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Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Developing talents, advancing research

Privacy Statement for Science is Wonderful! 2026

Data Controller: European Commission Directorate-General For Education, Youth, Sport and Culture
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Unit

1. Introduction

The European Commission is committed to protect your personal data and to respect your privacy. 

The Commission collects and further processes personal data pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural persons 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 explains the reason for and purposes of the processing of your personal data in the context of the event in title, organised by the European Commission. 

It explains the way we collect, handle, and ensure protection of all personal data provided, how that information is used and what rights you have in relation to your personal data. 

It also specifies the contact details of the responsible Data Controller with whom you may exercise your rights, the Data Protection Officer and the European Data Protection Supervisor.

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2. Why and how do we process your personal data?

Purpose of the processing operation: the European Commission collects and further processes your personal data to provide you with information about Science is Wonderful! 2026 (before, during and after) and to process your application for participation in this event. 

Science is Wonderful! 2026 will consist of a physical science fair taking place in Brussels in spring 2026 as well as four contributions to science fairs in other Member States. 

Participants and researchers interested in taking part will apply through the Science is Wonderful! website (https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/science-is-wonderful) and EU Survey.

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

At the fair, live web-streaming and audio-visual recording at the event of the speakers, organisers and participants, as well as photographs of the speakers and panoramic photographs of participants and organisers will be taken and published in the context of the event at a site or place indicated in the specific consent forms linked to this event. 

The audience or non-speaker participants may be photographed in groups and may appear on panoramic photographs of the whole event.

Explicit consent from participants will be sought and treated through a specific separate consent form whenever they appear on publicly published pictures and audiovisual recordings.

Participants concerned will be contacted by the organisers to gather their consent.

Profiles of participating researchers might be published at a dedicated website (https://mariesklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/science-is-wonderful), subject to their prior explicit consent.

The European Commission will also collect through EU Survey, email and paper forms statements from researchers and participants on why science is wonderful and publish them in an online wall on the Science is Wonderful! website (https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu /science-is-wonderful).

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4. Which personal data do we collect and further process?

The following personal data may be processed regarding the physical event:

  • For participating researchers: first name, last name, gender, e-mail, phone number, identity card/passport data – including validity dates, birth date, country of nationality and residence, postal address and city, languages spoken, organisation/institution/school full name, job/position/function within this organisation, information (biography), picture, social media information, dietary requirements, financial information (such as a payment card number or bank account) may be collected for possible reimbursements.
  • For participating teachers: data necessary to allow for their classes’ participation in the event and share their feed statements on why science is wonderful on the event’s website, including first name, last name, e-mail, dietary requirements, position, phone number, address.
  • For all participants: pictures, and/or audio and video recording of participants, researchers, and speakers, subject to the explicit and free consent from them.

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5. How long do we keep your personal data?

The Data Controller only keeps your personal data for the time necessary to fulfill the purpose of this processing or further processing. 

For each of the categories of personal data that may be processed, please find below the retention details and the reference to the relevant record of processing:

  • Personal data related to the organisation and management of the event (this includes the information given during the registration, before, during, or after the event) will be kept for five years after the event.
  • Sensitive personal data relating to dietary and/or access requirements will be deleted as soon as they are no longer necessary for the purpose for which they have been collected in the framework of the event, but no later than within 1 month after the end of the event.
  • Recordings from the web-streamed event will be kept for 2 years before being deleted. More information is available in the Record of Processing DPR-EC-00306 (Web-streaming of Commission events).
  • Photos and videos for which consent was obtained through duly completed and signed Consent Form(s) for the event will be kept for 2 years. Their publication in the channels identified in the Consent Form will follow the longevity of the content posted therein unless consent was withdrawn at an earlier stage.
  • Photos and videos made at the photo booth will be kept for 7 days.
  • In case of audio-visual recording of the event, the recordings will be kept for 3 months after the event before being deleted. More information is available in the Record of Processing DPR-EC-01937 (Audio-visual recording of meetings).

Personal data shared with the controller for future mailing purposes (e.g., for receiving newsletters or invitations to similar events) are processed in line with the Record of Processing DPR-EC-03928 (Management of subscriptions to receive information) and the specific privacy statements prepared by the organising Commission service.

Selected service providers for organisational purposes (such as caterers, travel agents, or event management organisations) are contractually bound to process personal data on behalf of and in line with the instructions of the data controller, to keep confidential any data they process and to protect it from unauthorised access, use, and retention.

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6. How do we protect and safeguard your personal data?

All personal data in electronic format are stored on the servers of the European Commission and its contractors until the end of their retention period. 

All processing operations are carried out pursuant to Commission Decision (EU, Euratom) 2017/46 of 10 January 2017 on the security of communication and information systems in the European Commission.

To protect your personal data, the Commission has put in place several technical and organisational measures. Technical measures include appropriate actions to address online security, risk of data loss, alteration of data, or unauthorised access, taking into consideration the risk presented by the processing and the nature of the personal data being processed. 

Organisational measures include restricting access to the personal data solely to authorised persons with a legitimate need to know for the purposes of this processing operation.

The Commission’s processors (contractors) are bound by a specific contractual clause for any processing operations of your personal data on behalf of the Commission. The processors have to put in place appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the level of security, required by the Commission.

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7. Who has access to your personal data and to whom is it disclosed?

