Privacy Statement

At Connect International (Stichting Connect International, KvK 02064544), we respect the privacy of all our registered members, volunteers, staff, supporters, and visitors in general. We are firmly committed to protecting all the personal data that we collect -either personally or online- in order to provide any of our services. Connect International has taken and shall continue to take adequate measures to ensure that the personal information shared with us is protected. The collection and processing of all personal data is done in compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (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).

Purposes of the data we collect

The personal data we obtain from you -which may include your name, gender, address and nationality- and any other data you provide, will only be processed with your consent. Processing activities include collection, organization, structuring, storage, consultation, and erasure of this information. Your personal data will be processed by us in order to provide any of our services, which are categorized into three groups:

1) Information Center and Personal Advice: We give practical information and offer personal advice to familiarize international residents with all aspects of living, working and studying in the Northern Netherlands.

2) Promotion: We organize events and activities to facilitate making further connections, both personal and professional.

3) Intercultural Training: We offer intercultural trainings to the northern-based companies and their international staff.

In other words, we will gather information from you that is necessary to conclude membership contracts and perform services related to membership contracts and personal advice services, as well as to effectively promote activities and events that you have clearly shown interest in.

In order to use your personal information we will ask for your explicit consent either through a membership registration form, a contact form or an email with a link to a questionnaire designed to tailor our personal advice services. This consent can be withdrawn by you at any time, which will result in the termination of our (legal) relationship and the ending of any hired services. None of the information you give us will be shared with third parties, unless you explicitly request us to do so in writing or in the cases under which - by law or judicial order - we are demanded to provide it.

Memberships and Contact in General

If you fill in a general contact form or a membership registration form on the website, or if you send us an e-mail to info@connect-int.org, any personal data shared and/or collected will be safely processed for as long as your membership with Connect International is valid and for as long as the nature of the form or the content of your email is required for proper handling.

During the time we process your personal data we will strictly follow our internal guidelines and take appropriate measures to ensure that it is kept safe and used exclusively for the purposes agreed upon at the moment of collection.

Once the purpose(s) of collection has been fulfilled or when the membership comes to an end, any personal data in our databases will be erased. Certain data might be kept for statistical purposes, but this will be done in such a manner that the origin of the data will remain anonymous. Hence, it will not be possible to link it to you or identify you in any manner.

Contact forms and e-mails to info@connect-int.org

We kindly ask you not to share any personal information which is considered sensitive if this is not necessary to solve your enquiry; this information might include - but it is not limited to - passport numbers, specific family information (e.g., information about minors), health information, visa numbers, etc. If this kind of information is required, we will inform you in due time and advise you on what we need from you to make the exchange of information as safe as possible.

To all the Connect International members we offer a digital newsletter through which we intend to inform interested parties about our services, news, special events and activities, as well as other matters related to the Northern Netherlands. The email address provided during membership registration will only be added to the list of subscribers with your explicit permission at the moment of filling out the form. Each newsletter contains a link to unsubscribe in the event that you wish to stop receiving them. The data shared by subscribers of the newsletter will not be shared with any third parties.

Two-Hour Personal Advice Package

We offer a two-hour personal advice package to all those interested in receiving tailored advice in matters concerning their relocation to the Netherlands, such as housing, tax system, education, language courses and job opportunities, to name a few. If you are interested in receiving this service, we ask you to send an email to connect@connect-int.org in order to manifest your consent for contact from Connect International regarding the service.

Once we have received your request, we use a general questionnaire that you can fill out according to your preferences. This questionnaire and all the replies we receive are only accessible to our Personal Advice Consultants. All of the personal information you share with us will be treated confidentially and used exclusively for the purpose of advising you on the topics you have selected, as well as any related matters to such topics. To receive this information, you can choose among three channels of communication or a combination of them: Skype, email or a personal appointment at our office. All the information you share with us through any of these channels is confidential and we will protect it to the best of our abilities.

We have a number of reliable service partners who are specialists in their own fields - including but not limited to - legal services, housing and relocation agencies, tax consultants, health services, leisure, payroll and HR. We will not share any personal information or information of any kind with our service partners. If you require expert advice in any of these fields, we can refer these providers to you in order for you to contact them on your own account. Only in the cases where you explicitly request us to do so in writing, can we establish the first contact for you. After the first contact, the relationship between you and any service partners will be independent from Connect International; therefore, we cannot be held liable for any defective performances or any other issues which might arise as a consequence of their expert services.

This package is valid for three calendar months; your personal data will be processed by Connect International during this time. Once our service comes to an end, any personal data in our database will be erased, except for that which by law and internal purposes have to be kept for financial and tax related matters. Certain data might be kept for statistical purposes, but this will be done in such a manner that the origin of the data will remain anonymous. Hence, it will not be possible to link it to you or identify you in any manner.

