Data protection is a priority for Profile Group.

For this reason, we want to make sure that, whoever you are, you understand the type of data we treat, how and why we gather it, who we share it with, how long we store it, your rights, and how we protect it.

We have done our best to be as clear as possible in this document. However, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions at our general email address: profile@profilegroup.com.

1. WHAT TYPE OF DATA DO WE DEAL WITH?

We may collect and process the following categories of personal data:.

·         For our clients:

1. Personal ID information, such as names and addresses;
2. Electronic ID information, such as email addresses, mobile phone numbers and cookies;
3. Information about current employment;
4. Information about recruitment;
5. Information about how work is organised.

• For candidates:

1. Personal ID information, such as names and addresses;
2. Electronic ID information, such as email addresses, mobile phone numbers and cookies;
3. Personal details such as age, sex, date of birth, place of birth, marital status, nationality and language;
4. Immigration status, such as the existence of a valid work permit for Belgium;
5. Psychological descriptions, such as personality, thanks to a psychometric test;
6. Academic career;
7. Professional qualifications, including professional training and possession of a driving licence;
8. Professional experience;
9. Affiliation/involvement with professional organisations;
10. Publications;
11. Information about current employment;
12. Information about recruitment;
13. Information about the end of employment;
14. Career details;
15. Information about how work is organised;
16. Salary details;
17. Images;
18. Information about leisure activities and interests.

Please note that Profile Group has decided not to ask candidates for so-called sensitive information as defined by privacy regulations, apart from specifically when required by law or authorised by a particular circumstance. This is why you are generally asked not to provide this type of information, in other words, details revealing your racial or ethnic background, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or membership of a union, as well as genetic or biometric details, information about your health, or information about your sexual activities or orientation, criminal convictions and offences when you fill in a form or complete a profile on Profile Group’s website, or interact in any way whatsoever with Profile Group.

2. HOW IS YOUR DATA COLLECTED?

For our clients, the personal information is collected via contact forms, LinkedIn, emails, telephone calls as well as online and face to face meetings.

For candidates, the personal information is collected through various channels:

a. Sending an application

Profile Group processes all the information provided by applicants when they fill in a registration form, either in response to a job vacancy, or when submitting an ad hoc application.

To complete these registration forms, applicants are invited to provide their contact details (surname, first name, telephone number and email address), as well as send a CV.

Having sent this data to Profile Group, applicants may, if they want, sign in to their personal, secure profile to change the information already provided and/or add to their profile by providing other details needed for the purposes described below: professional experience, training, languages spoken, preferred salary, photo etc..

b. Telephone and/or video interview

If an applicant chooses to provide the abovementioned information via a registration form and/or an ad hoc application, he/she explicitly agrees that Profile Group will use these details to contact him/her by telephone and/or email to receive more information about the services offered by Profile Group and, if he/she would like, to provide more information about his/her professional expectations.

c. Recruitment interview

If an applicant agrees to have an interview with Profile Group, he/she explicitly agrees that Profile Group can use his/her personal data to invite him/her to this interview and to assess him/her during this interview, including with psychometric tests, as well as to check the references and information provided. The above implies, among other things, that Profile Group will, if applicable, get in touch with the businesses and/or organisations mentioned by the applicant.

3. WHY DO WE PROCESS YOUR INFORMATION?

This information is processed by Profile Group to offer its services relating to recruitment and career management, to analyse and manage applications, and to improve its services and communication tools on a continuous basis. This involves:

·         Gathering data via a registration form or an ad hoc application, the applicant’s personal profile, a telephone or even video interview, a face-to-face interview, psychometric tests, personality questionnaires etc.;

·         Saving this data;

·         Viewing this data;

·         Checking and analysing this data;

·         Communicating the candidate’s data to third parties – in other words, predominantly clients of Profile Group who have asked the latter to provide one or more job advertisements – in order to pass on applications for an existing job vacancy(ies) in which the applicants have expressed an interest;

·         Producing statistics, market research etc. in order to improve the experience of users of Profile Group’s services;

·         Proactive communication to applicants who have explicitly made this choice of new job vacancies, and so not only for the existing job vacancy(ies) in which the applicants have expressed an interest, that might meet the professional expectations expressed by the applicants when they filled in a registration form and/or their profile.

