Data Protection Notice for BlueInvest

1. Introduction
Your personal data is processed in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 2018/1725 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data.

This privacy statement covers the services provided for the BlueInvest Platform, hereafter called “BlueInvest”.

BlueInvest is an assistance mechanism that will support capacity building to investors in blue economy as well as access to finance for SMEs, start-ups, early-stage businesses and scale-ups in the sector. Its services include:

a) Set-up and operation of the BlueInvest Community, an online platform that will facilitate cooperation and exchange among SMEs, investors and other relevant players
b) Organisation of physical and virtual community events, such as the annual BlueInvest Days and BlueInvest targeted workshops and support to the BlueInvest community of companies and investors
c) Maintenance and development of a blue economy project pipeline of bankable/investable and innovative business ventures in different sectors of the maritime economy

Key users of the BlueInvest services mentioned above are:

- European start-ups, SMEs and scale-ups
- Private and public investors;
- Large enterprises;
- Business support stakeholders, such as incubators, accelerators, research and innovation institutes, clusters, private and corporate foundations
- Business coaches and investment experts;
- Programme operators

Some BlueInvest services pages may contain links to other third-party websites whose privacy practices may be different from this site.

Neither BlueInvest, CINEA, the European Commission or the European Union is necessarily responsible for the privacy practices or policies within any of these other sites.

You should be aware of this when you leave the current website and we encourage you to read the privacy statements of other web sites you visit, as we have no control over information that is submitted to or collected by these third parties.

2. Why do we collect and process your data?
The legal basis for the processing activities are: Article 5(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 because 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) as CINEA is entrusted with the implementation of the programme and Article 5(1)(d) of Regulation EU 2018/1725 based on your explicit consent for your non-mandatory personal data indicated below.

We collect and process your personal data to provide the BlueInvest services mentioned above, with the following purposes:

a) To promote BlueInvest to relevant target audiences, primarily businesses, investors and business support stakeholders in the blue economy;
b) To enable online interaction, networking and business matchmaking between the key users, who will be invited to create a profile on the platform for information sharing and exchange;
c) To identify and select start-ups, SMEs and investors that could receive readiness assistance;
d) To identify and select business coaches that could provide coaching support to BlueInvest assistance beneficiaries;
e) To enable the management of the BlueInvest assistance beneficiaries’ coaching scheme;
f) To enable registration for and participation in BlueInvest events and workshops;
g) To support capacity development and learning for SMEs and investors on-line and through training events.
h) To use web based tools to support the day-to-day management of the above services by European Commission, CINEA and contracted third parties acting on their behalf including but not limited to collecting data for reporting and business intelligence, process automation, management dashboards, etc.

The services mentioned above are delivered through Converve and use personal data only if necessary, for the successful delivery of the above-mentioned services.

Specifically, data are collected and processed when the users engage on the platform and register to

- Access the community, where they can participate in online discussions, collaborate with and learn from other members of the community;
- Participate for BlueInvest events, trainings and workshops, both physical and virtual.

Once registered on the platform, additional screening of the user’s personal data will be done in case the later applies for Readiness Assistance. In such case, the applications are assessed, and a final list is drawn up by the European Commission (DG MARE) and CINEA in accordance with the principles of non-discrimination, equal treatment and absence of conflicts of interest.

3. Who is responsible for the processing of your data?

The data controller of the processing operation is Vincent Favrel, Head of Unit, CINEA D.D.3 – Sustainable blue economy
The following entity/ies process your personal data on our behalf:

- PriceWaterhouseCoopers EU Services EESV (PwC EU Services EESV)
- CARSA

4. From whom and what personal data do we collect?

Users of the platform and related services
Personal data of the users of the BlueInvest platform and related services are collected, which include companies, investors, stakeholders and coaches.

Personal data collected
Personal data collected vary on the actions taken on the BlueInvest platform and the type users. Note that a series of personal data are optional for registration.

Actions	Users	Data collected
Register to the BlueInvest Community platform   Register to events and trainings	Companies Investors	Contact person profile First name, Last name, Position in the company/project Direct/mobile phone Email Personal LinkedIn (optional) Photo of key contact person (optional)
	Stakeholders	Contact person profile First name, Last name (optional) Position in the organization (optional) Direct/mobile phone (optional) Email (optional) Photo of key contact person (optional)
	Coaches	Contact person profile First name, Last name, Date of birth Nationality Highest degree of education completed Position in the company/project Direct/mobile phone Email Personal LinkedIn (optional) Photo of key contact person Networking profile Languages skills Experience CV
Apply to Readiness Assistance	Companies	Team's skills and expertise

Other personal data

PwC and CARSA may ask you for additional information if required (e.g. for assessing business coaches and jurists), such as:

Address of residence, nationality, CV, competences, experiences, expertise by means of questionnaires, for example in the answers to feedback-related questions.

