The following explanations and questions seeking your consent are in line with the data protection practices in the European Union that are binding for Global Talent Mentoring. They apply for all mentors and mentees (the participants) involved in Global Talent Mentoring. Everybody volunteering for and participating in Global Talent Mentoring needs to consent to the Privacy Policy first.
If you have any questions about our privacy policy and the consent we seek, please contact us (info@globaltalentmentoring.org).
Our Definition of Personal Data
Personal Data include all the information we collect about you for Global Talent Mentoring. They include any personal information you provide during the application process. They also include the data that are created and collected as you use the platform. Furthermore, any data we store about you (e.g., reports, achievements) and additional information you share with us, for example, if you communicate via email with us, are considered personal data as well. When you read about “data” or “information” in the following text, it includes all manner of data, including your personal data. Please be aware that we also collect data you provide about other individuals and institutions (i.e., third-party data).
How and Why We Store and Process Your Personal Data
We will save and process all the information you provide during the application process, while using the mentoring platform, or communicating with us off the platform (e.g., via email). This includes information about yourself, your background, your achievements, and the people and institutions you name when providing this information. Additionally, it includes technical information related to the devices you are using to access the platform.
We will use the information you provide to (a) implement the application process and, should you be accepted into the program, (b) facilitate your mentoring and networking experiences on the platform, and (c) ensure effective mentoring and networking and adherence to our Code of Conduct. We will use the information you provide during the application and participation to carry out ongoing research into effective mentoring, networking, and talent development in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and the medical sciences (STEMM). Furthermore, we will use the technical information we collect to ensure proper operation of the platform from a technical standpoint. We will now describe each of these uses in more detail.
Implementing the Application Process.
For the application-review process, we may contact the people and institutions you mention in your application to verify the information you provided. This is important for the accuracy and fairness of our application-review process. To this end, we may also share information you give us with representatives of institutions mentioned by you as well as with other institutions that we think are relevant for evaluating the information you provided. We will not, however, make any of this information public. We will store your data as they were reviewed during the application-review process for five years after you are no longer involved with Global Talent Mentoring.
Facilitating Your Mentoring and Networking Experience.
To this end, the platform provides participants with a series of tools and features for recording data and sharing it. These currently include the following: text messaging, audio and video messaging, real-time video and audio chat, user profiles, program representative communication, questionnaires and conversations with program representatives about the mentoring experience, forums, and tools for setting goals and tasks and working on these individually and collaboratively. Some of the data you share via these tools and features will be shared automatically with all participants. In some cases, you can decide which participants see your data. The data will be displayed on the platform as long as you are a participant. When you no longer participate, most of your data will no longer be visible. Your contributions to forums will be kept, but your name will be replaced with a pseudonym on your posts. Data collected for facilitating your mentoring and networking experience will not be shared beyond the platform without first seeking your permission in writing, with the exception of the unusual cases described below.
Carrying out Ongoing Research Into Effective Mentoring, Networking, and Talent Development in STEMM.
To this end, we will use data you provided when you applied as a mentee or mentor, the data you generate using the platform while participating, and the data that program representatives collect when interacting with you as you participate in Global Talent Mentoring. Learning about your mentoring, networking, and talent development activities in STEMM is an essential part of this research, because this is the focus of the program. The research is essential for ensuring a high-quality educational service. This will also include technical data about how you interact with the mentoring platform (e.g., the time you spend on individual platform pages). For our research, we will store and process your data in a pseudonymized form only. This means that we store and process your data in a manner that hinders others from identifying you personally (i.e., directly or indirectly connecting the data about you with your name or contact information). Without our cooperation, pseudonymized data used in our research cannot normally be traced back to you. We point out, however, that technical measures currently unbeknownst to us could exist or arise in the future that make it possible for others to trace pseudonymized data back to you without our cooperation. Pseudonymized data about you may be viewed by researchers at the University of Regensburg and by collaborating researchers working at similar institutions located within the European Union (EU), Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland, and other countries for which the European Commission has determined via a valid “adequacy decision” (as defined and explained in article 45, paragraphs 1–9 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation, hereinafter “GDPR”) that such countries offer a sufficient level of protection of personal data. We will store your pseudonymized research-relevant data for as long as research in relation to Global Talent Mentoring is being conducted. As we hope to follow those who participate in Global Talent Mentoring over their lifespans, we may maintain these data for a very long time. However, we will review the necessity of using your data for research at least once every ten years and delete the data if they are no longer necessary for our research.