It is because you have given your permission for this that Profile Group can process this personal information. Profile Group needs to collect this data to fulfil the purposes mentioned above. In fact, if this data is not collected, Profile Group would not be able, for example, to manage incoming applications correctly. That having been said, as this data processing is based solely on your consent, you are free to withdraw your consent at any time, in writing, without detracting from the legality of any data processing carried out before this consent is withdrawn.

4. WHO DO WE SHARE THIS DATA WITH?

Applicants’ data is only shared with:

·         The applicants themselves;

·         Members of staff working for Profile Group;

·         Clients who have appointed Profile Group for its services, and for the sole purposes of recruitment entrusted to Profile Group;

·         Profile Group’s subcontractors (for example, hosting company) insofar as it is necessary for the fulfilment of their roles or if required by law;

5. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR DATA?

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this policy document and to comply with legal obligations.

When an applicant fills in a registration form, submits an ad hoc application and/or adds to his/her personal profile on a Profile Group website, he/she explicitly accepts that his/her data will be kept in a database managed by Profile Group.

The data is kept as long as is necessary to accomplish the goals for which the data was acquired and in accordance with our legitimate interests as a data controller. However, in exceptional circumstances, the data may be kept longer if a legal and administrative monitoring demands that it is kept for longer.

The applicants in question will be informed by email +/- 1 month before their data is due to be deleted. Applicants may then, if they want, explicitly ask Profile Group to keep their data longer, in order to allow Profile Group to contact them proactively to suggest a job vacancy that might be of interest to them. In this case, the same procedure will be applied before the end of this new period, and so on.

6. WHAT ARE YOUR RIGHTS?

You have the following rights regarding your personal data:

·         The right to access and rectify your personal data;

·         The right to request the erasure of your personal data (subject to legal obligations);

·         The right to restrict processing or object to the processing of your personal data;

·         The right to data portability;

·         The right to withdraw consent at any time (where applicable).

By sending a dated, signed request (including electronically) by email to dpo@profilegroup.com or by standard post along with proof of ID, anyone can get a free copy (including electronically) of his/her personal information from Profile Group, as well as being able to correct, delete incorrect or incomplete information or limit how it is used, within 1 month of receipt of the request. Anyone also has the right to transfer their data. After this deadline of 1 month, if there is no response or reaction from Profile Group, you can assume that your request has been rejected.

Furthermore, Profile Group provides any candidate/applicant with the access to an online personal space called ‘profile’ where the candidate can exercise their right to consult, edit or delete their personal data.

If Profile Group has passed on targeted data to other people, for example clients who have appointed Profile Group for its services, Profile Group will take all reasonable measures to inform these people of the request to delete any link to this data or any copy or reproduction of it.

If an applicant would like to make a complaint, he/she can do so by contacting our Data Protection Manager at dpo@profilegroup.com.

7. HOW DO WE PROTECT YOUR DATA?

Personal data is processed in Belgium and stored in a data centre at AWS Europe.

Profile Group takes appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect data, in particular against unauthorised handling and access, and will make every effort to make sure that these measures are as up-to-date as possible, given the state of knowledge, costs for implementation and the nature, scope, context and purposes of the processing as well as the risks for the applicants.

If Profile Group passes on data to clients who have appointed it, it undertakes to take all reasonable measures to safeguard the security and confidentiality of the data, in accordance with the applicable laws.

Legislation regarding privacy can sometimes be adapted and improved, so this document is also subject to change. Profile Group therefore recommends that you consult it regularly if you visit its websites, and will make sure that any changes, modifications and adaptations are clearly marked.

