LINKUS PRIVACY POLICY 

LINKUS is an online platform that aims to bring together freelancers and clients and form a community for both groups to exchange information, knowledge and expertise. 

To this end, we need to process personal data. 

We declare that our activities are in accordance with the current privacy legislation, which is mainly governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (AVG or the English abbreviation GDPR).   

For this reason, we want to inform you as much as possible, respect and give you control over what happens to your personal data.  

Below you will find information on what data we collect about you, why we do so, how long we keep it, what your privacy rights are and how you can exercise them. 

 

WHO WE ARE 

  1. The website LINKUS (“Platform”) is owned by LINKUS bv, a private company under Belgian law, with registered office in Kroonweg 26, 1700 Dilbeek and registered with the KBO under number 0760.472.080 (hereinafter “LINKUS” and “we or us”). By extension, “LINKUS”, “we or we” also refers to companies affiliated with LINKUS, which offer services under the name LINKUS at present and in the future. The list of affiliated companies can be found under legal information.
  2. We are the controller of the data processed through our Platform.

 

APPLICABILITY 

  1. This Privacy Policy, including our Cookie Policy applies to all the services we provide, both to visitors and members, and this on the Platform, our social media pages, our app, and all other LINKUS related websites, messages, and services, unless otherwise stated.
  2. Due to e.g. changing legislation, technological evolutions, changes in our policy, we may amend this Privacy Policy, in whole or in part, of which we will inform you.   In any event, the latest version posted on the Platform will apply.  If you do not agree with the changes, you may close your account.  If you continue to use our Platform after we have posted or sent a notice of our changes to this Privacy Policy, you acknowledge that this means that the collection, use and sharing of your personal information will be governed by the updated Privacy Policy as of its effective date.

 

WHAT IS PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA? 

  1. By ‘processing of personal data’ we mean any processing of data that can identify you as a natural person. The concept of ‘processing’ is broad and covers, among other things, the collection, recording, organisation, storage, updating, modification, retrieval, consultation, use, dissemination or making available in any way, compilation, combination, archiving, erasure or eventual destruction of such data.

 

WHAT PERSONAL DATA ARE COLLECTED AND PROCESSED? 

Data provided by you 

  1. When creating an account, you must provide details including your name, your e-mail address and/or mobile number, and a password. Before you can access our paid services, you must provide payment (such as a credit card) and billing information.
  2. Your profile contains your identification details and, if applicable, your photograph, as well as details of your curriculum vitae.  You are not obliged to fill in all fields.  The more details you provide, the better LINKUS can work for you.  You can choose which data to include in your profile.  If you use our services, you are obliged to provide certain information in order for the search engine to function.  If you do not wish to share these details you will not be able to use our services.
  3. We collect your personal data when you place these data on the Platform, for example when creating an account, filling in your profile and curriculum vitae, responding to messages, etc. We do this by means of automated data processing. In doing so, we engage in automated data processing on the Platform.   

 

Information provided to us by others 

  1. Other members may provide information about you, for example by rating you or posting content in which you are mentioned. Other members can send messages via our Platform. We then receive your personal data (including contact details).
  2. Our Partners or our affiliates or third party service providers may also provide us with your Personal Data, for example when you use their services or when you choose to share data from a third party’s system. We receive data when you visit websites containing our advertisements, cookies or some of our plug-ins or you sign in to services from others your account.  We receive information about your visits to and interaction with third-party services when you sign in to the Platform through these third parties. 
  3. Personal data that we obtain from persons other than you is also collected and automatically processed.

 

Recording of your visit and use of our services 

  1. We record your visit and use of our services.  For this purpose we use cookies, login data, data about your device and IP addresses.  For the use of these, please refer to our cookie policy.  You can set your preferences here.
  2. When using mobile devices, we process data about your mobile network and mobile device, including your location, to enable the use of the Platform via mobile devices.

 

WHAT DO WE PROCESS YOUR PERSONAL DATA FOR? 

