Privacy Policy

1. General Information

BIC Africa is committed to data privacy, and we are guided by the latest European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into force on 25 May 2018. This privacy statement explains what kind of information we collect and the reason for the processing, the way we collect, handle and ensure the protection of all personal data provided, how that information is used and what rights you may exercise in relation to your data Please note that data transmitted via the internet (e.g. via email communication) may be subject to security breaches. Complete protection of your data from third-party access is not possible.

2. Who has access to your personal data and to whom is it disclosed?

The data collected on this website are processed by the Business Incubator Communities (BIC) Africa (“website operator”, “we”, “us”, “our”), as stated in the legal notice.

The personal data you enter in the ‘Stay informed’ form (your email address) will be shared with further BIC Africa project, if your information needs to be processed by them. You may revoke your consent to this at any time by contacting us via email at hello@bic-africa.eu.  The data processed before we receive your request may still be legally processed.

The personal data you enter to get our services are processed by the respective service partner offering the programme. They will only process or use your data to the extent necessary for the purposes of the call for application.

Some of the recipients of your data are located outside the European Union, in Africa. The following guarantees have been taken to ensure a sufficient level of protection of your information:

  • The transfer is framed, in accordance with the requirements of the European Regulation n°2016/679/EU of 27 April 2016, by:
    • standard protection clauses adopted by the European Commission
    • standard protection clauses adopted by the CNIL

3. How do we collect your data? 

Some data are collected when you provide them to us by entering them in the ‘Stay Informed’ form on this website or in the application form for the events and other BIC Africa programmes. Other data are collected automatically by our IT systems when you visit the website.

When you are visiting our website, it collects personal data to power our site analytics including: 

  • Information about your browser, network and device
  • Webpages you visited prior to coming to this website
  • Your IP addresses

This information may also include details about your use of this website:

  • Clicks
  • Internal links
  • Pages visited
  • Scrolling
  • Searches
  • Timestamps

We use this information for our website analytics, to learn about site traffic and activity. 

Data are collected using cookies. The analysis of your surfing behaviour is anonymous, which means we will not be able to identify you from this data. By using or accessing our server, users agree to this. Users not in agreement are entitled to stop using this website. Furthermore, you can withdraw your consent to our use of analytics and performance cookies by clicking the ‘NO THANKS’ button on the cookie banner.   

This site uses SSL or TLS encryption for security reasons and for the protection of the transmission of content, such as the data you enter in our ‘Stay Informed’ form. You can recognise an encrypted connection in your browser’s address line when it changes from “http://“ to “https://“ and the lock icon is displayed in your browser’s address bar. If SSL or TLS encryption is activated, the data you transfer to us cannot be read by third parties.

4. What do we use your personal data for?

Part of the data are collected to ensure the proper functioning of the website and enhance the user experience. Data entered in the ‘Stay informed’ form is used to register you for our newsletter. Data entered in the application forms are used for the purposes of the call for application.

5. What rights do you have regarding your personal data?

At any time, you have the right to be provided with information free of charge about any of your personal data that are stored as well as their origin, the recipient and the purpose for which they have been processed. You also have the right to have these data corrected, blocked or deleted, as stated in Articles 17 to 24 of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725. You may also revoke your consent to the processing of your data at any time with future effect. The data processed before we receive your request may still be legally processed. You can contact us at any time at hello@bic-africa.eu if you have such requests or further questions about privacy and data protection. If you would like to view the personal data we process, they will be delivered to you in a standard, machine-readable format to the extent technically feasible.

If there has been a breach of data protection legislation, the person affected may file a complaint with the respective regulatory authorities. The regulatory authority for matters related to data protection legislation is the Belgian Data Protection Authority.

6. How long can personal data be kept? 

Personal data will be kept only for the time needed to achieve the purpose to which they are processed and a period not exceeding 9 years unless:

  • You exercise your right to delete your data
  • A longer retention period is permitted or imposed by virtue of a legal or regulatory obligation

All data related to the project will be stored for the duration of the project and its review. In the event of a formal appeal, all data held at the time of the appeal will be retained until the completion of the appeal process.

7. Opposition to promotional emails

We hereby expressly prohibit the use of contact data published in this website (e.g. project partners’ contact information, legal notice, privacy policy) for the purpose of sending promotional and informational materials not expressly requested. The website operator reserves the right to take specific legal action if unsolicited advertising material, such as email spam, is received.

8. Data Collection on our Website 

Cookies

This website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit the cookies WordPress uses.

You can configure your browser to inform you about the use of cookies, so that you can decide on a case-by-case basis whether to accept or reject a cookie. Alternatively, your browser can be configured to automatically accept cookies under certain conditions or always reject them, or to automatically delete cookies when closing your browser. Disabling cookies may limit the functionality of this website.

Cookies which are necessary to allow electronic communications or to provide certain functions you wish to use are stored pursuant to Art.6 paragraph 1, letter f of GDPR. The website operator has a legitimate interest in the storage of cookies to ensure optimized service provided free of technical errors. 

Server log files

The website provider collects and stores information that your browser automatically transmits to us via the Activity Log. The Activity Log in Analytics is a searchable list of every time a visitor accessed a URL (a page or post) on your site in the past seven days. Each page visit is its own entry with detailed information such as: 

  • Date
  • Time
  • IP Address
  • Referrer URL
  • Browser version
  • Operating system used

These data will not be combined with data from other sources. The basis for data processing is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR, which allows the processing of data to fulfil a contract for measures preliminary to a contract.

Newsletter

If you would like to receive our newsletter, we require that you sign up via the ‘Stay Informed’ form on the website. No additional data are collected or are only collected with your consent. We only use your e-mail address to register you for our newsletter via the tool Sendinblue, an online marketing platform using European servers to the concerned stakeholders with headquarters in 55 Rue d’Amsterdam, 75008 Paris, France. You can revoke consent to the storage and use of your personal data at any time by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in the newsletter. The data processed before we receive your request may still be legally processed. 

9. Plugins and Tools

Google Analytics

This website uses the Google Analytics tool to collect and analyse data concerning the activities of the website visit, such as session duration, pages per session, which sub-pages of the website were accessed and how often and for how long a subpage was viewed. Web analytics is mainly used to optimise the website and make it more user-friendly.

Further information and Squarespace’s privacy policy can be found here

Google Web Fonts

For uniform representation of fonts, this page uses web fonts provided by Google. When you open a page, your browser loads the required web fonts into your browser cache to display texts and fonts correctly.

When you call up a page of our website that contains a social plugin, your browser makes a direct connection with Google servers. Google thus becomes aware that our web page was accessed via your IP address. The use of Google Web fonts is done in the interest of a uniform and attractive presentation of our website. This constitutes a justified interest pursuant to Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR.

If your browser does not support web fonts, a standard font is used by your computer.

Further information about handling user data, can be found in Google’s FAQs and in Google’s privacy policy.

Interaction with external social media networks and platforms

This type of service allows interaction with social media networks or other external platforms directly from the pages of this Application. The interaction and information obtained through this Application are always subject to the User’s privacy settings for each social network. This type of service might still collect traffic data for the pages where the service is installed, even when Users do not use it.

End note

This project has received financial support from the European Union’s 11th European Development Fund (EDF) ‘’Support to entrepreneurship and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Creation (Business Incubators)’’, under Grant Agreement n° FED/2020/ 419-501 “Business Incubators to Support Entrepreneurship and MSME Creation”.

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