fbpx
EACTS Membership
Learn more APPLY NOW

Data Privacy and Cookies Policy

The European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) aims to advance education in the field of cardiac, thoracic and vascular interventions; and promote research into cardiovascular and thoracic physiology, pathology and therapy.  In doing so, it is necessary for us to collect relevant personal data from our Site visitors, members, authors, instructors, Fellowship candidates, speakers and attendees of our educational programmes.

We only use your personal data such as your name and contact details, qualifications, funding disclosures, topics of interest and when required your age, references and any payment details, in our legitimate business of administering membership and courses. We do not sell your data to any third parties, however in order to provide our services to you (e.g. to administer our annual meeting, courses and membership benefits) we may be required to to our trusted 3rd party processors and sister societies, a summary of these are listed in the section “3rd party processors”.

you consent to the collection and use of any information you provide in accordance with this policy. Occasionally, we may make changes to this policy, so do remember to check back from time to time.

To review and update your personal data, please login in to your EACTS account at https://membership.eacts.org/#/login.

We have also appointed a lead for data protection  who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact our lead for data protection via our EACTS privacy enquiry form below or via email at [email protected].  If you have any other query you may contact us by email at mailto:[email protected] or write to us at: The European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, EACTS House, Madeira Walk, Windsor SL4 1EU UK.

The data privacy controller as it relates to this privacy policy is The European Association for Cardio Thoracic Surgery (EACTS). The EACTS is comprised of EACTS Publishing, EACTS Academy, EACTS Trading Ltd.

The EACTS publishes the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EJCTS), Interactive Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (ICVTS), and The Multimedia Manual of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (MMCTS). It also administers the European Board of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery Exams (EBCTS), the Quality Improvement Programme Database, the Training Management System and works to author various clinical guidelines.

In order to carry out the important educational work of EACTS, we collect your personal data. One of the reasons we do so is that it helps to ensure that our interactions with you are timely, relevant and tailored for you.

We collect personal data during your visit on this Site. By personal data we mean “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person” such as name, address, e-mail. The personal data we process is either provided directly by you on a voluntary basis or collected automatically via the Site.

Personal data you provide to us on a voluntary basis

You may choose to provide personal data. If you choose not to give some data, this may affect the way you navigate on this Site or receive the services that we can offer you.

  • When registering for EACTS membership, courses, events, fellowships or submitting material for publication such as an abstract, case study, article or video tutorial, we ask for personal data such as your name, title, e-mail address, telephone number, the name of your organization, qualifications, topics of interests , payment details and where required your date of birth etc. .
  • When you contact us via e-mail or information request links on this Site we will use the data you provide in order to provide the information or support you requested.

Personal data we collect automatically

Like many companies, EACTS uses cookies and log files to enhance your visit to our Site and to better understand how our Site is used. Please read our Cookie Policy below to learn more.

These partners will only act under our instruction and will not use your information for their own purposes.                                                                               

We do not sell, rent, trade or otherwise disclose personal data about our Site visitors or membership, except as described below. When you provide us with personal data through this Site you consent to us using that personal data for our lawful reasons as set out below.

We may also share your personal data with service providers we have retained to perform various services on our behalf and in relation to the purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy. These service providers are contractually required to act only on our instructions and to maintain an appropriate level of data protection and data security. Service providers are not authorized by us to use the data for their own purposes or to disclose the data to third parties except as necessary to perform services or functions for EACTS or to comply with legal requirements. For example, service providers are not authorized by EACTS to use the data we share with them for their own marketing purposes.

We also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose aggregated data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your usage data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect aggregated data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

We enlist the services of other companies and organizations to help us fulfill our contracts and deliver services to you; we maintain privacy contracts with them to ensure they will safeguard any personal data they process on our behalf. These companies and organizations include:

  • Publishing partners
  • Sister societies such as: Society or Thoracic Surgery (STS), US and Cardio Thoracic Surgery Network (CTSNET), US
  • Database and website development companies
  • Financial services companies
  • Insurance companies
  • Research universities
  • Travel and destination management companies

We may disclose data about you: (1) if we are required to do so by law or pursuant to Court order, or (2) in response to a legitimate request from law enforcement authorities. We also reserve the right to transfer any data we have about you in the event we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets. Should such a sale or transfer occur, we will use reasonable efforts to try to require that the transferee uses personal data you have provided through this Site in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy. If you do not want the transferee to further process your data in such case, you should contact the transferee.

