Last updated: 17/01/25
 

Cruelty Free Europe (“CFE”, “we”, “us”, or “our) is committed to keeping your personal information safe and meeting our responsibilities under data protection law. Given that personal information can be used to identify you, we want you to be confident that we are using it responsibly.

This Privacy Notice outlines the processes CFE follows when collecting, storing and handling personal information, including when you use our website (www.crueltyfreeeurope.org). It also includes information about how we use your personal information, how we keep it secure, and how you can let us know if you would like us to change how we manage it.

1. Who we are
2. What personal information we may hold about you
3. Where we obtain your personal information
4. How we use your personal information
5. Our lawful bases
6. Retaining your personal information
7. How we share your personal information
8. International data transfers
9. How we keep your personal information safe
10. Your rights
11. Other websites
12. Cookies
13. Updates
14. Contact us

1. Who we are

Cruelty Free Europe aisbl, is a company established by Royal Decree on 17 February 2019, and is registered at the Tribunal de l’entreprise de Bruxelles, Company number BE 721976146, EU Transparency Register No: 842315534764-63. We are a network of animal protection groups working to bring animal testing to an end across Europe.

If you have questions regarding your personal information or its use, please contact us using the details set out in the ‘Contact Us’ section below.

2. What personal information we may hold about you

Personal information is any information that relates to an individual. It does not include information where the identity of the individual has been fully and effectively removed (anonymous data).

We collect the following personal information about you:

• Identification information, such as your name;
• Contact information, such as your email address and country;
• Financial information, such as your payment card details and billing address;

If you contact us, for example to provide your feedback, we may keep a record of that feedback and correspondence, as well as your name and contact details.

When you access our websites, we also collect information about your computer, including, where available, your IP address, operating system, and browser type. We do this for system administration purposes, including to analyse trends and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use so that we can improve the site, and deliver customised, personalised content.

Sensitive Personal information

Under data protection legislation, certain personal information is considered more ‘sensitive’ (e.g., information relating to race, religion, political affiliation and health). This is also known as ‘special category data’. We do not anticipate that we will need to collect your sensitive personal information.

3.  Where we obtain your personal information

We collect and retain personal information about you that you have given us in different ways, for example where you:

• Donate to CFE;
• Use our website;
• Subscribe to our mailing lists;
• Engage with us via social media platforms;
• Contact us via email, phone, in person or by post

4. How we use your personal information

We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

• Enable you to make use of our services, or to find out more information from us;
• Facilitate any transactions you wish to make with us, including donations;
• Send you updates and information about CFE and our work;
• Learn from your experiences and feedback to develop our work;
• Keep our database accurate, relevant and up to date.

We will not sell your information to third parties.

5. Our Lawful Bases

We will only use personal information when the law allows us to (i.e., where we have a ‘lawful basis’). Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances and for the following lawful bases:

We may also need to process your personal information where this is necessary to comply with a legal obligation on us.

In some circumstances, and as noted above, we may ask for your consent to use your personal information for a specific purpose. In particular, we may obtain your consent before we send you any email marketing, newsletters or other communications about topics and events which we think might interest you.

You may withdraw your consent and/or unsubscribe from our email communications by following the instructions in any email that we send you, or you can withdraw your consent and request us to remove your personal information at any time by emailing us at info@crueltyfreeeurope.org.

We do not carry out any automated decision-making using personal information which produces legal effects or otherwise significantly affects individuals.

6. Retaining your personal information

We will not keep personal information for longer than necessary, and the appropriate retention period will vary according to the intended purpose for which we collected the personal information.

The criteria we use to determine the retention period of personal information are: (i) the respective statutory retention period; (ii) our contractual and/or business relationships with you; (iii) (potential) disputes; and (iv) any guidelines issued by relevant regulators. After expiration of that period, the relevant information is routinely deleted, as long as it is no longer necessary for the fulfilment of a contract, the initiation of a contract or to protect or defend our position or that of a third party. If you have any questions about our retention periods, please contact us at info@crueltyfreeeurope.org.

7. How we share your personal information

We may share your personal information with third parties, including the following:

• with our partner organisations, including Cruelty Free International and/or the Cruelty Free International Trust;
• with contractors, suppliers, or other third parties that provide services on our behalf (such as website host providers and payment processors);
• as part of a sale, merger or acquisition, or other transfer of all or part of our assets including as part of a bankruptcy proceeding;
• pursuant to a subpoena, court order, or other legal process or as otherwise required or requested by law, regulation, or government authority programs, or to protect our rights or the rights or safety of third parties;
• with our professional advisors, lawyers, accountants and auditors; or
• with your consent or as otherwise disclosed at the time of data collection or sharing.

8. International Data Transfer

We may transfer your personal data out of the EEA in some circumstances, for example if we are using a service provider in another jurisdiction (for example, we use Mailchimp to manage our email lists and consent records – Mailchimp’s servers are in the US). When we transfer personal information out of the EEA, we take steps to ensure that your personal information is protected in accordance with appropriate safeguards, especially where the recipient country is not considered to be adequate by the European Commission. In particular, we rely on appropriate safeguards under data protection legislation, such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses to protect your personal information.

8. How we keep your personal information safe

To protect your privacy we will make sure your personal information is kept securely and disclosed only to relevant organisations or CFE representatives who need to access it to perform their roles. While we seek to use appropriate organisational, technical and administrative measures to protect personal information within our organisation, unfortunately no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the “Contact us” section below.

10. Your Rights

Under certain privacy laws, you have rights relating to your personal information. You may have a right to the following:

• to request access to the personal information we hold about you;
• to request that we rectify or erase your personal information;
• to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information;
• to object to our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;
• under certain circumstances, to ask us to port personal information about you that you have provided to us to you or to a third party; and
• where we previously obtained your consent, to withdraw consent to processing your personal information.

To exercise these rights, contact us via the “Contact us” section below. Please be aware that we may be unable to provide these rights to you under certain circumstances, for example if we are legally prevented from doing so or can rely on exemptions.

Additionally, you have the right to lodge a complaint against us, which you can do by contacting the supervisory authority in your country of residence. You can find a list of supervisory authorities in the EU here.

11. Other websites

Our website and newsletters may contain a link to other websites. Please note that when you click on one of these links, you are entering another website for which CFE has no responsibility (even if you access the website via a link on our website). We encourage you to read the privacy notices on all such websites.

12. Cookies

Our website uses cookies to enhance your experience while using those sites. Cookies are pieces of information that some websites transfer to the computer or device that is browsing that website and are used for record-keeping purposes at many websites. Use of cookies makes web surfing easier by performing certain functions such as saving your passwords, your personal preferences regarding your use of the particular website and to make sure you don't see the same ads repeatedly. Many consider the use of cookies to be an industry standard.

Your browser may be set by default to accept cookies. However, if you would prefer not to receive cookies, you can alter the configuration of your browser to refuse cookies. If you choose to have your browser refuse cookies, it is possible that some areas of our website will not function properly when you view them. For more information about our use of cookies, please visit our Cookie Notice.

13. Updates

This Notice may change from time to time – for example, to take into account changes at CFE or to reflect changes in regulation or legislation. It was last updated on 17/01/25.

Updates to this Notice will be posted on this page – please check back from time to time. We will also use reasonable efforts to inform you of any significant changes by email where appropriate.

14. Contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Notice or the way in which we handle your personal information, please email us at info@crueltyfreeeurope.org

You can also contact us at the following address:

Cruelty Free Europe aisbl
Drève du Pressoir 38
1190 Forest
Belgium