Events

Connect International organizes different kinds of events throughout the year. These events can be of social, cultural, and educational nature; for professional networking, and sports related, to name a few.

Events are organized for members and the international community in general. These events are mostly organized by Connect, but they can also be hosted along with or by a third party. Events and the organizing parties are published every month on our website. Each event has a description on the manner in which you can take part: some are free access, others require you to log in with your member’s account, and sometimes filling out a form from a third party organizing the event is necessary.

The personal information you share will only be handled by personnel involved in the event -including any third parties which co-host them- for logistics, contact, and matters reasonably connected with the event. Permission to gather and share any personal data will be requested at the time of registration. The information you share with us will be used for the specific event you register for and no other. This information will not be shared with any external parties to the event(s) and will be kept confidential.

Access, rectification and erasure of personal data

Stichting Connect International acts as controller of the personal information you share, represented for all privacy matters by its General Manager. If you have shared personal information with Connect International you can always request to see which information we have kept in our databases, as well as to be informed on the manner in which we have processed or continue to process this information. You can also notify us about any inaccuracies needing corrections or update us on any information we need to provide services of the best standards. Any questions about how we collect and process personal data or any requests related to the latter can be directed via regular post to:

Connect International
Gedempte Zuiderdiep 98
9711 HL Groningen
The Netherlands

You can also send your request via email to: info@connect-int.org.

Disclaimer

Connect International reserves the right to change its privacy policy, but will inform in due time of such changes and how will the changes affect current and future members. These changes will also be timely published on our website.

Cookie Policy for our website

What are cookies?

Many websites store small text files on your digital device (tablet, smartphone, or computer) . This is to recognize your device during your visit and at any follow-up visits. Such files are called 'cookies'.

1) Session Cookies – Session cookies help websites to recognize you and remember the information provided by you as you move from one page to another within the same website. For example, e-commerce sites use session cookies to remember the items you place in your shopping cart as you go from one page to another on the site. Session cookies only retain information about your activities during your visit to the site. Once you close the browser, the session cookies are lost and the site will not recognize you the next time you return to the site.

2) Persistent cookies – Persistent cookies can exist for an extended period of time until expired or until they are deleted. They enable the site to recognize you on a continuous basis. This is done by the web server planting a small text file with a unique ID tag on your device, while keeping a matching file on the server. On subsequent visits to the site, your browser delivers this cookie over to the site, allowing the site to retrieve the matching file.

Persistent cookies enable websites to remember your preferences and settings (i.e. login information, language selection, font size preference, etc.) so that they can offer you a more personalized and convenient access the next time you visit. For security purposes, your login information is generally encrypted by the web server before it gets stored in a cookie.

3) Third-party cookies – Third-party cookies come from those with an interest in the website such as advertisers and ad servers. They are difficult for the average user to identify because they can be connected to any banner ad on a site. These third-party cookies allow advertisers and ad servers to alternate the ads sent to a specific device and to track how often an ad has been viewed and by whom.

Cookies such as the ones used in connect-int.org do not contain personal data. Connect International also has no advertisements on the website, so no advertisers track your usage of our website. However, on our website, general visitor information is collected. In this context, the IP address of your computer, time of extraction and data that the browser of a visitor sends, are recorded and used for statistical analysis of visits and clicks on the website. With this general information, we can optimize the operation of this website. Data such as your login details are not part of the cookies connect-int.org uses, so nothing can be traced back to you. Without additional information only accessible to you, cookies are not a threat to your privacy. We make this information as anonymous as possible. This information will NOT be provided to third parties under any circumstance except those where the applicable law(s) require us to do so.

If you object to cookies

With use of cookies, websites offer online services. You can refuse the use of these cookies, although the functionality and ease of use of some websites may then be limited. If you want to exclude using cookies in various forms or even altogether, this can be done through the settings of your browser (internet program). More information about cookies and how to disable cookies can be found on the website of the Dutch National Cyber Security Centrum (https://www.ncsc.nl/english).

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to track how visitors use our website. The resulting information, including the address of your computer (IP address), is transmitted to and stored by Google on datacenter servers in the Americas, Europe or Asia.

Google will use this information to track how our website is used and to create reports on the website usage. Google may transfer this information to third parties where Google is legally required or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. We have no influence over these sort of operations.

Facebook and Instagram

On our site, there is a button to promote pages or to share on social networks, specifically Facebook and Instagram. These buttons are created by code which is provided by Facebook and Instagram themselves. These codes, however, (might) place cookies on a user’s digital device (see above).

It is recommended that you read the privacy statements of Facebook and Instagram (which may change frequently) to learn how they handle and process the personal information they obtain with this code.

Should you contact us (via private message) through any of these channels, we will try to answer your questions without any further request of personal information. Should this not be possible, our event coordinators will refer you to the right source.

Thank you for your interest in Connect International!