The European Commission (hereafter ‘the 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 of 23 October 2018 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 (repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001).

This privacy statement explains the reason for the processing of your personal data, the way the Commission collects, handles and ensures protection of all the personal data you provide. It also explains how that information is used and what rights you have in relation to your personal data. It 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.

The information in relation to processing operation “Europass platform” undertaken by the Commission's Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) is presented below.

Personal data supplied or imported by Europass users on the Europass platform shall be used for the creation of their personal online Europass account and profile which is used by Europass to:

1. Offer customised suggestions – Your data, including data on your activity on the platform, will be used to understand and convey reliable estimations about your preferences and interests, to offer matching jobs skills and course suggestions  (e.g., skills that you may have added to your past experiences; job opportunities, courses or qualifications that may be of interest related to your skills and preferences or saved job vacancies or courses, etc.). You have the choice to switch them off.
2. Assess Europass performance – Europass will collect and aggregate data based on your activity to understand the performance of the platform. Data on key performance indicators such as number of Europass documents downloaded, number of visits to the platform, and downloads will be published on the Europass platform periodically and used to evaluate the performance of the platform. Your personal information will not be used for this purpose.
3. Conduct labour market analysis – Information such as age, nationality, learning and work experience, and skills will be collected and used for statistical purposes. Your data will be aggregated and anonymised, to produce only high-level statistical indicators that do not include any personally identifiable information. Such processing complies with Article 24(2)-(4) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 (GDPR Regulation). This data will be used by the European Commission to identify trends in the field of education and employment, predict future skills needs and improve the services offered by Europass.
4. Communicate with Europass users – Provide information on any changes (technical or security updates) that may impact your Europass account (e.g. sending an email about required action for changing authentication mechanisms, updated terms of use, or issues with the nature of the data provided by you on Europass).
5. Communicate with Europass users – Provide information about Europass functionalities, information relevant for career and life-long learning, information on the European Digital Credentials for Learning, or request to participate in surveys, evaluations, or other similar initiatives. You will always able to opt in or out of this communication.
6. Maintenance and compliance of the Europass platform – Data and information containing illegal or improper content can be actively searched and removed from the platform, as is required by the Digital Services Act, Regulation (EU) 2022/2065.
7. Support Europass users – You can give explicit consent to the data processor to review your account and associated e-Portfolio in order to support you with a problem in the platform or to analyse the root cause of an issue that you reported.

We process your personal data, because:

• processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the Union institution or body;
• the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes;
• processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person.

In order to carry out this processing operation DG EMPL collects the following categories of personal data:

• First name(s)
• Surname(s)

The provision of this personal data is mandatory to create a Europass profile. If you do not provide this information, possible consequences are that you will not be able to create a profile in Europass, and hence you will not be able to create a Europass account.

Additional non-mandatory information collected by Europass to create a full profile and benefit from the services offered by Europass include:

• Europass identifier
• Name and Surname
• Date of birth
• Nationality
• Contact information (i.e. e-mail address, website, phone number, instant messaging social media)
• Work Experience
• Education and Training
• European Digital Credentials for Learning (i.e. digitally signed credentials (and possible copies), containing additional data beyond the categories described here (i.e. membership of a group, personal identifiers, birth name, patronymic name) uploaded in My Library
• Curriculum vitae
• Cover Letters
• Applications
• Data relating to work and employment experience
• Data related to skills (e.g. My Skills)
• Data related to career and learning interests (e.g. My Interests, My Favourites)
• Uploaded documents (e.g. images, videos, documents in accepted formats, etc.)
• Digital Skills Test Results
• Data related to personal and professional achievements (e.g., projects; publications; networks and memberships)
• User interaction data (i.e. consulted job vacancies and learning opportunities or qualifications, search queries and associated search results, etc.)
• And additional information on skills, qualifications and learning that users may choose to input.

DG EMPL keeps your personal data only for the time necessary to fulfil the purpose of collection or further processing as described under the question Why and how do we process your personal data? namely for a period of 5 years after the last login to or update of your e-Portfolio content. During this period, you will receive notifications on all aspects of your data in Europass.  

Yes, some special categories of data are prohibited under Article 10(1) such as:

• Data revealing racial or ethnic origin
• Data revealing political opinions
• Data revealing religious or philosophical beliefs
• Data revealing trade union membership
• Genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person
• Data concerning health
• Data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation

There may be circumstances where such data may be  directly or indirectly present when you upload documents. Please be careful not to add the the above mentioned data categories on any  data that you add or documents that you upload on your Europass.

All personal data in electronic format (e-mails, documents, databases, uploaded batches of data, etc.) are stored on the servers of the European Commission. All processing operations are carried out pursuant to the Commission Decision (EU, Euratom) 2017/46 of 10 January 2017 on the security of communication and information systems in the European Commission.

In order to protect your personal data, the Commission has put a number of technical and organisational measures in place. 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.

Access to your personal data is provided to the Commission staff responsible for carrying out this processing operation and to authorised staff according to the “need to know” principle. Such staff abide by statutory, and when required, additional confidentiality agreements.

The information we collect will not be given to any third party, except to the extent and for the purpose we may be required to do so by law.

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, rectify or erase your personal data and the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Where applicable, you also have the right to object to the processing or 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).

You have consented to provide your personal data to DG EMPL or the present processing operation. You can withdraw your consent at any time by notifying the Data Controller. The withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of the processing carried out before you have withdrawn the consent.

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.

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

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.

The Data Protection Officer (DPO) of the Commission

You may contact the Data Protection Officer (DPO) of the Commission with regard to 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 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.

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

This specific processing operation has been included in the DPO’s public register with the following Record reference: DPR-EC-04686