1. About Bepublic Group

Bepublic Group offers public relations (PR) services.

The following entities are part of Bepublic Group and offer services:

  • Bepublic Group
  • Befirm
  • Bereal
  • Bepublic

Mediafin NV, with registered office at Havenlaan 86c bus 309, 1000 Brussels and with company number 0404.800. 301 (hereinafter “Mediafin”, “we” or “our”), in its capacity as a data controller, attaches great importance to privacy and therefore undertakes to protect personal data with the utmost care and to process personal data only in a fair and lawful manner in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 (hereinafter “GDPR”), as well as any applicable current or future national or international legislation implementing or replacing it.

This privacy statement intends to clearly indicate what data Mediafin collects when you request information, purchase products or use the services of Bepublic Group, or a third party for whom Bepublic Group acts as an external controller, how these data are collected and used, their purpose, what rights you have and how you can exercise your rights.

2. Information about Bepublic Group’s processing activities

This section will describe the following:

  • When we collect your personal data;
  • For what purposes;
  • What legal basis we use for this;
  • What precise data we collect; and
  • How long we keep the data.

2.1 Maintaining relationships with journalists

  • Description: Maintaining correspondence with journalists
  • Purpose: Managing relationships with journalists and distributing content (press release, news video, opinion piece, etc.) via email or via social media
  • Legal basis: Necessity for execution of a contract
  • Personal data: Name, title, position, email address, phone number, Twitter account (possibly)
  • Retention period: End of professional relationship with journalists

2.2 Organisation of events

  • Description: Organisation of all kinds of events from BePublic, where among other things guest speakers can come and speak (e.g. 10 years BePublic event)
  • Purpose: To process personal data in the context of: (i) overview of the people who participate, (ii) overview of the activities that are participated in, (iii) post-event communication provided.
  • Legal basis: Legitimate interest
  • Personal data: First name, name, email address, company name, postal address, language, country
  • Retention period: 2 years after last event

2.3 B2B sales

  • Description: Provision of services such as strategic communication, media training and corporate communication: creation of sales order, administration of order, facilitation of content production/billing process, provision of training
  • Purpose: Selling services to other companies
  • Legal basis: Necessity for execution of a contract
  • Personal data: First name, last name, company, email address, phone number, indication of whether it is a customer of Bepublic group, camera images
  • Retention period: 2 years after end of contractual relationship

2.4 Direct marketing to customers

  • Description: Sending direct marketing to customers for commercial purposes
  • Purpose: External and internal communication for promotional purposes
  • Legal basis: Legitimate interest
  • Personal data: First name, last name, email address, company
  • Retention period: 2 years after end of contractual relationship

2.5 Direct marketing to non-customers

  • Description: sending direct marketing to non-customers for commercial purposes
  • Purpose: External and internal communication for promotional purposes
  • Legal basis: Consent
  • Personal data: First name, last name, email address, company
  • Retention period: Withdrawal of consent

2.6 Maintain social media for clients

  • Description: Maintain customers’ social media channels such as e.g. Twitter accounts
  • Purpose: Manage correspondence on customers’ social media channels
  • Legal basis: Necessity for execution of a contract
  • Personal data: Login, password, social media data
  • Retention period: 4 weeks after end of contractual relationship

2.7 Management and administration of contact form websites

  • Description: Processing information entered via the contact forms on bepublic.be, bereal.be or befirm.be. Mainly deals with the submission of CVs and requests from companies seeking PR services.
  • Purpose: Manage correspondence via contact form websites
  • Legal basis: Necessity for execution of a contract
  • Personal data: Name, first name, email address, telephone number, CVs, message content
  • Retention period: As long as necessary to process the request/question

2.8 Management of suppliers

  • Description: Management of suppliers such as translators, transporters, cameramen, florists, etc
  • Purpose: Administration of suppliers
  • Legal basis: Necessity for execution of a contract
  • Personal data: Name, first name, email address, telephone number, account numbers
  • Retention period: 7 years after end of contractual relationship

2.9 Cooperation with customers

  • Description: Cooperation with customers in the context of the realisation of a project (production)
  • Purpose: Communication with customer in connection with project
  • Legal basis: Necessity for execution of a contract
  • Personal data: Name, first name, email address, telephone number
  • Retention period: 7 years after end of contractual relationship