GUIDELINES ABOUT COOKIES

Viewing a website belonging to Profile Group involves collecting personal data via cookies or similar technology.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small text file saved by the browser on the user’s computer/smartphone/tablet when he/she visits websites. The use of cookies helps websites function as efficiently and simply as possible.

Each user manages and can control his/her own cookies at any time via his/her browser settings, and can delete them when leaving a website that he/she has visited. If a user disables cookies on his/her browser, he/she will be able to see some of the content of the Profile Group website, but the optimum functioning of Profile Group’s services may be affected.

What type of cookies are we talking about?

There are different kinds of cookies. Some are needed for the smooth functioning of a website, others are used to improve and/or simplify its use.

Strictly necessary cookies are essential for the functioning of Profile Group websites. These cookies do not collect any information about the user that can be used for marketing purposes, and are essential for using Profile Group websites. These cookies are exempt from the requirement for consent, in accordance with article 29 of the law on electronic communications dated 13 June 2005.

Functional cookies allowing us to save user connection details, secure the user’s connection to Profile Group websites and provide real-time support (Live Chat). These cookies do not collect any information about the user that can be used for marketing purposes. These cookies are also exempt from the requirement for consent.

Authentication cookies allow users to sign in and access secure content. These cookies do not collect any information about the user that can be used for marketing purposes. These cookies are also exempt from the requirement for consent.

Performance cookies allow Profile Group to collect information about how users navigate Profile Group’s websites and adapt and improve its web services, if applicable. Profile Group is not able to identify users using this type of cookie, and all the data collected by these cookies is handled anonymously. These cookies do not collect any information about the user that can be used for marketing purposes. These cookies are stored on the basis of consent provided by the user.

Targeting / third party cookies. Profile Group sometimes carries out advertising campaigns, some of which involve third parties, which may sometimes store cookies (or similar technology) to assess the success of the campaign, or to show a targeted advertisement to suit the interests of users, or to limit the number of views per user. For example, links to social networking sites or videos hosted on YouTube are for third parties that might, if applicable, store cookies on Profile Group websites. These cookies are stored on the basis of consent provided by the user.

If a user refuses the use of this type of cookie, only the pages and services that do not need these cookies can be shown, viewed and used. Parts of Profile Group websites that technically allow the inclusion of third-party content – and so third-party cookies – will no longer be accessible and a message will inform users of this.

A distinction should also be made between session cookies and persistent cookies.

Session cookies are automatically deleted from the user’s computer hard disk or browser memory when the user logs out and/or closes the browser.

Persistent cookies are stored on the user’s computer hard disk or browser memory for a limited period (minutes, days or years) after logging off or closing the browser.

The table below shows the cookies used on Profile Group websites and the cookies used by third parties in detail.

Name of the cookie	Domain using the cookie	Purpose of the cookie	Durability of the cookie	Category
ASPSESSIONIDAADCQRTR	www.profilegroup.com	Automatically generated. This cookie is used to communicate with the server to post job offers and/or to log in to a profile.	Expires at the end of the user session	Strictly necessary
_utma, _utmb, _utmc, _utmz	www.profilegroup.com	Google Analytics cookies are used to analyze the user behavior on the Profile Group websites. These data are used to improve these websites. The collected data – the number of visits and visitors, how visitors arrived on the sites, the duration of the visit, the number of pages visited, … – are anonymous.	_utma: 2 years _utmb: 30 min _utmc: end of the session _utmz: 6 months	Performance
popupChoice	www.profilegroup.com	This cookie remembers the user’s choice made on the pop-up home page.	1 day	Functionality
pg_cookieconsent_status	www.profilegroup.com	This cookie remembers the user’s choice regarding the use of cookies.	1 day, once for each language	Functionality
gdprPopupInfo	www.profilegroup.com	This cookie remembers the user’s choice made on top banner info GDPR.	3 days, once for each language	Functionality

CONTACT US

If you have any questions or concerns about our Data Protection policy or how we handle your personal data, please contact us at: dpo@profilegroup.com.

By using our services, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Data Protection policy and agree to its terms and conditions.

Last update 26-09-2023