Group Data Protection Policy

Summary

This Group Data Protection Policy (“Data Protection Policy”) stipulates the rules for personal data protection in AhoyConnect and its affiliated companies. It provides the rules of personal data protection. The Data Protection Policy reflects the data privacy rules required by the GDPR and other Member States’ national data privacy legislation.

The AhoyConnect take personal data protection seriously and handle personal data with sufficient carefulness and responsibility when performing their business activities. A personal data breach may result in serious legal and economic consequences for the AhoyConnect, its employees and data subjects. It may also cause damage to the AhoyConnect reputation. Through the implementation of the Data Protection Policy, the risks of, and arising from, breaching data protection will be minimised.

‍

Applicability

This Data Protection Policy is binding for AhoyConnect its employees. It relates to all personal data processing to which the GDPR and the Member States’ national legislation apply.
‍

1. Procedure and Competencies

The following articles describe the procedures when processing personal data.

Furthermore, they provide a brief description of the split of the competencies and key roles in AhoyConnect in the area of personal data processing.
‍

1.1 General Obligation

AhoyConnect have taken and shall continue to take appropriate technical and organisational measures in order to ensure the protection of the personal data against misuse, loss and damage, and to treat them in accordance with the GDPR and the Member States’ national legislation in the area of data privacy. The data protection applies to the processing of the personal data of the AhoyConnect’s partners, employees, their family members, job applicants, customers and other individuals whose personal data are processed by AhoyConnect.
‍

1.2 Basic Principles of Personal Data Protection

AhoyConnect respect the basic principles stipulated by the GDPR in the processing of personal data. The respective basic principles are listed below:

• Lawfulness principle – at least one lawful basis has to be determined prior to processing personal data;
• Principle of limitation by purpose – process the personal data only for pre-defined purposes;
• Data minimisation principle – processing of only necessary, relevant and adequate personal data for any legitimate purpose;
• Correctness and transparency principle – open and transparent processing to the data subjects;
• Integrity and confidentiality principle, application of the “need to know” principle – implementation of necessary organisational and technical measures in order to ensure the restriction of access to the personal data to prevent unauthorised or unlawful processing;
• Accuracy principle – processing of accurate and up-to-date personal data;
• Controlled change management regime – a change of the current processing system to a new method is subject to the DPO’s or controller’s consideration and a potential subsequent preparation of the Data Privacy Impact Assessment;
• Definition of roles participating in the personal data protection in the AhoyConnect.
  ‍

1.3 Lawful Bases and Personal Data Processing Purposes

Personal data processing is always based on lawful bases, which include the consent to personal data processing, compliance with a legal obligation, the performance of a contract, the legitimate interest, the public interest or the protection of the interests of the data subject.
‍

1.4 Processing of Special Categories of Personal Data and Personal Data Relating to Criminal Issues

Special categories of personal data and personal data relating to criminal issues are especially sensitive and therefore a high degree of protection is applied. Any processing of special categories of personal data is consulted with the DPO.
‍

1.5 Personal Data Transfer

AhoyConnect may only make personal data available to third parties (including a personal data transfer within the group) under certain conditions. Personal data may only be available to a third party acting as a processor based on a personal data processing agreement. Personal data may also be available to another third-party acting as a controller or a joint-controller based on relevant contractual agreements.

In case there are requirements for rectification or erasure of the personal data or for processing restrictions, under certain circumstances, AhoyConnect notify the relevant third parties to which the personal data were made available unless this is not feasible or requires an inadequate effort. AhoyConnect inform a data subject on the third parties to which the concerned personal data were disclosed, only if required to do so by the data subject.

Under certain conditions, AhoyConnect can also transfer personal data to third countries outside the EEA or the European Union or to international organisations. To assess legal conditions under which personal data may be transferred to third countries or to international organisations, AhoyConnect address the DPO for consultations.
‍

1.6 Rights of Data Subjects

AhoyConnect take all necessary steps to execute the rights of the data subjects stipulated by the GDPR. In respect of personal data processing, data subjects have the rights comprising the right of access to personal data, the right to rectification, processing restriction, portability or erasure of personal data, the right to object to the personal data processing and the right not to be a subject to a decision based exclusively on the automated personal data processing.

Data subjects can request the exercise of their rights via a written or oral request. In order to provide sufficient protection of the personal data processed by AhoyConnect and to prevent personal data misuse from taking place, AhoyConnect have introduced rules for the verification of the identity of the data subjects stated below.
‍

Written request

To request the exercise of the particular right in writing, the data subjects shall fill in the request form. The data subjects’ signatures on the request form needs to be officially certified. Depending on local law, data subjects may be able to have their signature certified e.g. at a notary office, post office, attorney-at-law, consulate or municipal/regional authority. 

