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Privacy policy

The City of Antwerp attaches great importance to the protection of your privacy when processing personal data regarding the use of www.maagdenhuis.be.

This website is managed by the City of Antwerp, with registered office at 1, Grote Markt at 2000 Antwerp.

The City of Antwerp processes the personal data you provided and we obtained from you under the supervision of the city’s Data Protection Officer, Mrs Anne Baré. You can contact us at the aforementioned address or call the city’s contact center (every workday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.) at 00 32 (0)3 22 11 333 or send an e-mail to informatieveiligheid@stad.antwerpen.be.

About our privacy policy

The City of Antwerp finds it important that you can use its services anywhere, at any time. The City of Antwerp also wants to develop interactive services and services that are tailored to your needs. For this purpose, we wish to collect and use certain personal data.

In this framework, the City of Antwerp attaches great importance to the protection of your privacy and your personal data. That is why we have developed this privacy policy, to explain transparently which personal data we collect, why we want to collect it, how we intend to use it and how we will process it.

This privacy policy applies to all the city’s services.

The City of Antwerp, with registered office at 1, Grote Markt at 2000 Antwerp, is responsible for this privacy policy. When these terms and conditions refer to “we”, this shall be taken to mean the “City of Antwerp”.

Personal data we collect

Why does the city of Antwerp collect your personal data?

The City of Antwerp collects personal data to offer better services to its users. We find it important to be able to offer the right content to our users, anywhere and at any time. That is why we aim to get to know our users better, based on a number of personal data, so we can further tailor our services, where possible, to our customers’ needs. We also can engage with you, based on personal data.

How does the city of Antwerp collect your personal data?

Personal data you provide to us

You must create an account to use some of the City of Antwerp’s services. When you create this account, we request a number of personal data, such as your e-mail address, name, date of birth, gender and postal code. This personal data is stored in your A profile. After registration, we may request additional information which may help us offer you more customised services.

If you register for a special action or promotion or participate in a competition, you may also be asked to provide certain personal data.

In addition to this, we will collect your personal data when you engage with us, e.g., when you send us an e-mail with questions, evaluations or complaints about our services, or when you attend an event.

Personal data we collect, based on your use of the City of Antwerp’s online services

We collect data about the online services you use and how you use them, i.e., when you watch a video on our website for example. This allows us to better tailor our online services to your needs and interests and better understand how our services are used.

This includes:

  • Log file data, such as an IP address, opened pages, mouse clicks, the date and time of your request, your browser and so on. This data allows us to recognise you and can tell us how you use our services, which articles, sound clips or videos you have read, listened to or watched, and whether you read, listened to or watched them until the very end.
  • Device data, such as the IP address, make, type and operating system of your device, and so on. To the extent that this is useful for providing the relevant service, we may also use this for a rough indication of your location.

The City of Antwerp uses cookies and other, similar technology for this among others.

We can also supplement the personal data we collect with information from other reliable sources, from online and offline data providers. The City of Antwerp shall only do this insofar as this data was lawfully obtained from the third party and this party can also legitimately share it with us. If necessary, the City of Antwerp will also request your explicit consent for the use of this data.

Other sources

The online services are a dynamic and innovative environment, meaning we are constantly looking to tailor our services to your needs and improve them. This means we may also launch new applications, which require us to collect and/or use your data in a different manner. We will always communicate as transparently as possible about this in our privacy policy.

What do we use the collected personal data for?

To provide the services of the City of Antwerp

In general, we use personal data to provide and maintain services. We may inform you of changes or scheduled maintenance to the online services or process your feedback about our services in the right manner.

To recognise you as a user of the City of Antwerp

When you log in with your A profile to use our services, we use technology that recognises you as a registered user and immediately grants you access to this service. As a result, you will not be required to enter your login details, when using these online services or when you want to participate in interactive features of our online services, such as competitions.

To analyse and improve the services of the City of Antwerp

We use this personal data to understand which services and content are interesting and useful for our users. By knowing what users read, watch, listen to or use, we can provide the necessary feedback to our software developers and developers to improve our offering and make it more relevant. In this framework, we may also invite you to participate in a survey. This allows us to continuously improve our services and content and develop new services to make our offering is as relevant as possible for our users and ensure this is the case in the long term.

To personalise online services and advertising

The City of Antwerp strives to make its online services as relevant as possible for every user. By using data that give an indication about the user’s potential interests, the City of Antwerp can develop a more personalised service. As such, the City of Antwerp could make recommendations about content that matches your profile for example.

To inform you about the products and services of the City of Antwerp

The City of Antwerp can also use contact data and other collected data to inform you about news, future activities or events, promotions, new services and so on. We will only do this if you gave your consent for this. You can also notify the City of Antwerp if you no longer wish to be contacted by us with such information. You can use the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of every electronic communication, or unsubscribe on your personal profile page.

To prevent and detect misuse or fraud

We can also use data to prevent, detect and investigate illegal or suspected illegal practices, such as fraud (e.g., with payment instruments) and the enforcement of our terms and conditions, in the interests of the City of Antwerp and of its users.

Will your personal data be passed on to third parties? 

We will not pass on, sell, etc. your personal data to third parties unless you explicitly gave your consent for this or unless we are legally obliged to do so.

In some cases, certain third parties will be granted access to the personal data we collect about you:

Suppliers of the City of Antwerp

We sometimes work with a number of independent companies or service providers to provide our services, e.g. for the supply of infrastructure or IT services, payment transactions through our services, conducting surveys, etc.

In the framework of their mission, such companies may be granted access to certain data and information. The City of Antwerp only allows this to the extent that this is necessary so these companies can do their job and these companies offer the required guarantees about the access to and use of this data and information.

Social media

Some of our online services feature social media “buttons” of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. These allow you to share information on these platforms. These buttons are created and managed by the social networks themselves. The City of Antwerp does not control the applications these companies develop with these buttons. We recommend that you review the terms and conditions and privacy policy of these social networks. This privacy policy only provides for the use of personal data collected by the City of Antwerp.

Authorities

In certain circumstances, we must share your personal data or pass them on to the authorities. We may have to do this to comply with legislation or a judicial decision, to detect and deal with fraud or security issues or to protect the rights of the City of Antwerp.

How can you manage your personal data and have them erased?

You have the right to access, rectify and have any inaccurate or incomplete personal data which the City of Antwerp processes erased. You can contact the City of Antwerp by using the contact details in the answer above. Should you exercise your rights, then we ask you to be as specific as possible, so we can deal with your question in a specific and correct manner. We also wish to point out that we must be able to verify your identity so you can exercise your rights to prevent anyone else from exercising them.

You also have the right to oppose the use of your personal data for marketing purposes.

How do we keep your personal data secure?

The City of Antwerp finds it important that your personal data is securely processed, which is why we use various types of security technology and measures to adequately protect your data against unauthorised access, use, loss or publication. The City of Antwerp also orders regular audits of these security measures. Unfortunately exchanging information online is never 100% secure. While we make every effort to ensure the security of your data, we can never offer absolute guarantees about this.

Update of this privacy statement

In some cases, the City of Antwerp shall update this privacy statement, because of changes to services, customer feedback or changes in privacy legislation.

Read our cookie policy.