Institut de Francais Privacy Notice (october 2019)
The Institut de Francais “we”, “us” and “our”) takes the issue of safeguarding your privacy seriously. Our Privacy Notice describes what information we collect from our students and the way in which we use this information to better serve your needs.
What is Personal Information?
Personal information is any information about you as an identifiable individual. The personal information that we process includes:
Basic information – such as name, age, gender, passport information and publicly available photograph;
Contact information – such as your home address, zip/postal code, email address and phone number;
Financial information – such as transaction history;
Health information where disclosed and relevant to the provision of services;
Preferences – such as special requests, service issues and other preferences for your stay;
Technical information – such as information about the device you use to interact with us (including the unique device identifier, hardware model, operating system and version, and
Correspondence – when you contact us, such as to send an enquiry or make a request, any correspondence or application may be kept and added to your personal information.
How do we use your personal information?
We use your personal information for the following purposes:
to enable you to use our website
to help us identify you and any accounts you hold with us;
to assist us in making your reservation.
to confirm prior transactions and reconcile statements or invoices;
to contact you in relation to matters that arise from your stay with us;
On what basis do we use your personal information?
We use your personal information on the following basis:
to comply with legal and regulatory obligations, including financial reporting requirements imposed by government regulators and our auditors;
to enter into agreements with you, and to perform our agreement to provide services to you when you stay with us;
for legitimate business purposes – using your personal information helps us to operate and improve our business and minimise any disruption to the services that we may offer to you. It also allows us to make our communications with you more relevant and personalised to you, and to make your experience of our services more efficient and effective;
because you have given your consent – at times we may ask for your consent to allow us to use your personal information for one or more purposes. See the Your Rights section for more information about the rights that you have if we process your information on the basis of your consent; or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or proceedings.
How is personal information collected?
We collect your personal information while monitoring our technology tools and services, including email communications sent to and from Institut de Francais.
Otherwise, we gather information when you provide it to us, or interact with us directly, for example:
when you fill our online application form.
We also receive information about you from other sources, such as our business partners. We combine information that we have about you from various sources, including the information that you have provided to us.
We may also collect information from you through the use of cookies, when you visit our website. For more information about our use of cookies, please see our Cookie Notice.
How do we protect personal information?
We use a variety of security measures and technologies to help protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, alteration or destruction, consistent with applicable data protection and privacy laws. For example, we allow only encrypted communications from all of our web forms.
What information is not secure?
We endeavor to protect the privacy of your account and other personal information that we hold in our records, but unfortunately, we cannot guarantee complete security. Unauthorized entry or use, hardware or software failure, and other factors, may compromise the security of user information. Also, while we endeavor to put adequate contractual protections in place, we cannot guarantee the security of any personal information in databases hosted by third parties.
It is important to note that any e-mail communication is not secure. This is a risk inherent in the use of e-mail. Please be aware of this when requesting information or sending forms to us by e-mail (for example, from the “Contact Us” section of our website). For your protection, our e-mail responses to you will not include any confidential information.
Finally, to be prudent, please be sure to always close your browsers when you are done using a form or the reservation site. Although the session will terminate after a short period of inactivity, it is best to close your browsers immediately upon completion, especially when using a public computer.
What personal information may be provided to third parties?
We may share certain of your personal information with:
our professional advisors and auditors; and
local or foreign regulators, governments, courts, law enforcement and national security authorities.
You may advise the Institut de Francais if you do not want personal preferences shared.
Where a third party is engaged by the Institut de Francais to provide services on our behalf, we ensure these parties protect your Personal Information in a manner consistent with the principles articulated in this Privacy Notice.
If the Institut de Francais suspects any unlawful activity is taking place, it may investigate and/or report its findings or suspicions to the police or other relevant law enforcement agency.
Transfers of your personal information outside your home country
Accessing your personal information
We understand that you may like to know what personal information we hold about you. We are happy to assist you with your request. To protect your personal information, however, we require that you prove your identity to us at the time your request is made.
When you make a request in person, we will require you to produce some form of photo identification such as a passport or a driver's license and you will be asked to sign a request form.
Where you make a request by other means, we request you contact us in writing via email, fax or letter including a copy of a government issued identification and signature. We require home and business addresses and phone numbers so we can check them with our files and satisfy ourselves as to your identity.
The above information is required to create an audit trail of how the request has been handled.
The Institut de Francais reserves the right to decline access to your personal information under certain circumstances as permitted by law. If your personal information is not disclosed to you, you will be provided with the reasons for this non-disclosure.
Other rights
You may also be entitled to:
request the correction and/or deletion of your personal information;
request the restriction of the processing of your personal information, or object to that processing;
opt out from processing of your personal information for direct marketing purposes;
withdraw your consent to the processing of your personal information (where the Institut de Francais is processing your personal information based on your consent); and
request the receipt or transmission to another organisation, in machine-readable form, of the personal information you have provided to the Institut de Francais.
Where you are given the option to share personal information with the Institut de Francais, you can always choose not to do so.
If you object to the processing of your personal information, or if you have provided your consent to processing and you later choose to withdraw it, we will respect that choice in accordance with our legal obligations.
This could mean that we are unable to perform the actions necessary to achieve the purposes of processing described above (see ‘How do we use your personal information?’) or that you are unable to make use of the services offered by us.
After you have chosen to withdraw your consent the Institut de Francais may be able to continue to process your personal information to the extent required or otherwise permitted by law.
If at any time you wish to exercise any of these rights, you can do so by:
via e-mail at rgpd@institutdefrancais.com
Alternatively, you can contact our Chief Privacy Officer via the details in the ‘Contact us’ section.
How long is my Personal Information retained?
Your personal information will be stored for the period of time required by law in the French jurisdiction, i.e. 5 years. This may involve retaining information following your stay. We will delete your personal information once it is no longer required for any of the purposes described above.
We will also keep your personal information where we need to do so in connection with a legal action or an investigation involving 5 years
Any financial information the Institut de Francais retains will be protected under the terms of this Privacy Notice.
If you have additional questions regarding the law or if you feel we have not treated your personal information appropriately, you may contact The Privacy Commissioner of France at the following address:
CNIL - 3 Place de Fontenoy
TSA 80715
75334 PARIS CEDEX 07
You may also have the right to complain to the local data privacy supervisory authority in your home country.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Notice, please contact our Chief Privacy Officer by writing to the following address:
Chief Privacy Officer
Institut de Francais
23 avenue Général Leclerc
06230 Villefranche sur Mer