Privacy Policy

Welcome to our website! By using the website www.mdpadvocaten.be (hereinafter the "Website"), you expressly consent to the processing of your data as described in this Privacy Statement. If you have difficulties in understanding this Privacy Statement or if you cannot agree with its contents, we kindly request you not to use the Website. In case of questions or concerns, please contact us at any time using the details below.

Use of the Website is always subject to the latest version of this Privacy Policy. We recommend that you consult this Privacy Policy regularly.

Other relevant terms and conditions for visiting and using the Website can be found in our Terms of Use and in our Cookie Policy, which together with this Privacy Policy form a single document and jointly apply to your visit to the Website.

Please also note that if you wish to use our services, specific provisions apply regarding the processing of personal data. Such processing does not fall within the scope of the current Privacy Policy, but is communicated to our clients separately.

Summary

• Our website is mainly informative in nature. You may be able to use some applications and provide information in the process, but you are obviously not obliged to do so.
• Data is only used internally and passed on to meet your request or to improve our service. Data will not be shared with third parties who would use it for their own purposes. Nor will your data be resold.
• Data is deleted periodically and we protect your data with reasonable measures.
• The law grants you several rights. Although we prefer to resolve some concerns together, you can also always lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority.

1. Why this privacy notice?

When visiting and using the Website, MDP may process certain personal data of the visitor. In doing so, we act as a so-called data controller under privacy legislation.

MDP respects the privacy of the users of its Website. We will therefore only process your personal data in accordance with Belgian law (in particular the law of 30 July 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data) and the European General Data Protection Regulation (European Regulation 2016/679 or "GDPR"), as further described in this Privacy Policy. When you visit our Website, data about you or your computer is neither collected nor processed by MDP other than as set out in this Privacy Policy.

With this Privacy Policy, MDP wishes to inform you about how we process your personal data when you visit our Website. In doing so, we also want to clearly point out your rights in this regard.

2. Who processes your personal data?

The Website is operated by MDP Advocaten BV, with registered office at Jean-Baptiste de Ghellincklaan 31/001, 9051 Ghent, Belgium, and with company / VAT number BE(0)466.770.829 (hereinafter referred to as "MDP", "we" or "us/our").

You can easily reach us by e-mail (see the e-mail addresses on the Website) or by phone +32(0)9 223.90.03. Your questions will then be directed to the person responsible in our organisation for following up personal data protection enquiries and this person will deal with your query promptly.

3. What personal data are processed?

3.1. General

Our Website is informational in nature. You can browse our Website to look up information about our law firm, our services, news facts, etc. without having to provide any personal information or personal data to MDP, other than those contained in this Privacy Policy.

So, in general, you can visit our Website without providing any personal information. So we do not ask for personal information, but we may give the visitor the means to provide us with certain information.

3.2. Submission of data

Thus, we offer you the opportunity to contact us easily by e-mail. You can do this to ask us a question or request certain information.

In doing so, we only collect data that you provide to us and for which you give us permission to process. Of course, you can also visit our Website without providing us with this personal data. Under no circumstances will information indicating racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or other sensitive information be requested. In case you do provide this sensitive information on your own initiative, this will be deemed to be an explicit consent to the use of this information, for the purposes for which you have provided it.

Furthermore, we are naturally interested in statistical data that reveals interesting information about the success and performance of our Website, e.g. the number of website visitors, popular pages on our Website, etc. To this end, we record your IP address and domain name. And to adapt the facilities and functions to the user's equipment, we also keep track of the type of browser you use to access our Website. We process this data on the basis of our legitimate interest.

We also collect personal data based on cookies. See more detail on this in our Cookie Statement.

3.3. Links

Our Website contains links, for example to social media platforms. Please note that clicking on these links will redirect you to websites/platforms to which separate terms of use and privacy provisions apply. MDP takes no responsibility in this regard, as indicated in the Terms of Use. Nevertheless, we recommend that you read these terms of use and privacy provisions carefully before using those websites or platforms.

