ESPP GDPR data privacy policy - for public information

Adopted by ESPP Board, 12 June 2018

Overview of data held by ESPP

European Sustainable Phosphorus Platform is a not-for-profit association under Belgian law, with objectives to promote, facilitate, contribute to and/or implement phosphorus sustainability in Europe (see our statutes on www.phosphorusplatform.eu). To achieve these objectives, communications and networking are important activities. Therefore, ESPP collects and manages data concerning both natural persons and organisations potentially interested in or concerned by phosphorus sustainability.

ESPP collects, holds and manages data only as useful for our statutory purpose.

We aim to manage data with the minimum of unwanted emailings, and to respect the requirements of the GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 which entered into force on 25th May 2018). Where appropriate changes were made to our systems in Spring 2018 to ensure this, as verified and decided by the ESPP Board on 12th June 2018.

ESPP aims to ensure that GDPR requirements are respected in our collection, holding and management of personal data, to ensure protection and confidentiality of all data held, and that these requirements are also respected by service providers working for ESPP.

This ESPP DGPR Privacy Policy document aims to explain how and why your data is handled, in a practical manner.

  • For any further information about your data held by ESPP, its use or management, or to request consultation of your data held
    - for our emailing list (currently using MailChimp), please see instructions below
    - for other questions or requests, please email

What data is held by ESPP, for what uses, and in what systems?

ESPP does not collect or hold any data concerning personal traits or behaviour (such as: hobbies, religion, family information, purchases …) of natural persons and in particular does not collect or hold any data on the factors cited in Art. 4(1) of the GPDR: “physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social”, nor any datya concerned by Art. 9 (1) “Special categories of personal data: … data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, … genetic data, biometric data … data concerning health … sex life or sexual orientation”, nor any data concerned by Art. 10 “data relating to criminal convictions and offences”.

ESPP does however collect and hold professional or comparable data (company, email & contact, centres of professional interest or competence relevant to nutrients, participation in scientific or regulatory committees …) because this information is necessary for ESPP’s activities of information transfer, networking and communications towards our not-for-profit statutory objectives of promoting phosphorus sustainability.

ESPP does not use this data for any commercial purpose (other than promoting ‘paying’ activities carried out by ESPP conform to our not-for-profit statutory objectives, such as ESPP membership or conferences). ESPP never sells data to other organisations and never transmits data for commercial uses. ESPP does however sometimes send emails to our data lists promoting commercial or other fee-charging conferences, competitions or other activities, in exchange for payment or sponsoring, but only where such conferences or activities are relevant to ESPP’s not-for-profit statutory objectives of promoting phosphorus sustainability. ESPP does also sometimes transmit contacts of some natural persons in our data system, on a “one-to-one” and case-specific basis, to other organisations as part of our networking activities.

ESPP may be considered to be “controller” (under GDPR) of three data processing systems: (1) ESPP (public) website, (2) ESPP emailing list used for eNews, SCOPE and other information emailings (currently using MailChimp), and (3) data held in filing systems (e.g. Outlook system, minutes or meetings, etc) and other forms by ESPP itself and by consultants working for ESPP. These three data systems are detailed below:

ESPP public website www.phoshorusplatform.eu

No GPDR-relevant data is collected from visitors to our websites, in particular IP addresses are not recorded.

Where external websites are linked from ESPP’s website pages or menus, ESPP is not responsible for the GPDR conformity of these websites and is not party to any data collection or management by these websites. ESPP tries to make it clear where such websites are external: if you see cases where this is not clear, please let us know. In particular, the national phosphorus or nutrient Platforms are legally separate entities (external) from ESPP.

ESPP emailing list

ESPP has a list of emails used for sending ESPP eNews, SCOPE Newsletter and other circular information emails, relevant to phosphorus sustainability.

This emailing list is currently managed via the marketing platform MailChimp https://mailchimp.com (including hosting the list of emails, sending of emails, opt-out system) because this system is designed to avoid sending unwanted emails. ESPP uses MailChimp because this platform enables user-friendly and effective options for recipients to opt-out, access or modify their data.

This system includes a list of recipients who receive emails but also a list of “blocked” emails, that is persons who have opted out. If you opt-out, your email is conserved in this “blocked list” in order to avoid you receiving any future invitations to join the emailing list. Your email can be completely deleted from the system on request (to ESPP Secretariat info(A)phosphorusplatform.eu), but in that case you may in future receive new emails inviting you to join the emailing list.

Unless you have specifically agreed (opt-in) to include other information, the only information held in the ESPP emailing system is your email address. If you do opt-in, and only in that case, then other information may also be saved, such as your name, country, sector of interest …

  • To “opt-out” from receiving ESPP emailings (via MailChimp) click on the “Unsubscribe” button at the end of all emailings you receive from us, or manually request opt-out from info(A)phosphorusplatform.eu

  • If you receive several emails (to different email addresses), then please opt-out for the addresses at which you do not wish to receive

Contact management systems and similar filing systems

ESPP also manages information concerning our network of contacts in outlook, documents (such as meeting records), archives, etc, as necessary and appropriate for ESPP’s networking and communication activities in pursuance of our not-for-profit objectives of promoting and supporting phosphorus sustainability. As specified above, only professional / scientific / phosphorus activities related information is held, and no information about personal traits or behaviour etc.

Where such data is collected by and files held by consultants or staff working for ESPP, their contracts specify that they must respect GDPR obligations.