Access to your personal data is provided to the Commission staff responsible for carrying out this processing operation and to other authorised Commission staff according to the “need to know” principle. 

Such staff abide by statutory, and when required, additional confidentiality agreements.

When necessary, we may also share your information with service providers for the purposes of organising the event. 

The service provider used by the data controller is:

Audio-visual recordings, photographs, presentations, names and contact details of researchers, speakers and teachers will be published based on consent from them.

Cookies

Cookies are short text files stored on a user’s device (such as a computer, tablet, or phone) by a website. 

Cookies are used for the technical functioning of a website (functional cookies) or for gathering statistics (analytical cookies). Cookies will be gathered through the following websites:

  • The registration for researchers and schools to take part in the fair takes place via a Commission website – https://marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/science-is-wonderful and via EU Survey: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/. The cookies employed by the Commission on the registrant’s device for that purpose will be covered by the cookie policy of the Commission, which is available here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/cookies_en
    • When registering you can check in the above specific privacy statement how long we will keep the browser history of your visit. This information will then be deleted. The collection, aggregation, and anonymising operations are performed in the data centre of the European Commission under adequate security measures.
    • Cookies are stored by Europa Analytics, the corporate service which measures the effectiveness and efficiency of the European Commission's websites on EUROPA. More information is available in the Record of Processing DPR-EC-00685 (Europa Analytics).

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 the meeting/event website may not work as intended.

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

Should you wish to opt your personal data out of our anonymised, aggregated statistics, you can do so on our cookies page. In particular, you can control and/or delete those cookies as you wish.

Third party IT tools, including Social Media

We may use third-party IT tools to inform about and promote the event through widely used communication channels, including social media. 

For detailed information about the use of social media by the European Commission, see the Record of Processing DPR-EC-00073 (Social Media Use by the European Commission).

You may be able to watch our videos, which may be also uploaded to one of our social media pages and follow links from our website to other relevant social media.

To protect your privacy, our use of third-party IT tools to connect to those services does not set cookies when our website pages are loaded on your computer (or other devices), nor are you immediately redirected to those social media or other websites. 

Only in the event that you click on a button or “play” on a video to watch it, a cookie of the social media company concerned will be installed on your device. If you do not click on any social media buttons or videos, no cookies will be installed on your device by third parties.

To view such third-party content on our websites, a message will alert you that you need to accept those third parties’ specific Terms and Conditions, including their cookie policies, over which the Commission has no control.

We recommend that users carefully read the relevant privacy policies of the social media tools used. These explain each company’s policy of personal data collection and further processing, their use of data, users' rights, and the ways in which users can protect their privacy when using those services.

The use of a third-party IT tool does not in any way imply that the European Commission endorses them or their privacy policies. In the event that one or more third-party IT tools are occasionally unavailable, we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to their downtime.

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8. What are your rights and how can you exercise them?

You have specific rights as a ‘data subject’ under Chapter III (Articles 14-25) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725, in particular the right to access your personal data and to rectify them in case your personal data are inaccurate or incomplete. 

Where applicable, you have the right to erase your personal data, to restrict the processing of your personal data, to object to the processing, and the right to data portability.

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data, which is lawfully carried out pursuant to Article 5(1)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 on grounds relating to your particular situation.

The European Commission will ensure that the data subjects can exercise their right to object to processing whenever possible by the organisers of the event (for example, on the spot by indicating a non-web streamed seat if requested; or ex-post, by deleting a specific sequence from the online video/voice recording).

If you consented to provide your personal data to the data controller for several processing operations, mentioned under Heading 3, you will be able to withdraw that consent at any time by notifying the data controller. Withdrawal of your consent will not affect the lawfulness of the processing carried out before the withdrawal occurred.

You can exercise your rights by contacting the data controller, or in case of conflict the Data Protection Officer. If necessary, you can also address the European Data Protection Supervisor. Their contact information is given under Heading 9 below.

Where you wish to exercise your rights in the context of one or several specific processing operations, please provide their description (i.e. their Record reference(s) as specified under Heading 10 below) in your request.

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9. Contact information

  • The Data Controller: If you would like to exercise your rights under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725, or if you have comments, questions or concerns, or if you would like to submit a complaint regarding the collection and use of your personal data, please feel free to contact the Data Controller:
    • European Commission Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture Unit EAC.C2 – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
    • Email: EAC-MSCA-SIW@ec.europa.eu
  • The Data Protection Coordinator (DPC) of DG EAC: You may contact the EAC DPC (EAC-DATA-PROTECTION@ec.europa.eu) with regard to issues related to the processing of your personal data by the Data Controller.
  • The Data Protection Officer (DPO) of the Commission: You may contact the Data Protection Officer (DATA-PROTECTION-OFFICER@ec.europa.eu) regarding issues related to the processing of your personal data under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725.
  • The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS): You have the right to have recourse (i.e., you can lodge a complaint) to the European Data Protection Supervisor (edps@edps.europa.eu) if you consider that your rights under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 have been infringed as a result of the processing of your personal data by the data controller.

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10. Where to find more detailed information?

The Commission Data Protection Officer (DPO) publishes the register of all processing operations on personal data by the European Commission, which have been documented and notified to him. 

You may access the register via the following link: http://ec.europa.eu/dpo-register.

This specific processing operation has been included in the DPO’s public register with the following Record reference: DPR-EC-1063.

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