Privacy Notice on the EIF website

Version 11 - 23 February 2024

Personal data are processed by the European Investment Fund (“EIF” or “Controller”) in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the European Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data, as such regulation may be amended from time to time.

• Purpose and reasons of processing your personal data

The EIF processes your personal data to enable online communications through the EIF website (www.eif.org or www.eif.europa.eu) and through commonly used social media platforms, such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Medium.

The EIF provides information services about its activities to the public at large, thus increasing transparency and contributing to an understanding of the EIF’s role and results. In order to do so, the EIF work is governed by a framework of applicable policies, including its accountability and transparency policy.

In order to be able to provide the necessary information and/or to answer questions from the public at large, the EIF collects personal data related to its website visitors and social media platforms users.

You may also give us your personal data directly by:

• Filling in the contact form on the EIF website in order to submit an enquiry (public at large);
• Filling in the contact form on the EIF website to contact our front office business support (intermediaries with existing contracts with the EIF);
• Filling in the relevant contact form for submitting a funding pitch to the EIF (current and future partners of the EIF, fund management companies);

We further collect personal data, such as information about your devices and browsing actions and interests, by using cookies and similar automated technologies. Our “Cookie policy” section provides more details on how this works.

In addition, the EIF is subject to (standard) third party processors to process personal data analysing social media users reach and engagement in relation to the EIF’s social media accounts and contents.

• Legal basis of the processing

We process your personal data because:

1. Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the Union institution or body (Article 5(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725)

Article 2 of the EIF Statutes obliges EIF to “contribute to the pursuit of the objectives of the European Union”. With a view to fulfilling its referred tasks, EIF provides financial guarantees and equity investments to financial intermediaries and fund managers for the final benefit of small- and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). In this context, the EIF is entrusted with a variety of mandates from third parties (EIF Mandators), which may contain specific policy guidelines to the transactions financed under such mandates. The EIF is also engaged in other activities connected with its tasks set out in article 2 of the EIF Statutes. The performance of such tasks requires the ability to adequately inform the broad public.

Therefore, except if we request your consent, all processing activities described in this Privacy notice are performed because it is in the public interest. So, the personal data processing linked to the qualitative media monitoring analysis, including the EIF website and social media, as well as operating and maintenance of the EIF's social media presence are necessary for the performance of the EIF’s tasks carried out in the public interest. 

1. The data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes (Article 5(1)(d) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725)

For certain types of processing, such as sending of newsletters and similar services, as well as the organisation of competition and/or giveaway marketing campaigns, the EIF will collect your informed and specific consent.

• Which personal data do we collect and further process?

Depending on the circumstances and, on the platform in question (this website or the social media platforms), the EIF or its processors may collect and further process the following categories of data:

Personal data you directly provide to us

• All personal data that you provide to us via the fill-in contact forms, including your name, your e-mail address, telephone number, […]
• All personal data related to your responses to surveys or the feedback you provide us

Personal data we collect automatically

• Personal data derived from website visits and user profiles on social media platforms, such as your account username, geographical area, age, gender, and other personal characteristics such as nationality.
• Online identifiers (device ID, IP address and/or cookie identifier),
• Personal data available about your activity as users of social media platforms on our pages including any reactions, comments, shares, networks and connections, but also personal data included in audiovisual content, such as an image, or a video.

• Access to and disclosure of your personal data

Only the authorised personnel of the EIF and its contractors responsible for carrying out this processing operation will have access to your personal data according to the “need to know” principle.

The EIF collects and analyses aggregated data about the relevant users of its website and social media platforms for statistical and analytical purposes. For such processing, the EIF only relies on GDPR-compliant media monitoring tools, which produce the reports and analyse aggregated data from the EIF’s channels, such as Piwik Pro and Talkwalker

The EIF may use third party IT tools through its communication channels to publish and promote the EIF’s activities. For example, you may be able to watch our videos, which may be also uploaded to one of our social media pages and follow links from our website to other relevant social media.

No cookies are installed by such third party IT tools upon loading the EIF website page on your device, nor are you immediately redirected to those social media or other websites. Cookies of such websites might only be installed should you click on a button or “play” on a video to watch it on the EIF website, or should you leave the EIF website to go onto a social media platform.

The EIF highlights that it has no control over the specific Terms and Conditions that you might be required to accept upon accessing third-party content. We therefore recommend that you read the relevant privacy policies of the social media tools used.

The use of a third party IT tool does not in any way imply that the EIF supports them or their respective privacy policies. In the event that one or more third party IT tools are occasionally unavailable, we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to their downtime.

For the ‘contact us’ part, your personal data might be disclosed to the European Investment Bank Communications Department. With the exception of the foregoing, the information we collect will not be given to any other third party, except to the extent and for the purpose we may be required to do so by law.

• Data retention period

EIF only keeps your personal data for the time necessary to fulfil the purpose of collection or further processing. In any case, your personal data will be removed after 1 year after termination of our latest interaction with you, or after three years in case of personal data collected in the context of competition and/or giveaway marketing campaigns.

• Rights of data subjects

Subject to the conditions and modalities provided by the applicable laws:

• You have the right to obtain from the controller, without constraint, at any time within one month from the receipt of the request and free of charge:
  • Confirmation as to whether or not personal data concerning you are being processed;
  • Information at least to the purposes of the processing operation, the categories of personal data concerned, and the recipients or categories of recipients to whom the data are disclosed;
  • Communication in an intelligible form of the data undergoing processing and of any available information as to their source;
  • Information of the logic involved in any automated decision process concerning the visitor (right of access);
• You have the right to obtain from the controller, without undue delay, the rectification of any inaccurate or incomplete personal data concerning you (right to rectification).

In order to exercise these rights, you may contact the EIF Data Protection Officer using the dedicated contact form here.

Further to the above, you have the right to obtain from the controller the erasure of your personal data when they are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected (right to erasure).

You have the right to obtain restriction of processing from the controller when:

• You contest the accuracy of your personal data;
• The processing is unlawful;
• The controller no longer needs the personal data for the purposes of the processing; or
• You have objected to processing, pending the verification whether the legitimate grounds of the controller override yours (right to restriction of processing).

Moreover, you have the right to:

• Object on grounds relating to your particular situation when the processing of personal data is unlawful;
• Withdraw your consent at any time when the processing of your personal data was based on your consent. Such withdrawal may occur via various ways depending on how your consent was given (e.g. you will find an opt-out button at the end of all our direct marketing communications), and in any event, by contacting the EIF DPO using this form.
• Receive from the controller your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and transmit those data to another controller without hindrance from the controller by which the personal data have been provided (right to data portability);

Lodge a complaint to the European Data Protection Supervisor (www.edps.europa.eu) at any time (right to lodge a complaint).