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Privacy Policy

We are committed to protecting your privacy. Keeping your information secure is one of the reasons EUROSPINE, the Spine Society of Europe ("EUROSPINE") will never sell ads. In this notice, you can read about the information we collect from you when you visit www.eurospine.org (“Website”) and how we use it. If you have any questions or concerns, you can e-mail us at: privacy@eurospine.org.

In this Privacy Policy we inform you about possible rights you are entitled to. Such rights depend on the data protection laws applicable to us. Therefore, you may have further rights than set forth in this Privacy Policy or certain rights may not be accessible to you. If you do not provide the information requested from us, we may not be able to maintain your membership, provide you information about our activities and the functionality of the Website may be limited.

1. What information do we collect about you?

This notice applies to all information collected or submitted on the Website, including but not limited to software and other downloads. We collect this Information in order to conveniently inform you about our activities, or for technical reasons.
The information we may collect includes:

  • Information about (1) your internet connection, (2) the browser type and version used, (3) the operating system used by the accessing the Website, (3) the website from which an accessing system reaches our Website (so-called referrers), (4) the equipment you use to access our Website, (5) and usage details such as date and time of access to the Website;
  • Your information that you provide us in connection with maintaining your membership, your registration for our general meetings, education courses as well as accreditation and compliance. Such information may include (but not limited to) information about your name, your employer’s name, your work address (including your country location), and your e-mail address. We may also collect your personal e-mail address, a personal mailing address, and a mobile phone number. We ask you if you are a member to voluntarily provide additional information in your membership profile, such as information about your educational background, number of years in practice, and the like. You may edit your profile at any time to change, add, or remove personal information.
  • Your newsletter subscription information such as your e-mail address, personal login to your online membership profile, or any other identifier by which you may be contacted online or offline;
  • Information about your IP addresses, and information collected through cookies[, web beacons,] [and other tracking technologies];
  • Anonymous usage statistics.


2. What information do we collect through automatic data collection technologies?
Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small file placed on the hard drive of your computer. You may refuse to accept browser cookies by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our Website. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our Website.

Technically essential cookies

  • cookieSettings: Stores information about cookies handling. Please go to cookie settings for update or revoke the consent given.

Statistical cookies


Web Beacons (tracking pixels). Pages of the Website and our e-mails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit us, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an e-mail and for other related Website statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain Website content and verifying system and server integrity).

Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. Google Analytics uses cookies (see above) to help us analyse how you and others use the Website. Through the integration of the plugin, Google receives the information that you have called up the corresponding page of our Website. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the Website will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. However, your IP address will be truncated before it is passed on to Google.

Further information and the applicable data protection provisions of Google may be retrieved under www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ and under www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html. Google Analytics is further explained under the following Link www.google.com/analytics/.

Newsletters. We use CleverReach and sugarMarket by sugarCRM to send you newsletters. CleverReach (CleverReach GmbH & Co. KG, Mühlenstr. 43, 26180 Rastede) and sugarMarket are services which organise and analyse the distribution of newsletters. The data you provide (e.g. your email address) to subscribe to our newsletter will be stored on CleverReach servers in Germany or on sugarMarket servers in the USA. Sending our newsletters with CleverReach and sugarMarket enables us to analyse the behavior of newsletter recipients. Among other things, we can find out how many recipients have opened the e-mail containing the newsletter and how often various links contained therein are clicked. With the help of conversion tracking, we can also analyse whether a predefined action (such as e.g. registration for courses) takes place after clicking on the link in the newsletter. For more information on how data is analysed by CleverReach, please visit www.cleverreach.com/de/funktionen/reporting-und-tracking/ and www.sugarcrm.com/legal/terms-of-use/

YouTube. We use plugins from YouTube, which is operated by Google. The operator of the pages is YouTube LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. If you visit one of our pages featuring a YouTube plugin, a connection to the YouTube servers is established. Here the YouTube server is informed about which of our pages you have visited. If you're logged in to your YouTube account, YouTube allows you to associate your browsing behavior directly with your personal profile. You can prevent this by logging out of your YouTube account. YouTube is used to help make our Website appealing. Further information about handling user data, can be found in the data protection declaration of YouTube under www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy.

Facebook. Our Website includes plugins for the social network Facebook, Facebook Inc., 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA. The Facebook plugins can be recognised by the Facebook logo or the Like button on our Website. For an overview of Facebook plugins, see developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/. When you visit our Website, a direct connection between your browser and the Facebook server is established via the plugin. This enables Facebook to receive information that you have visited our Website from your IP address. If you click on the Facebook "Like button" while you are logged into your Facebook account, you can link the content of our Website to your Facebook profile. This allows Facebook to associate visits to our Website with your user account. Please note that, as the operator of this Website, we have no knowledge of the content of the data transmitted to Facebook or of how Facebook uses these data. For more information, please see Facebook's privacy policy at  de-de.facebook.com/policy.php. If you do not want Facebook to associate your visit to our Website with your Facebook account, please log out of your Facebook account.

