Privacy Policy

This policy of the Panhellenic Association of Translators (PEM) (hereinafter the “Association” or “we” or “our”), with registered offices in Thessaloniki, Greece (17 Komninon Street, 54624), defines and discloses the terms under which, acting as the law defines as the “Processor”, it collects, saves, uses and generally processes your personal data that it collects when you visit, register or use its websites (hereinafter the “Websites”) and its platform (hereinafter the “Platform”) when registering your professional profile.

This Privacy Policy also describes how you use, share and protect your personal data, the choices you have regarding your personal data, and how you can contact us. This Privacy Policy is in accordance with the terms of Regulation (EU) 679/2016 and any other relevant applicable legislation.

For your questions regarding this Privacy Policy, as well as any issues related to the processing of your data and the exercise of your rights, please contact PEM’s Data Protection Officer at dpo@pem.gr.

1. Τhe Association’s Websites

The website https://pem.gr/ is the website of the Association, linked to the registration Platform of a professional profile https://mypem.gr/.

2. What is Personal Data?

The term “personal data” refers to any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, i.e. information of natural persons, such as name, postal address, email address, phone number, etc., which identify or can identify you, hereinafter “Personal Data or Data”.

3. What is Personal Data processing?

Any operation or set of operations which is carried out 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.

4. Is it mandatory to provide your Personal Data?

The provision of Data to the Association may be necessary to achieve the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy and the Articles of the Association or be optional.

The mandatory or optional nature of data provision is marked with an asterisk (*) next to the mandatory personal data.

If you refuse to provide the information marked as mandatory on the Websites, it will be impossible to achieve the main purpose for which such Data is collected, and it may, for example, make it impossible for the Association serve you as a visitor or to promote your services as a member on its Websites.

The provision of additional Data to the Association, in addition to those indicated as mandatory, is optional and does not entail any consequences for the main purposes of the data collection, since their provide serves solely to optimise the quality of our services.

5. What Personal Data do we collect from you?

We take care to collect only your strictly necessary Personal Data, which is appropriate and clear for the intended purpose. This Data includes:

a. Data that you provide to us as visitors when you fill in the standard contact form on the PEM website through the internet or your mobile, and specifically data such as full name, email, phone number and any other information you provide in the special message box;

b. Data that you provide to us as members or visitors when you register on the Websites or in the Apps of the Association or third-party Apps (e.g. Google Forms, Zoom), and specifically data such as full name, email, phone number, postal address, phone number, educational qualifications, certificates of specialisation and training and professional experience information;

c. Data and information you provide to us so we may promote your services as a member of the Panhellenic Association of Translators (registration of professional profiles on our Platform) so it is available on the PEM Website (hereinafter “Directory”) for people seeking your services through the Website, such as photo and short CV;

d. Data relating to the statutory status of the members of our Association and the communication between us, such as proof of payment of annual subscriptions, tax information relating to the professional activity;

e. Information collected from the use of cookies in your browser. Learn more about how we use cookies;

f. Your social media username, if you interact with us through these channels, to help us respond to your comments or questions.

6. How do we use your Personal Data?

Where appropriate, we use your Data:

• To create a platform user account: The Association processes your Data in order to provide you with account capabilities and to facilitate the visibility of our Members’ services through the Platform.
• To communicate with you: The Association uses your Data to respond to your requests/questions as visitors or member, to any complaints and to inform you about issues related to your membership.
• To offer you the possibility to attend/participate in seminars and other events of the Association, as members or visitors, onsite or online, and to send you certificates of attendance.
• To develop and improve the products and services we provide to you. This is based on our legitimate interests.
• To protect your account against fraud and other illegal activities: This includes using your Data to maintain, update and protect your account. We also monitor browsing activity with us to quickly identify and resolve any problems and protect the integrity of our Website. All of this is part of our legitimate interest. For example, we check your password when you log in and use automated IP address tracking to detect possible false inputs from unexpected locations.
• To comply with our contractual obligations to you or in accordance with legal provisions or in execution of court decisions.
• To send you notifications required by law or necessary to inform you of changes to the services we provide to you. For example, updates about these privacy policies. If we do not use your personal data for these purposes, we cannot comply with our legal obligations.

Finally, please note that the processing of your Data is carried out by the Association’s specially authorised staff, i.e. the Data Protection Officer, whom you can contact by email at dpo@pem.gr.

7. What is the legal basis for processing your Data by the Association?

Data protection law that sets out a number of reasons why a legal person may collect and process your personal data. When collecting your personal data, there is already the possibility to check which data you want to provide and in particular to create a personalised profile with the possibility of continuously modifying the information provided.

In certain cases, we collect your Data in a way that is reasonably expected as part of the operation of our Association and that does not substantially affect your rights, freedom or interests.

8. Who are the recipients of your Data?

Τhe authorised staff of the Association has access to your Data. These are limited to the strictly necessary individuals and who are bound by confidentiality and our affiliated businesses or third party service providers, who process your Data as processors on our behalf, in accordance with our instructions and on the basis of a specific agreement for the processing of your data (for the provision of conference services, workshops and training).

9. How is your Data shared?

Data sharing by our Association

The Association shares your Data with:

• Third-party service providers who process personal data on behalf of the Association, for example (but not limited to) for the management and maintenance of our data, email distribution, research and analysis, and management of certain services and information. When we use third-party service providers we enter into agreements that oblige them to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data.
• Other third parties, to the extent necessary for the following purposes: compliance following the request of a Greek state body, court order or applicable law, (ii) prevention of illegal use of our Websites and Apps or violations of the Terms of Use of our Websites and Apps and our policies, (iii) our own protection against third party claims, and (iv) contribution to the prevention or investigation of fraud (e.g. counterfeiting).
• Other third parties to whom you have given your consent.

