Privacy statement
Last updated: 1 October 2026
Palaeontologica Belgica respects your privacy and processes personal data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and applicable Belgian data protection law.
This privacy statement explains what personal data we process when you use the Palaeontologica Belgica website, why we process it, how we protect it, and what rights you have.
1. Who is responsible for your personal data?
The data controller is:
Palaeontologica Belgica
Vereniging zonder winstoogmerk (vzw)
Oostvaartdijk 61
B-1850 Grimbergen
Belgium
Palaeontologica Belgica is an independent Belgian non-profit scientific organisation dedicated to paleontology and related earth sciences.
For questions about the processing of your personal data or to exercise your data protection rights, you can contact us through our Contact page.
2. What personal data do we process?
The personal data we process depends on how you interact with the website.
Contact forms
When you contact us through the website, we may process:
- your name;
- your email address;
- the topic of your enquiry;
- the subject of your enquiry, if provided; and
- the contents of your message.
We also process technical information associated with submitting the form where necessary to protect the form against automated or abusive submissions.
Please do not include unnecessary sensitive personal information in messages submitted through the contact form.
Membership and organisational records
Palaeontologica Belgica maintains a register of members as required by its statutes and applicable law. Information contained in the membership register is processed for the administration and management of the association and its membership.
The information processed for this purpose depends on the information required for membership administration and applicable legal obligations.
3. Why do we process personal data?
We process personal data only where there is a lawful basis for doing so. Depending on the circumstances, this may include:
- responding to enquiries and requests submitted through the website;
- communicating with people who contact the organisation;
- administering membership and organisational activities;
- complying with legal and statutory obligations;
- protecting the security and proper functioning of the website and its services; and
- measuring and understanding website use, where the visitor has given the required consent.
4. Contact form and email processing
Messages submitted through the contact form are sent to Palaeontologica Belgica for handling.
The website uses Resend to deliver these emails. Resend acts as a service provider for the transmission of contact-form messages.
Contact-form information is used to respond to the enquiry and for the ordinary follow-up required to handle the matter raised.
When you submit an enquiry, we may also send an acknowledgement or confirmation email to the email address you provided.
5. International transfers
Some service providers used by the website may process personal data outside the European Economic Area.
In particular, Resend processes data in the United States. Where personal data is transferred outside the EEA, Palaeontologica Belgica relies on the transfer mechanisms and safeguards required by applicable data protection law.
6. How long do we keep personal data?
We retain personal data only for as long as necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, taking into account our legal, administrative and organisational obligations.
Contact enquiries are retained for as long as reasonably necessary to handle the enquiry and any resulting follow-up, and may be retained where necessary to document or manage an ongoing matter or to comply with legal obligations.
Membership and other organisational records are retained for the periods required by applicable law and for the legitimate administration of the association.
Where a specific legal or organisational retention period applies, the relevant records are retained for that period.
7. Google Analytics
The website uses Google Analytics to understand how visitors use the website and to monitor website performance.
Google Analytics is used only after the visitor has given consent for analytics cookies or other analytics storage where consent is required.
Analytics consent is optional. Refusing analytics does not prevent you from using the website.
Analytics may provide information such as pages visited, approximate geographic information, device and browser information, traffic sources, and interactions with the website. The precise information processed depends on the Google Analytics configuration used by the website.
Analytics data is used for statistical and website-improvement purposes and is not used by Palaeontologica Belgica to make decisions about individual visitors.
You can withdraw or change your analytics consent through the website's privacy or cookie settings.
8. Cookies and similar technologies
The website may use strictly necessary technical mechanisms required for the operation and security of the website.
Where cookies or similar technologies are not strictly necessary, we obtain consent before using them where required by applicable law.
In particular, analytics cookies are not enabled until the visitor has provided the required consent.
Information about the cookies and similar technologies used by the website, including their purposes and retention periods, is provided through the website's cookie or consent settings.
9. External services and resources
The website uses certain external services to provide its functionality. These currently include:
- Inline SVG icons for interface and social-media icons;
- Resend, used to deliver contact-form emails; and
- Google Analytics, used for website statistics after consent.
The website's fonts are hosted on the website itself and do not require a request to Google Fonts.
Loading resources from external providers can result in the visitor's browser communicating with those providers. The providers may therefore receive technical information associated with the request, such as an IP address and browser information.
The website does not use embedded social-media feeds or social-media widgets. Links to YouTube, Facebook, X, Instagram and LinkedIn are ordinary external links. Visiting those services is subject to the respective provider's privacy practices.
10. Who may receive personal data?
Personal data may be accessible to:
- authorised representatives of Palaeontologica Belgica who need it to carry out their responsibilities;
- service providers processing data on behalf of Palaeontologica Belgica, where necessary to provide website or organisational services; and
- public authorities or other recipients where disclosure is required by law.
We do not sell personal data.
11. Your rights
Subject to the conditions and limitations provided by the GDPR, you have the right to:
- request access to your personal data;
- request correction of inaccurate or incomplete personal data;
- request deletion of your personal data;
- request restriction of processing;
- object to certain processing;
- receive personal data in a portable format where the right to data portability applies; and
- withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.
Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal.
12. Automated decision-making
Palaeontologica Belgica does not use personal data collected through this website for solely automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
13. How to exercise your rights
You can exercise your data protection rights by contacting Palaeontologica Belgica through the Contact page.
Please provide enough information for us to identify the request and understand what you are asking us to do.
We may need to take reasonable steps to verify your identity before fulfilling a request, particularly where the request concerns access to personal data.
We normally respond to requests within one month. Where permitted by the GDPR, this period may be extended by up to two further months where the request is complex or numerous. If an extension is necessary, we will inform you within the first month.
14. Complaints
If you believe that your personal data has been processed unlawfully or that your data protection rights have not been respected, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit / Autorité de protection des données).
Information about the Belgian supervisory authority and how to submit a complaint is available from the Belgian Data Protection Authority .
15. Security
Palaeontologica Belgica takes appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against unauthorised access, loss, alteration, disclosure or destruction.
No method of transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be completely secure. We nevertheless take reasonable measures appropriate to the nature of the information and the risks associated with its processing.
Our service providers are expected to apply appropriate security measures to the personal data they process on our behalf.
16. Changes to this privacy statement
This privacy statement may be updated when the website, the services we use, our processing activities or applicable legal requirements change.
The date at the top of this page indicates when the statement was last updated.
Palaeontologica Belgica
Oostvaartdijk 61
B-1850 Grimbergen
Belgium