Facebook pixel. Within our online services, based on our legitimate interest (interest of analysis, economic and efficient operations for our online services, we us „Facebook-Pixel” run by social network Facebook of Facebook Inc., 1 Hacker Way, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA, or if you are a resident in the European Union, Facebook Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland. Facebook is certified in accordance with the privacy-shield agreement which guarantees to abide the European data protection law (www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnywAAC&status=Active). By usage of Facebook-Pixel it is possible for Facebook to determine the visitors of our online services as target audience for displaying advertisements („Facebook-Ads”). We use Facebook- Pixel to display Facebook-Ads to Facebook-users, which have shown interest in our online services or show certain characteristics (for instance interest in certain topics or products, which are determined by the visited website), which we transmit to Facebook (so called „Custom Audiences”). By using Facebook-Pixel we like to ensure that our Facebook-Ads correspond with the users potential interest and are not annoying. With Facebook-Pixel we also can determine the effectiveness of our Facebook-Ads for statistical and market research purposes – this way we can see if the user has been forwarded to our website via Facebook-Ad (so called „Conversion”). The processing of data by Facebook takes place within the scope of Facebooks data use policy. Appropriate instructions for the display of Facebook-Ads can be found in the Facebook data use policy: www.facebook.com/policy.php. Specific information and details about Facebook-Pixel and their operating principle can be found in the help section of Facebook: www.facebook.com/business/help/651294705016616. You can object to the collection of data via Facebook-Pixel and the processing of your data to display Facebook-Ads. To adjust the settings concerning which advertisements are shown on Facebook, you can visit Facebooks dedicated page and follow the instructions to change the settings for usage based advertisements: www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads. These settings take place platform-independent – that means, that changes apply to all kinds of devices (PC, mobile devices, etc.).

LinkedIn. Our websites use components of LinkedIn, a social professional network operated by LinkedIn Corporation, Gardner House, Wilton Plaza, Wilton Place, Dublin 2, Ireland. We use LinkedIn’s Insight Tag. The LinkedIn Insight Tag generates a LinkedIn “browser cookie” that collects the following data: IP address, timestamp, page activities, demographic data from LinkedIn if the user is an active LinkedIn member. This technology enables us to monitor the performance of our ads and read information regarding user interaction on our website. Further information on how LinkedIn Insights works: www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/67595/linkedin-conversion-tracking-ubersicht?lang=en. We process your data in order to evaluate campaigns and collect information about users who might have reached our website via our LinkedIn campaigns. LinkedIn offers the ability to unsubscribe from e-mail messages, SMS messages and targeted ads, as well as manage ad settings at  www.linkedin.com/psettings/guest-controls. LinkedIn also uses partners such as Quantcast, Google Analytics, BlueKai, DoubleClick, Nielsen, Comscore, Eloqua and Lotame, which may set cookies. Such cookies can be rejected at www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy . LinkedIn's applicable privacy policy is available at www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy . LinkedIn's cookie policy is available at www.linkedin.com/legal/cookie-policy. If you would like to prevent the transmission of information to LinkedIn when visiting our websites, you can also do this in addition to the options described above by logging out of your LinkedIn account before calling up our websites.

X. Our Website uses features from X that are made available by Twitter International Unlimited Company, One Cumberland Place, Fenian Street, Dublin 2, D02 AX07, IRELAND. Due to our use of X, your browser will possibly establish a direct connection with your X account if you access a page on our Website that contains this feature. In the course of this data forwarding, data is also transmitted to X. Please note that we, as Website operator, have no knowledge of the content of the data transmitted and the use thereof by X. For further information on X’s privacy policy, please refer to the following link:  twitter.com/privacy. If you wish to change your X setting options to protect your privacy, you can do so using the following link: twitter.com/account/settings

3. On what basis we use your information?
We use your personal information on the following bases:

  • To fulfill our contract with you, in particular to provide you with the goods or services you have requested or purchased from us, including membership services, courses, publications and other content, accreditation and compliance.
  • For legitimate purposes, to better understand the needs, concerns, and interests of our members and customers so the we can operate optimally as an association.
  • To comply with legal and regulatory obligations, in particular to response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or to defend against legal claims.
  • We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us at privacy@eurospine.org. With limited exceptions (for instance, in relation to some of our marketing and promotion activities), generally we do not rely on consent as the legal basis for processing your personal data.