Data sharing by you

When you use information about your professional profile on our Platform to create a public profile that includes said information. We encourage you to use the tools we provide to manage sharing on the Association’s social media, so as to control the information you make available through the Association’s social media.

10. What is the policy we apply with third-party processors to process your Data in accordance with the above?

We only provide the information they need to perform their specific services.

They may use your Data only for the exact purposes we specify in our agreement with them.

We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected at all times.

If we stop using their services, any of the data they hold will be deleted or made anonymous.

11. How do we ensure that processors respect your Data?

The processors acting on our behalf have agreed and are contractually bound with the Association to:

• maintain confidentiality,
• not send your Data to third parties without the permission of the Association,
• take appropriate technical and organisational security measures,
• comply with the legal framework for the protection of personal data and in particular Regulation (EU) 979/2016 (otherwise GDPR)

12.Data transfer

The personal data we collect (or process) in the context of our Websites and Apps will be stored within the European Union. However, when we transfer your Personal Data to recipients in other countries, we are committed to protecting your Personal Data as described in this Privacy Policy and in accordance with the applicable law.

We take steps to comply with applicable legal requirements for the transfer of personal data to recipients in countries outside the European Economic Area or Switzerland that do not ensure an adequate level of protection. We use various measures to ensure that your Personal Data transferred to these countries enjoys adequate protection in accordance with data protection rules. These include signing the contractual clauses and certifying that the recipient has adopted the European binding rules.

13. How long do we keep your Data for?

We retain your Personal Data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy (unless a longer retention period is required by applicable law). In general, this means that we will retain your Personal Data for as long as you have an account on our Platform. At the end of this retention period, your data will be completely or anonymously deleted, for example by aggregating with other data, so that it can be used in an unidentifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.

14. Is your data secure?

We are committed to safeguarding your Personal Data.

Recognising the importance of the security of your Personal Data, we have taken all appropriate organisational and technical measures to secure and protect your Data from any form of accidental or unlawful processing. We use the most modern and advanced methods to ensure maximum safety.

In addition, two pieces of information are used as credentials to identify you as an account user: the Username and the Password. Every time you enter your credentials, you are given access to your personal account. This process is achieved securely through encryption during their transfer to the internet and servers. According to the same standards, you are given the opportunity to change your Password as often as you wish. After entering the desired Password, the new Password is encoded and stored. For this reason, the only one who knows your Password is yourself and you are solely responsible for keeping the Password secret from third parties.

Those measures shall be reviewed and amended when and where necessary.

15. What are your rights?

You have the right to access your Personal Data.

This means that you have the right to be informed by us if we are processing your Data. If we process your Data, you can ask to be informed about the purpose of the processing, the type of data we keep, to whom we give it, how long we store it, if automated decision-making takes place, and about your other rights, such as rectification, erasure of data, restriction of processing and submission of a complaint to the Personal Data Protection Authority.

You have the right to rectify inaccurate personal data.

If you find that there is an error in your Data, you can apply to us to correct it (e.g., correct your name or update a change in your address). Especially for your personal professional profile on the Platform, you are given the opportunity to make a correction immediately.

You have the right to erasure / right to be forgotten.

You may ask us to delete your data if it is no longer necessary for the aforementioned processing purposes or you wish to withdraw your consent.

You have the right to restrict processing.

You may request that we restrict the processing of your Data for as long as your objections to the processing are pending.

You have the right to object and withdraw consent to the processing of your Data.

You may object to the processing of your Data and we will stop processing the Data if there are no other compelling and legitimate reasons that prevail over your right. If you have given your consent to the collection, processing and use of your personal data, you may withdraw your consent at any time with future effect.

If we rely on our legitimate interest: In cases where we process your personal data based on our legitimate interest, you may ask us to stop for reasons related to your personal situation. We must then do so if we do not believe that we have a legitimate compelling reason to continue processing your Personal Data.

16. How can you exercise your rights?

In order to exercise your rights, you can submit a request to us at dpo@pem.gr entitled “Exercise of Rights” and mention the details of your complaint and your personal information (name, last name, email address) and we will examine it and reply to you as soon as possible.

Identity check

To protect the confidentiality of your information, we will ask you to verify your identity before proceeding with any request you make under this Privacy Policy. If you have authorised a third party to make a request on your behalf, we will ask them to prove that they have your permission to do so.

17. When do we respond to your requests?

We respond to your requests free of charge without delay, and in any case within one (1) month of receiving your request. However, if your request is complex or there is a large number of requests, we will inform you within the month if we need to receive an extension of another two (2) months within which we will respond to you.

18. What is the applicable law when we process your Data?

The applicable law is the Greek law, as drafted in accordance with the General Regulation on the Protection of Personal Data (EU) 2016/679, Law 4624/2019 (as in force) and in general the applicable national and European legislative and regulatory framework for the protection of personal data.

19. Where can you appeal if we violate the applicable law for the protection of your Personal Data?

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Personal Data Protection Authority if you consider that the processing of your Personal Data violates the applicable national and regulatory framework for the protection of personal data.

Personal Data Protection Authority, postal address: 1-3 Kifisias Avenue, 115 23 Athens, tel.: +30 210. 6475600, email address: contact@dpa.gr.

20. How will you be informed of any amendments to this Policy?

We update this Privacy Policy whenever necessary. If there are significant changes to the Privacy Policy or the way in which we use your Personal Data, we will post the updated Privacy Policy on our Website before the changes take effect, and notify you in every appropriate manner.

We encourage you to regularly read this Policy so that you know how your Data is protected.

Last updated: December 2023