The Data Protection Legislation states that we are only allowed to process personal information if we have a proper reason to do so. This includes sharing it with third parties. We must be clear about why we process your data and what is our lawful basis for processing.
The lawful bases for processing are set out in Schedules 2 and 3 of the DPA and Article 6 of the GDPR. At least one of these must apply whenever we process personal data:

(a) Consent: you have given clear consent for us to process your personal data for a specific purpose.

(b) Contract: the processing is necessary for a contract we have with you, or because you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into a contract.

(c) Legal obligation: the processing is necessary for us to comply with the law (not including contractual obligations).

(d) Vital interests: the processing is necessary to protect someone’s life.

(e) Public task: the processing is necessary for us to perform a task in the public interest or for our official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law.

(f) Legitimate interests: the processing is necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party unless there is a good reason to protect your personal data which overrides those legitimate interests.

Source: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/

We need to process your data to:

  • Process your EACTS membership application.
  • Administer your membership benefits by sharing your details with the Society of Thoracic Surgery (STS) and Cardiothoracic Surgery Network (CTSNET) both are based in the US.
  • Process your membership fees and other financial transactions as required.
  • Produce membership cards and conference badges.
  • Enroll you in courses and email you information you have requested.
  • Process job applications.
  • Publish your abstracts.
  • Publish journal articles in EJCTS and ICVTS.
  • Publish video tutorials in MMCTS.
  • Process Frances Fontan Fellowship candidate applications by sharing their details with an EACTS appointed committee whose members may reside outside of the UK.
  • Administer the Training Management Programme.
  • Administer the Adult Cardiac and Euromacs databases.
  • Maintain accurate membership and correspondence records.
  • Deliver our products and services.

When it is in our legitimate interest we process your data to:

  • Communicate with you about your membership.
  • Email you with information on our educational programmes and publications.
  • Invite you to speak at our annual meeting, events and academy courses.
  • Invite you to submit video tutorials for publication in MMCTS.
  • Invite you to submit articles in EJCTS and ICVTS.
  • Invite you to participate in an EACTS task force.
  • Process financial transactions as required.
  • Ask you to participate in relevant surveys or research.

When you have given your consent we process your data to:

  • Promote our educational programmes and publications.
  • Promote participation in the Frances Fontan Fund
  • Share general news

We may also use social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to reach you about EACTS educational opportunities, publications and fellowshipIf you do not want to see targeted advertising from us on social media, please refer to the instructions provided by the social media networks including without limitation; FacebookTwitterInstagram, and Google.

We may disclose personal information if required to do so by law or if we believe that such action is necessary to protect and defend the rights, property or personal safety of EACTS, our websites or our visitors and for other lawful purposes.

EACTS mainly collects, processes and uses your personal data within the European Economic Area (EEA). We will only transfer your personal data outside of the EEA or if we have a legitimate reason to do so. If we use third party service providers located outside of the EEA we will take the necessary steps to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Legislation, in particular the legal requirements on adequate protection for data transfers to countries outside of the EEA.

We may provide links to other non-EACTS websites for your convenience and information. These sites operate independently and are not affiliated with EACTS are not under our control. These sites may have their own privacy policies in place, which we strongly suggest you review if you visit any linked websites.

We maintain appropriate administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect your personal data against accidental or unlawful destruction, accidental loss, unauthorized alteration, unauthorized disclosure or access, misuse, and all other unlawful forms of processing of the personal data in our possession.

We limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. All staff with access to your personal data understand the importance of keeping your information safe and secure at all times and are given training to support them in this.

However, the transmission of information over the internet is never completely secure and as a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, EACTS cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your data, we make every effort to ensure its security, both on our systems and while in transit between our systems and our partners who work on our behalf.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other websites even if you access them using links from our websites and recommend that you check the policy of each site you visit.

Sometimes we may transfer information submitted by you to our other offices or we may need to use a service provider or partner outside the European Economic Area (EEA) – which may include a country that does not have the same level of data protection as the UK. In these circumstances, we take all reasonable steps to ensure the safety and security of your information as set out in this Privacy Policy, including adhering to the EU-US privacy shield agreement.

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity and meet any legal or regulatory requirement. This is so that we can provide the services, products or information you have requested, to administer your relationship with us, to ensure we don’t communicate with you if you’ve asked us not to and to comply with the law.

I am text block. Click edit button to change this text. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.