Privacy Policy of the OPERAS website

The OPERAS AISBL (hereinafter called OPERAS) is the coordinating body of the Research Infrastructure supporting open scholarly communication in social sciences and humanities (SSH) in the European Research Area. Its mission is to coordinate and federate resources in Europe to efficiently address the scholarly communication needs of European researchers in the field of SSH.

According to Article 10 of the Directive 95/46/EC, this Privacy Policy describes how and when OPERAS and its partners collect, use, and share your information when you visit www.operas-eu.org or any OPERAS partner’s website (individually considered the “Site”, collectively considered the “Sites”). The services are provided by OPERAS located at Quai aux Briques 76, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, as the data controller. OPERAS receives your information through websites, email notifications, and other interactions with our Sites. When using any of our services, your information will be collected, transferred, stored, organized, interrogated, elaborated, modified, selected, retrieved, compared, utilized, interconnected, blocked, communicated, disseminated, erased, and used in other ways as described in this Privacy Policy, so please read it carefully.  

Information Collection and Use

Information you provide

You may provide personally identifiable information (“personal data”) about yourself when you use our services, by providing your name and other identifying information – such as the institution you are part of and your postal address – and by uploading materials and information that identifies you. 

OPERAS is the organization defining the scope of the service and taking decisions on the processing of personal data. The Sites collect and process personal data for the following purposes: 

  • Enabling the users to access the services of the Sites;
  • Managing the Sites and providing security when using the data controller’s infrastructure; 
  • Ensuring integrity of data stored by users; 
  • Monitoring the usage of the Sites, their services, and the infrastructure and troubleshooting of problems.

OPERAS shares your information with its partners in the pursuance of the purposes listed above. The partners meet all requirements of any OPERAS relevant policy or procedure, and have been appointed data processors according to article 17 (3) of Directive 95/46/EC. For more information and to know the complete list of the data processors, please contact abuse[a]operas-eu.org.

Information Collected Automatically

We may collect data automatically when you use the Sites. This may include, but is not restricted to, your IP address, software configurations, mobile device identification numbers, the address of the site you visited before the Services, and other similar data. 

Social Share Information

If you want to share information from the Sites to another service, such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google Plus or similar, you will need to authenticate yourself by using those services. If you do so, please check your settings on that service and read that service’s policies carefully. Those service’s policies may authorize it to share your information and authorize us to collect information such as your contacts, friends, and other similar available data. We will retain the identifying code associated with your account on the third party service you use to share the information, for as long as necessary to provide you with the services requested. When you connect to the other service to share information from the Sites, we may use information from that connected account to help complete your sharing activity. We may also collect information about you and your use of our Services through cookies and other similar technologies deployed on the Sites.  

Cookies and other similar technologies

Like many websites, we use “cookie” technology, and other similar technologies such as Web beacons, to collect additional website usage data and to improve our Services.

Cookies may be stored on your device and be transmitted again to you when you use the services a second time. By means of cookies, the Sites record user actions and preferences (such as, for example, the language chosen, the character dimension, etc.) so as to avoid that the user has to enter them when returning to the Site at a later date or when the user surfs a different page of the same Site. Cookies are therefore used to log in users, monitor browsing sessions, store information relating to the users who access the Sites, and may contain a unique identification code that makes it possible to track the user’s navigation within the Sites for statistical and advertising purposes. Users may download cookies on their devices owned by Sites and web servers different from the Site that they are actually visiting (“third-party cookies”). Some cookies are necessary for the technical functioning of the Site; if you do not accept the latter cookies, some functionalities and features of the Site may not be accessible.   

Different types of cookies exist, depending on their features and functions, and they might be stored on the users’ devices for different timeframes: session cookies are canceled at the end of each browsing session; persistent cookies may last up to a certain date that has been pre-set by their owner. 

  • On the basis of the law applicable to cookies, user consent to the latter is not always mandatory. The user’s consent is not necessary for “technical cookies”, such as cookies used exclusively with a view of carrying out the transmission of a communication on an electronic communications network, or insofar as this is strictly necessary to the provider of an information society service that has been explicitly requested by the contracting party or user to provide the said service or insofar the cookie has a limited impact on the user’s privacy and is used to obtain information about the quality or effectiveness of a service provided. The latter cookies are indispensable for the proper functioning of the Sites and to execute activities specifically requested by the users.   

Amongst the technical cookies that do not require explicit prior consent by the users to be deployed are the following: 

  • “cookie analytics” insofar as they are used directly by the website manager to collect aggregate information on the number of visitors and the pattern of visits to the website;
  • “browsing” or “session cookies” (to log in to the website);
  • “functional cookies”, which allow users to navigate as a function of certain predetermined criteria such as language or products to be purchased so as to improve the quality of service. 

For Profiling cookies, namely those aimed at creating user profiles and used to send advertising messages in line with the preferences shown by the user during navigation, the user’s prior consent is necessary. Profiling cookies can also be analytical cookies that are also used for profiling purposes. 