To ensure proper operation of the mentoring platform and rectify technical problems, we will keep track of the IP addresses associated with the devices on which you log into our mentoring platform, the dates and times when you are logged into the mentoring platform, the parts of the mentoring platform you visit, information about the browsers and operating systems you are using, and the HTTP status requests and status codes.
During the application and as you participate in Global Talent Mentoring, we will not ask you to provide any special categories of personal data. In the European Union (according to article 9, paragraph 1 of the GDPR), special categories of personal data include data with information about your biometrics, genetics, race, ethnicity, physical or mental health, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade-union affiliation, or sexual preferences. Please be aware, however, that you might choose to share special categories of personal data as you use the mentoring platform. Those data, too, will be used to the ends described above. We will not share this information with others outside of the mentoring platform, other than in the exceptional cases noted above. However, we cannot guarantee that all such information (should you provide any) will be fully masked when we use your data for our research. Due to this possibility, we point out that the consent you grant us also applies to special categories of personal data, should you share any special categories of personal data with us.
Legal Basis for Our Processing of Your Information
The legal basis for our processing of your information is provided by article 6, paragraph 1, point (a) and article 9, paragraph 2, point (a) of the GDPR.
Your Rights in Connection with Your Data
You have the right to receive information about the personal data we have stored about you. If you so request, you will receive information about (a) the aims of the processing of your personal data, (b) the categories of your personal data we process, (c) the recipient(s) (or categories of recipients) to whom your personal data has been or will be made available in the future, (d) the length(s) of time your personal data will be saved or the criterion or criteria on which such a period is or such periods are based, and (e) the source(s) of your personal data that have not been directly obtained from you.
You have a right to have your personal data corrected and/or deleted. This means that you have the right to (a) refuse the processing of your personal data, (b) restrict how they are processed, and (c) have them deleted. The extent to which we fulfill your data-emendation and data-deletion requests may be limited by two factors: legal requirements that mandate us to continue to process your personal data (e.g., due to applicable university or archival laws in the European Union, Germany, or Bavaria) and previous and ongoing use of your personal data in pseudonymized form for research activities related to the application process and the mentoring program. In the case of data-deletion requests, we will make reasonable efforts to fully anonymize all data related to you that we have collected for our research. While efforts to anonymize your data will make it extremely difficult for anyone to connect data about you with your name or other unique forms of identification, we cannot guarantee perfect anonymization. This means that some risk remains that—despite our efforts to prevent this from happening—it may be technically possible to reconnect anonymized data with your name or other unique forms of identification. Finally, please note that if you stop us from processing your personal data, this will make it impossible for you to apply for or participate in Global Talent Mentoring. As explained above, we require this permission to the make the application and participation possible. Any requests you make that restrict how we are processing your data may or may not prevent you from applying to or participating in Global Talent Mentoring, depending on the exact nature of your request.
You Are Not Legally Required to Share Your Personal Data with Us
As explained above, we will ask you to share with us personal information about yourself for the application-review process and for conducting research related to the application process and the mentoring program. For this reason, you can only apply to Global Talent Mentoring by providing the personal information described above during the application process. In accordance with article 13, paragraph 2, point (e) of the GDPR, we point out to you that you are not legally required to provide any personal information. This means that no law or other government rule requires you to share personal information with us. Doing so is your choice. However, should you choose not to provide the requested personal information, you then cannot apply to Global Talent Mentoring. Should you ask us to delete some or all of your personal data after submitting your application, we would not be able to consider you during our application-review process and you would no longer be eligible to participate in Global Talent Mentoring. Should you ask us to delete your personal data after we have accepted you as a mentee for Global Talent Mentoring, this request would disqualify you from participating in Global Talent Mentoring (whether or not participation has commenced). Your decision to not provide personal data in the first place or to have us delete personal data you already provided would have no additional consequences besides making you ineligible to participate in Global Talent Mentoring.