To enable the use of our Services 

  1. For the visitor we refer to our Terms of Use and Cookie Policy.
  2. Members must create an account and complete their profile in order to use the functions of LINKUS as a member, such as having access to complete information (articles), tools, the messaging function to communicate with other members.  For the paid services, members are required to provide additional data in order to enable these services, such as using the search engine, billing, timesheet, notification service and any other functions that may be made available in the future.    We also use your data for our administration (including billing) and dispute management.  
  3. Without the data provided by Members, the Platform cannot work and the services cannot be provided.   This data is automatically processed in the search engine in order to, inter alia, match profiles to vacancies, to enable communication via the messaging function, to allow you to find other members and to be found yourself, to present you with education and training, newsletters about your field, and other potentially relevant information, to prepare and send invoices. 

 

Improving and Securing Our Services 

  1. We use your personal data to improve our Services, i.e. to make our Services more personalised and tailored to you, to increase the engagement of our Members and to achieve our Platform’s aim of matching freelancers with jobs and creating a community of freelancers.
  2. We use your information to solve problems with the Platform (e.g. in case of reporting a complaint or a problem in completing a profile, in case of a problem in the messaging function, etc.). 
  3. In addition, we use your personal data for the security of the Platform, our Members, Partners and third parties (e.g. in the case of infringements to our Membership Conditions).

 

Study and research 

  1. We use anonymous data to generate insights about our Members and the sectors in which they are active, the remuneration and other contract modalities, the vacancies,… to gain insight in the market of freelancers.  
  2. Through the Platform, we or third parties survey our Members.  If you do not wish to participate, you can unsubscribe from these enquiries (surveys) in your account.

Advertising

  1. LINKUS displays non-personalised advertisements of our services and those of our Partners.  
  2. You can not unsubscribe from non-personalised ads in your account.

ON WHAT BASIS DO WE PROCESS YOUR PERSONAL DATA? 

  1. We process personal data for a variety of purposes, each of which requires us to process only the data necessary to achieve the intended purpose.

For example, we use personal data when it is necessary: 

– To be able to offer our services fully; 

– to comply with the legal and regulatory provisions to which we are subject; and/or  

– to pursue our legitimate interests, in which case we will always seek to balance that interest with respect for your privacy.  

  1. Personal data is processed on the following bases:

(i) Where you have given your consent, on the basis of your consent, where you have the right to withdraw such consent at any time (see below) 

(ii) Based on the Agreement made with us 

(iii) Our legitimate interests and / or those of other involved parties, to which you have the right to object (see below).  Examples of such legitimate interests include protection of ourselves, our Members, Partners, and third parties (e.g. against fraudulent acts), compliance with the law, court or administrative order, our right to conduct business (e.g. to enable, optimise, develop and market our services via the Platform), our right to assert claims (e.g. for breach of the Agreement) and to defend ourselves. 

 

SHARING OF DATA 

  1. In order for LINKUS to function, the information in your profile must be shared with the Platform, visitors, members and third parties. 
  2. The extent and nature of the information you wish to share is determined by you in your settings.  If you do not specify otherwise in your settings, the following applies:

(i) As soon as you create an account and complete and submit a Profile to the Platform, your Profile will be displayed to visitors in an anonymised form, with only partial information available (such as sector, expertise, location, desired compensation).  However, members can view your full Profile.  You choose when to make your Profile visible and identifiable in order to connect with other members for the purpose of exchanging information, finding an assignment or for other services offered by us or our Partners now and in the future. 

(ii) Anonymised Profiles, or parts thereof, may also be visible outside the Platform on third party pages (e.g. via third party search engines). Old data from your profile with these third parties will remain available until the data cache is updated by these third parties with the changes you have made to your profile. 

(iii) When you look at a member’s profile, the member will be notified.

(iv) When you open a message from a Member, we will notify the sender. 

(v) When you link your account with third-party services (such as Outlook or Linkedin), your data in your profile will be shared with these third parties.  Conversely, data from the third party services will also be shared with Platform.  You should review the privacy policies of these third parties.  You may unlink at any time. 