Types of cookies used by the Site and the possibility to deactivate them

The Site deploys the cookies listed below:

  • _pk_id – 13 months (used to store a few details about the user such as the unique visitor ID)
  • _pk_ref – 6 months (used to store the attribution information, the referrer initially used to visit the website)
  • _pk_ses, _pk_cvar, _pk_hsr – 30 minutes (short-lived cookies used to temporarily store data for the visit)
  • _pk_testcookie is created and should be then directly deleted (used to check whether the visitor’s browser supports cookies)
  • mtm_consent (or mtm_consent_removed) are created with an expiry date of 30 years to remember that consent was given (or removed) by the user. It is possible to define a shorter expiry period for your user consent by calling: _paq.push([‘rememberConsentGiven’, optionallyExpireConsentInHours]). Learn more in the Asking for consent developer guide.
  • mtm_cookie_consent is created with an expiry date of 30 years to remember that consent for storing and using cookies was given by the user. It is possible to define a shorter expiry period for your user cookie consent by calling: _paq.push([‘rememberCookieConsentGiven’, optionallyExpireConsentInHours]);. Learn more in the Asking for consent developer guide.
  • matomo_ignore – 30 years
  • matomo_sessid – 14 days (It is important to note that it doesn’t contain any data used to identify visitors and is considered an “Essential” cookie)

How to display and modify the cookie’s settings 

The users may select the cookies they want to enable, disable, or cancel cookies (wholly or partially) by using the functionalities below or by means of the tools offered by the browser used: however, please notice that if you disable technical/functional cookies, the website might not work properly and some services or some of the site’s functionalities may not be available or work smoothly, and you could be required to modify or manually fill in some information or preferences each time you visit the site.    

To know more about how to set your cookies preferences via your browser, read the guidance provided at the following links (OPERAS does not control these third-party browser sites or their instructions on enabling and disabling cookies; these pages may be updated, modified, or removed by the third party browser companies at their own discretion): 

To object to the use of any other technology similar to cookies, send an email to abuse[a]operas-eu.org 

To disable the cookies deployed by the websites (grouped by category), use the functionalities below. 

However, please notice that your choices regarding cookies on the websites will be recorded in a technical cookie. The latter cookie may, in some circumstances, not work properly: should such a case arise, we advise you to set your preferences regarding cookies via the browser’s tools as previously described. Your preferences regarding cookies shall be expressed for each of the devices or browsers you use to access the websites. 

Technical and Session Cookies

[  ]Enable 

[  ]Disable

Cookies Analytics 

[  ]Enable 

[  ]Disable

Profiling cookies

[  ]Enable 

[  ]Disable

This site also serves Third Party Cookies, namely cookies owned by sites and web servers different from the Sites that you are actually visiting, including profiling cookies. The latter third parties are listed below with the links to their respective privacy policies; you shall refer to their privacy policies and forms regarding the activation and deactivation of their respective cookies.

Third Parties

OPERAS uses a variety of third-party services to help provide our Services, such as hosting our Sites, to help us understand the use of our Services, such as Google Analytics, Matomo, and Mailchimp. These third parties may collect information sent by your browser or mobile devices, such as cookies, your IP address, or device ID, in the way described in the previous paragraph.

Sharing of Information 

We may share your information with the following entities: 

Affiliates and Partners. We may share your information with our affiliates—companies that control, are controlled by, or are under common control with, OPERAS — as well as selected partners. These entities may use your information to make predictions about your interests and may provide you with communications specifically targeted to you, promotional materials, advertisements, and other materials, on condition that they have been provided with specific consent after having informed you on a specific web page, as the case may require.

Parties When Required by Law or as Necessary to Protect Our Services. There may be instances when we disclose your information to other parties in order to:

  • Protect the legal rights of OPERAS, its partners and affiliates, and of the users of the Services;
  • Protect the safety and security of users of the Services;
  • Prevent fraud (or for risk management purposes); or
  • Comply with or respond to the law or legal process or a request for cooperation by a government entity, whether or not legally required. 

Other Parties in Aggregated Form. We may also share your information with third parties in aggregated or non-personally identifiable form.  

Other Parties in Connection With a Transfer of Assets. If we make a sale or transfer of assets or are otherwise involved in a merger or transfer, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy, we may transfer your information to one or more third parties as part of that transaction.

Security

We use physical, technical, and organisationa administrative controls to safeguard information in our possession against loss, theft, and unauthorized use, disclosure, or modification. Please note, however, that no data transmission or storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect the information we maintain, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information that you transmit to us.

Changes To This Policy

We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. The most current version of the policy will govern our use of your information and will be located at http://www.operas-eu.org/privacy-policy/. We may make changes to this policy at our sole discretion. 

Exercise of users’ data protection rights

You may contact OPERAS, via email at abuse[a]operas-eu.org, in order to assert your rights namely: the confirmation of the existence of data concerning yourself and their origin and processing and the purposes thereof; the (categories of) recipients of personal data; the cancellation, transformation into anonymous form, or the blocking of data processed in violation of the law; the updating, rectification, or integration of data; certification that the operations have been brought to the attention of those to whom the data were communicated or disseminated. You may also object at any time to the processing of your personal data.  
Questions.  If you have any questions about this policy or your privacy on the Services, please contact us at abuse[a]operas-eu.org