

With whom will we share your personal data?

We may share your personal data in the following circumstances:

We may share your personal data between the Synergist entities on a confidential basis where required for the purpose of providing services and for administrative and other business purposes.
If we have collected your personal data in the course of providing services to any of our stakeholders, we may disclose it to that stakeholder, and where permitted by law to others for the purpose of providing those services;
We may share your personal data with companies providing services for money laundering checks, credit risk reduction and other fraud and crime prevention purposes and companies providing similar services, including financial institutions, credit reference agencies, and regulatory bodies with whom such personal data is shared;
We may share your personal data with any third party to whom we assign or novate any of our rights or obligations;
We may share your personal data with courts, law enforcement authorities, regulators or attorneys or other parties where it is reasonably necessary for the establishment, exercise or defense of a legal or equitable claim;
We may also instruct service providers within or outside of The Synergist, domestically or abroad, e.g. shared service centers, to process personal data for the Permitted Purposes on our behalf and in accordance with our instructions only. The Synergist will retain control over and will remain fully responsible for your personal data and will use appropriate safeguards as required by the applicable law to ensure the integrity and security of your personal data when engaging such service providers;
We may also use aggregated personal data and statistics for the purpose of monitoring the Websites usage in order to help us develop our websites and services.

Otherwise, we will only disclose your personal data when you direct us or give us permission when we are required by applicable law or regulations or judicial or official request to do so, or as required to investigate actual or suspected fraudulent or criminal activities.

Personal data about other people which you provide to us

If you provide personal data to us about someone else, you must ensure that you are entitled to disclose that personal data to us and you comply with your own obligations under the applicable data protection laws. We will not be responsible for your compliance with such applicable data protection laws.

Keeping personal data about you secure

We will take appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep your personal data confidential and secure in accordance with our internal procedures covering the storage, disclosure of, and access to personal data. Personal data may be kept on our personal systems, those of our contractors, or in paper files.

Transferring your personal data abroad outside the European Economic Area

The Synergist spreads activities worldwide, we may therefore transfer your personal data abroad if required for the Permitted Purposes as described above. This may include countries that do not provide the same level of protection as the laws of your home country. We will ensure that any such international transfers are made subject to appropriate or suitable safeguards as required by the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) or other relevant laws. This may include entering into the EU Standard Contractual Clauses or any other appropriate or suitable safeguard as permitted by the GDPR. As necessary, we will implement additional safeguards to comply with our legal obligations under the applicable data protection law. You may contact us anytime using the contact details below if you would like further information on such safeguards. We will also require our consultants and subcontractors and others who are outside the European Economic Area and to whom we transfer your personal data to ensure a similar level of data protection. When doing so we will comply with applicable data protection requirements and take appropriate safeguards to ensure the security and integrity of your personal data.

Updating personal data about you

If any of the personal data that you have provided to us changes, for example, if you change your email address or if you wish to cancel any request you have made to us, or if you become aware we have any inaccurate personal data about you, please let us know by sending an email to admin@thesynergist.org. We will not be responsible for any losses arising from any inaccurate, inauthentic, deficient, or incomplete personal data that you provide to us.

For how long do we retain your personal data?

Your personal data will be deleted when it is no longer reasonably required for the Permitted Purposes or you withdraw your consent (where applicable) and we are not legally required or otherwise permitted to continue storing such data. We will, in particular, retain your personal data where required for The Synergist to assert or defend against legal claims until the end of the relevant retention period or until the claims in question have been settled.

Your rights

Subject to certain legal conditions, you can exercise your right of access (which includes the possibility to request a copy of the personal data about you which we hold), to have any inaccurate personal data corrected and to object to or restrict our use of your personal data or have your personal data deleted.
In addition, you may also, in certain circumstances, request the portability of your personal data, which means that can receive personal data that you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and have the right to have those data transmitted to another controller.
You may also make a complaint if you have a concern about our handling of your personal data to the relevant supervisory authority.
If you wish to do any of the above please send an email to admin@thesynergist.org. We may request that you prove your identity by providing us with a copy of a valid means of identification in order for us to comply with our security obligations and to prevent unauthorized disclosure of data.
We reserve the right to charge you a reasonable administrative fee for any manifestly unfounded or excessive requests concerning your access to your data, and for any additional copies of the personal data, you request from us. We will consider any requests or complaints which we receive and provide you with a response in a timely manner.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may take your complaint to the relevant privacy regulator. We will provide you with details of your relevant regulator upon request.

Updates to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last updated in the date appearing at the top of this Privacy Policy. We reserve the right to update and change this Privacy Policy from time to time in order to reflect any changes to the way in which we process your personal data or changing legal requirements. When we update our Privacy Policy, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make. We will obtain your consent to any material changes if and where this is required by applicable data protection laws. The changes will take effect as soon as they are posted on this website.

How to get in touch with The Synergist?

We welcome your views about our Websites, Synapse platform, and our Privacy Policy. If you would like to contact us with any queries or comments, please send an email to admin@thesynergist.org or send a letter to GDPR, The Synergist – Avenue Louise, 231 – 1050 Brussels - Belgium.