4. How we use your information?
We use your personal information for membership administration, to deliver member benefits to you, and to inform you of our activities, content, and other benefits or opportunities associated with your membership. We may also use this information to help us understand our members’ needs and interests to better tailor our offerings and services to meet your needs.
Sometimes we may use anonymous information about your use of our Website in combination with other users’ usage to make decisions about the contents and design of the Website. We may also share these anonymous statistics with potential sponsors and partners.
We may disclose your information in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or to defend against legal claims.
We may disclose your information when we believe it necessary or desirable in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our policies, and/or to protect our rights and property.

5. How we share your information with third parties?

As set forth above our Website uses interfaces with social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, X and others. If you choose to "like" or share information from our Website through these services, you should review the privacy policy of that service. If you are a member of a social media site, the interfaces may allow the social media site to connect your site visit to your personal data.
We do not reveal your personal data to third-parties for their independent use unless: (1) you request or authorise it; (2) it’s in connection with our general meetings, courses, accreditation and compliance as described above; (3) the information is provided to comply with the law (for example, to comply with a search warrant, subpoena or court order), enforce an agreement we have with you, or to protect our rights, property or safety, or the rights, property or safety of our employees or others; (4) the information is provided to our agents, vendors or service providers who perform functions on our behalf; (5) to address emergencies or acts of God; or (6) to address disputes, claims, or to persons demonstrating legal authority to act on your behalf; and (7) through our member directory.

Some of your personal data may be stored in our customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Our CRM platform includes data security protocols, such as data encryption. These protocols prevent outside sources from accessing, extracting, or corrupting the data we store in our CRM platform. We use our CRM platform to store, organise, segment, and analyse our member data so we can learn more about our membership and improve our services. We consistently monitor our CRM platform to protect data security and periodically audit our data management techniques to ensure that your data is not vulnerable to any breaches. Our CRM platform continuously backs up all data on multiple servers situated solely in Europe.

Your personal data provided to, or used by our event organiser, Mondial GmbH & Co. KG, in connection with your registration and attendance at our general meetings and courses, are, in addition to this policy, covered by a Joint Controller Agreement („JCA“) that addresses our combined data processing activities regarding certain categories of your personaldata, in conformity with our respective obligations under Art. 26 of the GDPR (a copy of the JCA agreement is available upon written request after verification by the EUROSPINE privacy office).

We may also gather aggregated data about our members and Website visitors and disclose the results of such aggregated (but not personally identifiable) information to our partners, service providers, advertisers and/or other third parties for marketing or promotional purposes.

6. What are your rights on your information?
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and other countries’ privacy laws provide certain rights for data subjects.

You can view, edit, or delete your personal data online. If you wish to confirm that we are processing your personal data, or to have access to the personal data we may have about you, please contact us at privacy@eurospine.org. Reasonable access to your personal data will be provided at no cost to you by us. If access cannot be provided within a reasonable time frame, we will provide you with a date when the information will be provided. If for some reason access is denied, we will provide an explanation as to why access has been denied.

You may also request information about: the purpose of the processing; the categories of personal data concerned; who else outside us might have received the data from us; what the source of the information was (if you did not provide it directly to us); and how long it will be stored. You have a right to correct (rectify) the record of your personal data maintained by us if it is inaccurate. You may request that we erase that data, cease or restrict processing it, subject to certain exceptions. In case of automated decision making, including profiling, you may request human intervention or challenge a decision.

In many countries, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the appropriate data protection authority if you have concerns about how we process your Information. When technically feasible, we will — at your request — provide your Information to you or transmit it directly to another controller.

7. How we keep your information safe?
We have put in place systems to safeguard the information you provide to us. We will never provide access to our databases to any third party, except to the extent necessary to conduct the operations of the Website and our activities (see section, What information do we collect through automatic data collection technologies).

8. How long we keep your information?
We process and store the personal data of you only for the period necessary to achieve the purpose of storage, or as far as this is granted by laws or regulations to which we are subject to. The criteria used to determine the period of storage of personal data is the respective statutory retention period. After expiration of that period, the corresponding data is routinely deleted, as long as it is no longer necessary for the fulfillment of the contract or the initiation of a contract.

If the storage purpose is not applicable, or if a storage period prescribed by the European legislator or another competent legislator expires, the personal data are routinely blocked or erased in accordance with legal requirements.

9. Who is responsible?
The controller of the processing of your Information is:

EUROSPINE, the Spine Society of Europe
c/o Pfister Treuhand AG
Bankstrasse 4
8610 Uster
Switzerland

E-mail: privacy@eurospine.org
Website: www.eurospine.org

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