Privacy Statement

Privacy Statement

Introduction

This Privacy Statement covers the whole domain of  https://www.semgem.eu and underlying pages and concerns the processing of your personal data as part of the provision of our SemGem search engine. SemGem is a search engine designed for professionals working in public organisations, to simplify their search for answers, navigating European laws and regulations and helping local public organisations to stay compliant with EU values and principles. It has been developed as part of a project co-funded by the European Commission Eurostars 3 – Call 3 No. 2684.

Controllers of your personal data

SemGem is developed and offered by the following partners:

  • NALANTIS NV, PIC 914842115, established in OTTO VENIUSSTRAAT 9, ANTWERP 2000, Belgium,
  • SERENDIPITY HOLDING BV (SERENDIPITY BV), PIC 895412724, established in HIGH TECH CAMPUS 5 PO94, EINDHOVEN 5656 AE, Netherlands

Purposes of personal data processing

  • Personal data is collected for login & user authentication to the SemGem website and to provide users with the search functionality,
  • and to respond to information or support requests related to SemGem.

As this is currently a testing phase and not a full public release, data is collected for testing, evaluation, and improvement of the service. This statement applies only to test users involved in this Proof of Concept and does not reflect the final version of our privacy and data protection practices.

SemGem relies on a Natural Language Understanding model, an AI system designed to comprehend and generate human language, in particular in the legal context. The questions asked by users in the SemGem search engine are assessed against official EU legal texts ( found in https://eur-lex.europa.eu/) and generate an answer based on the automated analysis of the texts.

The users should always be aware that the answers provided are the result of an AI system and should always be reviewed by human experts before any use of them.

Your personal data will not be used for any automated decision-making including profiling.

Legal bases

​​(A) Contractual necessity: the processing of personal data in SemGem is necessary for the performance of a contract (i.e. signed test agreement)

(B) Your consent for us to reach out to you.

Categories of personal data collected

  • IP address
  • First and last names
  • Email addresses of test users and website visitors making information requests
  • User activity data (searches, answers, rating)
  • Support contact form

Storage period

We store your data from the day that:

  • You share your testing email, name and surname with us to create your account in SemGem
  • You request more information via the website form, without having (yet) an account.

The retention period for this data is, respectively:

  • 6 months after the testing phase of the product concludes.
  • 1 month after satisfying your request for information.

Data processors

  • WordPress.org which is an open-source, self-hosted content management system (CMS). WordPress acts as a data processor for personal data collected through our website. We store data locally on our own servers, and WordPress processes this data on our behalf. See their privacy statement here.
  • Transip:  shared server – hosting provider & data storage. Their privacy statement can be found here.
  • Google Ireland Limited as a data processor through Google Workspace (Google Drive) with our account set to EU jurisdiction. This service is used to securely store and manage the list of testing users who will receive an invitation to access SemGem. See their privacy policy here.

Other recipients of your personal data

None. We do not share any personal data with other recipients.

Transfers of personal data to third countries

None. We do not share any personal data with third countries.

Cookies

Cookies are used solely for the correct functioning of the website, enabling your log in and secure navigation. We do not use any third party cookies, nor analytics tools.

Protection of personal information

We and our processors use a range of physical, technical and organisational measures to ensure that we keep your personal data secure. These measures include Technological security measures, including firewalls and encryption mechanisms (TLS). Personal data are securely stored in a password protected local database. Access to the backend of SemGem will be kept secure and only be available to project partners who shall work with the data (i.e., analyse feedback data from different groups of users, and reply to messages received via the contact form).

Links to other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. pages in https://eur-lex.europa.eu/). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content.

We cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should refer to the privacy statement applicable to the websites in question.

Your rights at any moment

You have the right:

  • To be informed about how your personal data is processed,
  • To access your personal data
  • To rectify your personal data
  • To have your personal data erased
  • To object to the processing of your personal data
  • To restrict the processing of your personal data
  • To data portability
  • To withdraw your consent at any moment
  • To lodge a complaint with your local Data Protection Authority.

Our project coordinator is  governed by the Belgian Data Protection Authority.
If you have any questions about this policy or you want to exercise your rights, please email us at  support@semgem.eu