3. Sharing of your data

Mediafin refrains from disclosing or selling personal data of data subjects to third parties, as well as from disclosing personal data of data subjects, except in the following specific cases:

  • Personal data may be shared between the different branches of Mediafin, if this transfer is necessary for the provision of our products or services in line with the predetermined purpose;
  • Buyers, or potential buyers, of all or part of Mediafin’s business (and their professional advisers);
  • Personal data may be shared with third-party service providers to whom Mediafin has outsourced certain processing activities. These third parties are bound by contractual obligations to keep your Personal Data confidential and adequately secured, such as ((i) hosting companies (who host our online platforms), (ii) technology/marketing tool companies (who help us manage our customers and deliver messages), (iii) analytics companies (who help us improve the experience) and (iv) event companies (who help us manage events); and public authorities, regulatory agencies and law enforcement officials, if required for the purposes specified above, if required to do so by law, or if required for the legal protection of our legitimate interests in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

With regard to international transfers of personal data and processing outside the European Economic Area (EEA), your data will only be transferred to other branches of Mediafin or to parties in third countries, such as software providers and cloud or mailing services, where permitted under applicable data protection laws. We guarantee appropriate safeguards to ensure that your rights are also respected by the recipient of the data outside the EEA in accordance with an adequate level of data protection.

4. Your rights

In accordance with the GDPR, you may exercise the following rights:

  • Right to information: You have the right to be informed about how your personal data is processed (in particular what personal data is processed, for what purposes and on what legal basis). The privacy statement you are reading now aims to do exactly this.
  • The right of access: You have the right to access your personal data and request a copy of the personal data.
  • The right to rectification: You have the right to have incorrect personal data corrected, or incomplete personal data completed.
  • Right to erasure: You can request the erasure of personal data held about you. The request to erase your personal data cannot always be granted, for example due to contractual or legal obligations.
  • Right to object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data, e.g. if the processing is carried out on the grounds of legitimate interest or the public interest of Mediafin processing your data. When your personal data is used for direct marketing purposes, you have an absolute right to object to this processing activity.
  • Right to withdraw your consent: For the processing of your personal data collected by Mediafin with your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time. However, the withdrawal of your consent does not apply to processing carried out by Mediafin prior to your withdrawal.
  • Right to restriction of processing: You have the right to obtain restriction of processing in certain situations, for example if you dispute the accuracy of personal data, for a period of time that allows Mediafin to verify the accuracy.
  • Right to data portability: You have the right to receive personal data concerning you, processed by Mediafin, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or to transfer such data to another data controller.
  • Right to lodge a complaint: In case of problems, we encourage you to contact Mediafin to reach an amicable agreement. However, if you consider that an amicable settlement is not possible or desirable, you may exercise your right to file a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority: Data Protection Authority, Drukpersstraat 35, 1000 Brussels, Tel +32 (0)2 274 48 00, e-mail: contact@apd-gba.be.

If processing your request requires unreasonable measures (e.g. it is technically or organisationally virtually impossible or extremely costly), Mediafin may charge you a reasonable fee in light of the administrative costs involved in processing the request. Mediafin may also refuse to process requests that are excessive, in particular due to their repetitive nature.

You can exercise these rights by sending an email to the following email address privacy@mediafin.be. We will process your request in accordance with applicable privacy laws.

5. Security

Mediafin has implemented technical and organisational security measures to prevent the destruction, loss, falsification, alteration, unauthorised access or disclosure of your personal data to third parties and any other unauthorised processing of such data.

We have made every effort to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the information systems and services in which personal data are processed. All our employees and third parties engaged by us are obliged to respect the privacy and security of your data.

6. Contact details

If you have any comments, questions or concerns about the information in this privacy statement, or any other issues relating to Mediafin’s processing of your personal data, please contact us at email address privacy@mediafin.be.

7. Modification of this privacy statement

We may amend or update this privacy statement from time to time to reflect changes in our practices regarding the processing of your personal data, or changes in applicable law. Significant changes will be notified on our homepage. Nevertheless, we encourage you to read our privacy statement regularly.