4. For what purposes are personal data used?

The personal data you provide to us will be used to contact you in the context of your query. Naturally, we need to process those personal data to fulfil your request (e.g. providing information, responding to a job application, etc.).

The information collected is also used for the purpose of improving our Website, services and marketing activities.

5. Time of processing and security

We will keep your personal data on file for a limited time to allow further follow-up of your request. We apply a standard period of 1 year before deleting data if it is no longer relevant according to the question or request (this obviously does not apply when we enter into a contractual relationship, when you join us as an employee or associate, etc.).

Moreover, MDP attaches great importance to the security of your personal data. We secure your personal data during transmission and "at rest". Moreover, we have taken internal organisational and technical measures to secure your data.

6. What data do we share with third parties?

You can count on us to protect your privacy as much as possible. In this context, we want to minimise the sharing of your personal data with third parties. In all cases, your data will only be used for MDP's purposes and will in no case be transferred or sold to third parties or disclosed to third parties who would process it for their own purposes, except as described below.

Within our company, we share your data only with those who need to access it (e.g. to answer your question). We may also share data, when necessary, with third parties acting on our instructions with whom we have the necessary contractual agreements or who are subject to a confidentiality obligation. MDP may therefore work with third parties for the organisation of its activities (think for example of law firm software, email programme, use of subcontractors, etc.) but these third parties only operate and process data at MDP's instruction and we take great care to select reliable partners.

In addition, the Website provides some links to third-party websites or platforms (e.g. social media). These websites and platforms may have their own terms of use, privacy statement and cookie statement. We recommend that you read these before using these websites/platforms or partial functions. We accept no liability for any direct or indirect damages resulting from the use of these external websites or platforms.

We may also share data with competent authorities authorised to request such data or to whom we are required to disclose information, or when required by law or as a result of legal proceedings or litigation. In addition, in the event of a reorganisation, demerger, contribution of industry, merger or sale of the company, we may transfer any personal data we collect to the relevant third party or parties.

We generally have no intention of transferring personal data to other third persons nor of transferring personal data to countries outside the European Economic Area; should the latter happen, we will be careful to take appropriate safeguards to protect your data.

7. We also use cookies

During a visit to our Website, "cookies" may be placed on your device.

For a further understanding of how we use cookies to collect and process your personal data, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

8. Your rights

The privacy legislation gives you several rights and we take information about these rights and their exercise very seriously.

The legislation provides that you have the right to ask us to access the personal data we process about you (Article 15 GDPR), rectify it (Article 16 GDPR), have it erased (Article 17 GDPR), restrict its processing (Article 18 GDPR), transfer the data (Article 20 GDPR) or a right to object to processing (Article 21 GDPR). You also have the option to withdraw your consent at any time, but you understand that such withdrawal does not affect the lawful processing we have carried out based on your consent up to that point. Please note that each of these rights is subject to certain legal conditions (as stipulated in the relevant article of the GDPR), but we will make efforts to comply with your request as best we can within these legal conditions.
We want to make exercising these rights as easy as possible!

Any queries about your rights, to exercise them or questions about this Privacy Policy can be addressed to MDP using the contact details set out in Section 2 of this Privacy Policy ("Who processes your personal data?"). We will respond to your request as soon as possible. However, we may additionally ask you to provide adequate proof of your identity in accordance with legal requirements and in order to protect the privacy of others.

In certain cases, we may refuse requests, for example if they are very unclear or suspicious, compromise the privacy of others, are extremely impractical, etc. In doing so, we always act in line with applicable legislation.

While we obviously prefer to resolve any problems directly with you, we would like to remind you that you always have the right to submit a complaint or question to a competent supervisory authority. In Belgium, you can submit a complaint or question to the Data Protection Authority (see gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit.be; address: Drukpersstraat 35, 1000 Brussels; telephone: +32 (0)2 274 48 00; E: contact@apd-gba.be).