Third party tool

To join and participate in the BlueInvest Community, apply for investment readiness assistance, attend an event or receive training, you will be redirected to a third-party tool. BlueInvest services users will be asked to sign up to the following platforms:

Service	Third party tool used	Privacy statement and cookie policy
BlueInvest events	Converve GmbH	https://www.converve.com/privacypolicy/ https://www.converve.com/cookie-policy/

Please read this tool’s own privacy statement and disclaimers for further information.

5. Who has access and to whom your data is disclosed?

PwC and CARSA, relevant CINEA and European Commission staff in charge of BlueInvest have access to your personal data on a need-to-know basis. In addition, only persons relevant for the performance of the services, including accredited business coaches, BlueInvest jury panel members, SME beneficiaries of the assistance services, large enterprises, investors and other service providers selected by CINEA and the European Commission might have access to a limited subsection of your data if needed.

In case of need, your data may be transferred to the bodies in charge of an inspection task in accordance with Union legislation, such as OLAF, European Court of Auditors, European Ombudsman and the Courts of the European Union.

BlueInvest will not share your personal data with any third parties without your express consent.

All staff of contractors working for the European Commission and CINEA have signed non-disclosure agreements.

6. For how long is your personal data kept?

Your personal information is kept as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected or to comply with the legal reporting or statistical reasons.
In case you are selected as a BlueInvest Business Coach, your personal data will be kept for 7 years after the end of relevant programme.

In case you are not yet selected, your personal data is kept for the duration of the related programme’s activities for which you have registered. In case your application is not successful or withdrawn, your personal data may be retained up to 5 years after the end of the particular procedure to allow for all possible appeal. After this period your data will only be stored anonymised/encrypted for statistical usage.

7. How can you access your data, check its accuracy and, if needed, correct them?

Depending on the on-line service you are accessing, you can either:

a) Access, check, modify, update, delete your personal profile online yourself at any time.
b) Ask the data controller for the removal of your account by sending a message to lu-blueinvest@pwc.lu.

To ensure the consistency of the platform and the coherence of its content, your contributions and comments will be kept on the platform but anonymised, even in case of an eventual removal of your profile.

For further information you may contact the BlueInvest team at lu_blueinvest@pwc.com.

8. Who are the contact points for questions or complaints?

If you have any queries about the processing of your personal information for the BlueInvest programme, you may address them to the Head of Unit, CINEA D.D.3 (entity acting as data controller) at the following address: lu_blueinvest@pwc.com.

You shall have right of recourse at any time to the CINEA Data protection officer at CINEA-DPO@ec.europa.eu and the European Data Protection Supervisor. (https://edps.europa.eu).

9. Additional information

Confidentiality

The users of the platform agree not to share any personal data they have access to with third parties beyond the scope of the services as described above.

Cookies

To make this site work properly, we sometimes place small data files called 'cookies' on your device. Most big websites do this too.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small text file that a website saves on your computer or mobile device when you visit the site. It enables the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login, language, and font size and other display preferences) over a period of time, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you come back to the site or browse from one page to another.

How do we use cookies?

A number of our pages use cookies to remember:

- your display preferences, such as contrast colour settings or font size
- non-identifiable data such as browsing behaviour within a session, to help us better understand member’s behaviour so we can increase the level of service
- to remember if you have agreed to our use of cookies on this site

Cookies are also stored by Europa Analytics, the corporate service which measures the effectiveness and efficiency of the European Commission's websites.

Enabling these cookies is not strictly necessary for the website to work but it will provide you with a better browsing experience. You can delete or block these cookies, but if you do that some features of this site may not work as intended.

The cookie-related information is not used to identify you personally and the pattern data is fully under our control. These cookies are not used for any purpose other than those described here.

How to control cookies?

You can control and/or delete cookies as you wish – for details, see aboutcookies.org. You can delete all cookies that are already on your computer and you can set most browsers to prevent them from being placed. If you do this, however, you may have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site and some services and functionalities may not work.

You can easily accept or reject the cookies on this site by selecting either of the following links: OK I agree / No, give me more info.

The system uses session "cookies" in order to ensure communication between the user and the server. Therefore, user's browser must be configured to accept "cookies". The cookies disappear once the session has been terminated.

Version July 2022