This privacy policy tells you about the information we collect from you when you use our website or the DACHS application. In collecting this information, we are acting as a data controller and, by law, we are required to provide you with information about us, about why and how we use your data, and about the rights you have over your data.
Who we are
A Data-Driven Approach Countering Hate Speech (DACHS) is a project jointly ran by The European Journalism Centre and Data Scouting.
Your privacy is critically important to us. At the European Journalism Centre we have some fundamental principles
- We are thoughtful about the personal information we ask you to provide and the personal information that we collect about you through the operation of our services.
- We store personal information for only as long as we have a reason to keep it.
- We aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what information we keep on you, explain what we use if for, with who we share it and explain the possibility to have it permanently deleted.
- We aim for full transparency on how we gather and use your personal information.
Services we provide
A Data-Driven Approach Countering Hate Speech provides the following three services
- An annotator Extension, a Google Chrome browser extension
- Alert Monitoring application
- RESTful API for developers
Throughout this Privacy Policy we’ll refer to our website and other products and services collectively as “Services.”
Information We Collect
We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so–for example, to provide our Services or to make our Services better. We collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.
Information You Provide to Us
It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us. The amount and type of information depends on the context and how we use the information. Here are some examples:
- Public Profile Information: When registering for the Alerts Monitor we require you to connect to your Twitter account via the Twitter oAuth API. When connecting we request consent for the collection of your Public Twitter Profile information such as Display Name, Full Name, Email and Profile Picture.
- Credentials: Depending on the Services you use, you may provide us with credentials to login to the backend of one of our Services (like username and password).
- Communications with us: You may also provide us with information when you reach out to us through our helpdesk.
- Annotated Content: Content that was flagged by an Annotator as hateful will be stored for further processing through the DACHS Suite. Collected data includes the Online Social Networks (OSN) reference ID, the body text and Annotator profile information. The collection of this data complies with the appropriate OSN development policies. Appropriate steps are taken to try to anonymise all data through data obfuscation.
- Alert Monitoring: By granting the Application access to your Twitter, the application will be able to read your Tweets, see who you follow and see your email. These are absolute minimum requirements for the Alert Monitoring to work.
- RESTful API: For the REST API to work we collect only minimum data such as email and username to grant you access to the system and monitor usage.
Information We Collect Automatically
We also collect some information automatically:
- Log Information: Like most online service providers, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information.
- Usage Information: We collect information about your usage of our Services. For example, We collect information about what happens when you use our Services (e.g., page views, button clicks) along with information about your device (e.g., mobile screen size, OS version, browser version). We use this information to, for example, provide our Services to you, as well as get insights on how people use our Services, so we can make our Services better.
- Location Information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our Services from certain geographic regions.
- Information from Cookies and Other Technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns.
How We Use Information
We use information about you as mentioned above and as follows:
- To provide our Services–for example to create your user account
- To monitor and protect the security of our Services, detect and prevent fraudulent subscriptions and other illegal activities and fight spam.
- To send you emails when potential Hate Speech was detected on your Twitter Feed.
Security
While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so.
Data retention and deletion
We only keep the data for as long as it is needed to do the job outlined in the above privacy policy. We can keep information for longer where it is necessary to comply with legal obligations and resolve disputes. We do keep website logs, which are kept for a longer period of time, to ensure website security and improving website functionalities.
Some data can be obfuscated from personal data and stored to improve the DACHS Suite Hate Speech detection engine.
Your rights
The General Data Protection Regulation aims to protect consumer data (‘data subjects’). Below are your rights as a data subject under the GDPR
- Access: You have the right to know which data we have collected about you and how such data has been processed;
- Data Portability: You have the right to ask us for your personal data and we will send it to you in a electronic format;
- Correction: You have the right to make changes to inaccurate data;
- Erasure: You can ask us to remove your personal data (‘Right to be forgotten) when there are no longer;
- Consent: You may revoke your consent and object to process your personal data at any time.
Complaints or questions
We try to uphold the highest of standards concerning collecting and using personal information. That is why we take complaints very seriously and we encourage everybody who thinks procedures are unfair or misleading to reach out to us. We also encourage everybody to contact us in case you have suggestions on how we could improve our procedures.
Data Controller
The European Journalism Centre and Data Scouting act as joint data controllers as defined by the General Data Protection Regulation.
Data Protection Officer
We have appointed a Data Protection Officer, who may be contacted using the information below.
The contact details of our Data Protection Officer are:
Daniels Lucas
Stichting European Journalism Centre
Petrus Regoutplein 1F02
6211XX Maastricht
The Netherlands
You can contact the Data Protection Officer by post at the above address or by email at privacy@ejc.net.