 

  1. In addition, the following applies:

(i) We use third parties to enable the provision of our services (e.g. technical partners for the development, maintenance and security of the Platform, commercial partners for marketing, financial partners for payment and accounting processing etc.).  They have access to your data insofar as this is necessary for the performance of their tasks.  We conclude processing agreements with these partners whereby we are designated as the party responsible for processing.  This processing agreement will include provisions to protect your personal data. 

(ii) We may share your data with our affiliated companies for the purpose of developing and improving our services. 

(iii) We may share your information when we are required to do so by law, court order or administrative action, or when we deem it necessary, including in the context of investigating illegal activities, enforcing agreements, investigating and defending against (third party) claims, protecting the security and integrity of our Platform, Members, visitors and third parties.  We will inform you if we are entitled to do so or if it does not hinder the investigation.  

(iv) We may share your information with the acquirer of all or part of our business (regardless of the method of transfer, whether by asset or share deal, merger, demerger, transfer of business, or otherwise) who will be entitled to use that information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. 

(v) To the extent that personal data is processed outside the European Union, we will ensure, through contractual or other measures, that such data enjoys an adequate level of protection there comparable to that which it would enjoy in the European Union, in accordance with European regulations. 

 

HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR DATA? 

  1. We must not keep personal data longer than is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which we are collecting it. 
  2. The data you enter in your account and profile are in principle kept for 30 days after you have deleted your data or closed your account.  It may take up to 48 hours before the deletion of data or the closure of your account becomes visible on the Platform. 
  3. After the retention period has expired, we will proceed to delete your personal data unless and to the extent that we need your personal data to:

(i) To comply with contractual obligations, or to enforce our rights under agreements concluded with you, for a period of time corresponding to the statute of limitations for these obligations or rights respectively 

(ii) To comply with our legal obligations, such as the obligation to keep accounting records, to identify customers for anti-money laundering purposes where applicable, for the duration required by law 

(iii) Conduct our claims and or defence in connection with disputes, for the duration of such disputes, including the investigation phase 

(iv) To cooperate in any ongoing criminal investigation, for the duration of such investigation 

(v) To comply with a court or administrative order, for the duration applicable. 

  1. If you have shared content, posted ratings and testimonials, these will remain visible but anonymised.   
  2. The deletion of personal data means that it is erased or permanently anonymised.

 

HOW DO WE STORE AND SECURE YOUR DATA? 

 

  1. The data in our database is kept on secure and locked (back-up) servers, both internal and external.
  2. Our employees are trained to correctly handle confidential data under the supervision of our Data Protection Officer (DPO). The way in which we collect and process personal data is recorded in a data processing register.
  3. Our infrastructure and information systems are equipped with the appropriate technical measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, unauthorised use and loss or theft, such as: password protection, hard disk encryption software, firewalls, antivirus, intrusion and anomaly detection and access controls for our employees. Our hardware and software are constantly kept up-to-date. For this we rely on specialised third parties.
  4. In the unlikely event of a data leak that adversely affects your personal data, you will be notified personally in the circumstances provided for by law.
  5. We advise you to also take the necessary security measures yourself to protect your personal data, such as securing your mailbox, firewalls on your devices, password management, etc.
  6. Although we make an effort to regularly screen our systems for security risks, we cannot guarantee the security of your data.

 

WHAT RIGHTS DO YOU HAVE? 

  1. You have the right to find out from us at any time whether or not we are processing your personal data and, if we are processing it, to access that data and receive further information about

– the purposes of processing; 

– the categories of personal data concerned; 

– the recipients or categories of recipients (in particular, recipients in third countries); 

– if possible, the retention period or, if that is not possible, the criteria for determining that period; 

– the existence of your privacy rights; 

– the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority; 

– the information available to us about the source of the data if we obtain personal data from a third party; and 

– the existence of automated decision-making. 