The exercise of data subjects’ rights shall not affect the rights of the third parties. Should the requests submitted by data subjects be manifestly unfounded or excessive, in particular, because of the repetitive character, the AhoyConnect may require a reasonable fee, not exceeding the necessary costs of the provision of the above-stated information or arranging the exercising of the data subjects’ rights, for the purposes of responding to their request.

AhoyConnect ensure sufficient communication and cooperation in order to process all received requests in adequate time. AhoyConnect closely cooperate to provide the concerned data subject with a response within the statutory periods.
‍

1.7 Roles and Responsibilities

AhoyConnect and their statutory bodies are responsible for ensuring compliance with the GDPR and the relevant Member States’ national data privacy legislation.
‍

1.8 DPO and EU Representative

AhoyConnect have appointed a DPO with the functional and organisational responsibility for compliance with the legal regulations and internal regulations concerning the personal data protection. The DPO can be contacted via e-mail dpo@ahoyconnect.com
‍

1.9 Responsibilities of Data Owners and of All Employees

All data owners within the AhoyConnect and all employees are obliged to process the personal data in compliance with the AhoyConnect’ internal policies, the GDPR and other Member States’ national data privacy legislation. 
‍

1.10 Notification of a Personal Data Breach

The AhoyConnect report any alleged breach of the personal data security to the relevant DPO/EU Representative immediately, in any case no later than within 48 hours. If the breach of personal data meets the requirements for reporting to the respective supervisory authority and/or data subjects, the DPO/EU Representative fulfils this obligation within 72 hours from the personal data breach.
‍

1.11 Personal Data Erasure

The AhoyConnect process personal data only for a necessary time. Personal data are erased or anonymised under the following circumstances:

• Expiration of the purpose of the personal data processing without any other legitimate purpose for replacement;
• Personal data are not further needed for the purpose for which they were processed;
• Withdrawal of the data subject’s consent without any other lawful basis for processing;
• Objection of the data subject against the processing without any other prevailing justified reasons; and
• Unlawful processing of personal data.

The AhoyConnect put an emphasis on observing the necessary security measures during erasure or anonymisation.
‍

1.12 File Management

AhoyConnect handles documents in accordance with GDPR. The rules for receiving, registering, circulating, storing and disposing of documents in AhoyConnect are set out in the current AhoyConnect retention guidelines.

At the end of the archiving period, the documents are discarded in accordance with the established shredding procedure, with a proof of record (approval of the document owner, approval of the relevant state regional archive, certificate of shredding).
‍

1.13 Personal Data Publishing in Public Media and the Intranet

The AhoyConnect may publish personal data in the Intranet, the Internet or any other media only with the consent of the concerned data subject unless there is another legal basis in specific cases.
‍

1.14 Information on Personal Data Processing

In case that AhoyConnect obtain personal data relating to data subjects directly from these data subjects, these data subjects are provided with information on the processing of their personal data at the time of obtaining such personal data. If personal data are not obtained directly from the data subjects, processing information is provided to them subsequently, mostly in the first communication with the subject.

2. Basic Terms/Abbreviations
‍

Data subject

An identified or identifiable individual whose personal data are processed; an identifiable individual is an individual who can be identified either directly or indirectly, predominantly with reference to a certain identifier, such as a name, identification number, location data, online identifier or one or more special elements of the physical, physiological, genetic, psychical, economic, cultural or social identity of the individual.
‍

Data controller

A natural or legal person, public authority, agency or another body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of personal data processing.
‍

Processor

A natural or legal person, public authority, agency or another body that processes personal data on behalf of the controller.
‍

Personal data

Any information on the identified or identifiable individual.
‍

Special category

Personal data providing information on racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purposes of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation.
‍

GDPR

Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).
‍

Personal data processing

Any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction.
‍

DPO

Data Protection Officer.
‍

EU Representative

A natural or legal person established in the EU, designated in writing by the controller or processor under Article 27 of the GDPR, shall represent the controller or processor in the performance of the relevant obligations under the GDPR.

Anonymised information

Information not relating to an identified or identifiable individual, including personal data anonymised so that the data subject is not or ceased to be identifiable.
‍

Third-party

Any legal entity or individual who is not the Company’s employee, except for data subjects.
‍

Consent

Any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her.

‍

‍