You also have the right to obtain an extract of the processed data, in a comprehensible form. We may charge a reasonable fee to cover our administrative costs for each additional extract requested by you. 

  1. You have the right to have incomplete, incorrect, inappropriate or outdated personal data corrected without delay. You are also obliged to do so under the terms of membership. 
  2. You have the right to have your personal data deleted in the following cases, without unreasonable delay:

– Your personal data is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected or otherwise processed by us; 

– You withdraw your previous consent to the processing and there is no other legal ground on which we can rely for the (further) processing; 

– You object to the processing of your personal data and there are no more weighty, legitimate grounds for the (further) processing; 

– Your personal data are processed unlawfully; 

– Your personal data must be deleted in order to comply with a legal obligation; 

Please note that we cannot always delete all requested personal data, for example when it is necessary to store and process them.  Please refer to Article 31. 

 

  1. You have the right to obtain the restriction of the processing of your personal data if one of the following applies:

– You dispute the accuracy of that personal data: its use is restricted for a period that allows us to verify the accuracy of the data; 

– the processing of your personal data is unlawful: instead of deleting your data, you request that its use be restricted; 

– we no longer need your data for the original processing purposes, but we need it for the establishment, exercise or substantiation of legal claims: instead of the erasure of your data, the use of it is restricted for the establishment, exercise or substantiation of legal claims; 

– as long as no decision has been taken on the exercise of your right to object to the processing, you request that the use of your personal data be restricted; 

  1. You have the right to request your personal data to be transferred. This is only possible for the personal data you have provided to us yourself, based on consent or following agreement. In all other cases, you will not be able to enjoy this right (e.g. when the processing of your data is based on a legal obligation).  You can request us to return the personal data concerned in a structured, common and machine-readable form. 
  2. You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data on the basis of your particular situation if the processing is in our legitimate interest or in the public interest. We will cease processing your personal data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for processing which override your interests or if the processing of the personal data is related to the establishment, exercise or substantiation of a legal claim (for example, the submission of a request to a court).
  3. Do you wish not to receive any form of commercial communication (such as newsletters, invitations to seminars or events)? You always have the right to object, without having to provide a reason, to the use of your personal data for these purposes. You can contact us or use the unsubscribe button in our invitations or (electronic) newsletters or unsubscribe via your account.

 

HOW TO EXERCISE YOUR RIGHTS 

 

  1. To exercise your rights, please contact us via privacy@linkus.eu. Members can determine their privacy settings in their account.
  2. In order to exercise your right of access, and to prevent any unauthorised disclosure of personal data, we need to verify your identity. In case of doubt or uncertainty, we will first ask you for additional information (preferably a copy of the front of your identity card).
  3. You can exercise your privacy rights free of charge, unless your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, in particular due to its repetitive nature. In such a case, we have the right and the choice – in accordance with the privacy legislation – (i) to charge you a reasonable fee (taking into account the administrative costs of providing the requested information or communication and the costs involved in taking the requested measures), or (ii) to refuse to comply with your request.
  4. We will respond to your request as soon as possible, and in any event within one month of receiving your request. Depending on the complexity of the requests and the number of requests, this period may be extended by another two months if necessary. If the deadline is extended, we will inform you of this within one month of receipt of the request.

 

LIABILITY  

  1. If we have lawfully transmitted your data to a third party (other than a processor or sub-processor), we are not liable for unlawful processing or use by that third party. We are also not liable if third parties process or use your data unlawfully and we have taken appropriate technical and organisational measures to prevent such unlawful processing or use.

 

CONTACT US 

  1. For more information on this Privacy Policy or for complaints regarding the processing of your personal data, please contact us via privacy@linkus.eu.

 

COMPLAINTS  

  1. For complaints in connection with the processing of your personal data, please contact the Data Protection Authority, rue du Mail 35, 1000 Brussels / +32 (0)2 274 48 00 / contact@apd-gba.be / www.gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit.be.  However, we request that you consult us first.
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