Privacy Notice 

Data protection is a priority for ChinaEU. ChinaEU is committed to respecting your privacy and does not use cookies and other web tracking devices via its website www.chinaeu.eu.

How we obtain your personal data

As part of our activity to foster cooperation between Chinese and EU undertakings and assist Chinese and EU businesses in finding the right contacts respectively in the EU and in China, ChinaEU collects certain business information, including contact details. However, in order to perform the above-mentioned tasks, ChinaEU requires not only professional information relating to the companies and institutions concerned, but also personal data in the sense of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), meaning information that identifies, or could reasonably be used to identify, a living individual, either on its own or together with other information.

ChinaEU collects such information:

• From publicly available directories and contact details published on the internet;
• From yourself when exchanging business cards at public events dedicated to issues relevant for our activity as described above or during bilateral meetings;
• From yourself when you ask ChinaEU to include you in the mailing list of its newsletter or to register for events ChinaEU organizes;
• When you or your organization offer or provide services as our supplier of goods or services;
• When you email us with specific questions within the scope of ChinaEUs’ mission and further follow up could be of interest for you or further feedback from you can be expected by ChinaEU following our replies.

The personal data we collect and process

The personal information that we collect and process is limited to:

• Basic information, such as your name, your employer and your title or position;
• Contact information, such as your physical address, email address and phone number(s);
• Where relevant, in particular in the case of suppliers of goods and services, financial information, such as bank account details;
• Information you provide to us for the purposes of attending meetings and events, including access and dietary requirements;
• Details, and sometimes minutes, of your visits to our office; and
• Any other information relating to you which you may provide to us.

How we use your personal data

Whether we receive your personal data directly from you or collect it from a public source, we will only use your personal data where it is absolutely necessary to fulfil effectively our mission (including compliance with our legal obligations if you or your company entered into a contractual relationship with ChinaEU), meaning:

• Sending our newsletter to a public susceptible to be interested by the latest information on the relations between the EU and China that we report;
• Mailing the invitations to events that we organize or co-organize;
• Contacting you to seek your participation as potential speaker in or sponsor for such events;
• Managing and securing the access to such events;
• Managing our contractual relationship with you or your organization, whether in connection with the procurement of goods and services or as your employer or former employer, including processing payments, accounting, and related support services;
• complying with our legal obligations, in particular vis-à-vis the Belgian tax authorities and social security;
• Contacting you to poll your potential interest to meet or speak with representatives of undertakings or institutions that asked ChinaEU to act as an intermediary; and
• Providing scouting or other services to companies, research centers or institutions that you represent or on which behalf you contacted ChinaEU.

If you have given us your express consent, we may process your personal data for additional purposes.

You may at any time withdraw your consent and/or opt-out of any of the above communications, by simple mail to the address mentioned at the bottom of the section “Your rights regarding your personal data”, below.

How we share your personal data

ChinaEU does not sell your Personal Data to anyone nor does it share Personal Data with other organisations. However, ChinaEU reserves the right to disclose any data where necessary to comply with explicit legal requirements or with a court order; to enforce or apply agreements with you and/or your company, or where a third party, for example the European Parliament, requires the data to ensure the security of meetings or events organized in their premises.

In the case you share content from our internet site on web-based social networks or when you click on a link to a video that we posted on YouTube, your Personal Data will be collected by the operator of these platforms. For more details on how these operators use your Personal Data, we refer to their respective data protection policies that you will find under the following links:

• YouTube: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/;
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/privacy?lang=en;
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update;
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy;
• Pinterest: https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy;
• Google+: https://policies.google.com/privacy/update.

Keeping your personal data secure

ChinaEU stipulates a high level of protection regarding its storage, access and destruction, in the agreements entered into between ChinaEU and its data processors. Where your personal data is stored on our own computers or in paper files in ChinaEU’s office, we use appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect any information we hold from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. Unfortunately, it is not possible to guarantee complete security. Theft or unauthorized access to the concerned computers or software failure, and other factors, may compromise the security of user data despite our best efforts.

Retaining your personal data

We will delete your personal data when it is no longer reasonably required for the Permitted Uses or you withdraw your consent (where applicable), provided that we are not legally required or otherwise permitted to continue to hold such data. If you have interacted in the framework of contractual relations between you or your company and ChinaEU, we may however retain your personal data for an additional period to the extent we deem it necessary to assert or defend legal claims during any relevant retention period.

Your rights regarding your personal data

In addition to your rights under applicable data protection legislation and where we are permitted or required by applicable law and regulation, we will provide you, upon request, with a copy of your personal data and we will correct any errors identified by you. ChinaEU will not use your data for any automated decision making or any profiling and you have the right to restrict our processing of your personal data as well as the right to lodge a complaint with supervisory authorities regarding the processing of your personal data. We will refrain from sending you marketing materials for possible new services of ChinaEU without your express consent and will also comply with your request to stop sending any further communications and/or newsletters from ChinaEU.

Please send us all such requests, or any questions or comments regarding this policy or our handling of your personal data, to privacy@chinaeu.eu.

Privacy policy for event participation

Last updated: 28 October 2025

1. Data controller

• The data controller responsible for processing your personal data is:
• ChinaEU AISBL
• Rue de la loi 28 – 1040 Brussels, Belgium
• Email: info@chinaeu.eu

2. Purpose and legal basis of processing

Your personal data (name, surname, email address, job title, and company) are collected and processed solely for the following purposes:

(1) Event registration and participation management, including communication of practical information (confirmation, venue, schedule, etc.).

Legal basis: performance of a contract or pre-contractual measures (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR).

(2) Event-related communications, such as updates, follow-up, or sharing of materials presented during the event.

Legal basis: legitimate interest of the controller to ensure proper organization of the event (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

(3) Occasional updates about future events or initiatives organized by ChinaEU.

Legal basis: consent of the data subject (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR).

You may withdraw your consent at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in our emails or by writing to info@chinaeu.eu.

3. Categories of personal data collected

For event participation, we only collect the following information:

• First name
• Last name
• Email address
• Job title
• Company or organization

We do not collect or process any sensitive data (special categories of data) under Article 9 GDPR.

4. Processing methods and data security

Your data will be processed electronically in compliance with the principles of lawfulness, fairness, transparency, data minimization, and security as required by the GDPR.

ChinaEU implements appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, or disclosure.

5. Data retention

Your personal data will be retained only for as long as necessary to manage the event and its related communications, and in any case no longer than 12 months from the date of collection, unless you withdraw your consent earlier or a longer retention period is required by law.

6. Data sharing and transfers

Your data will not be shared with third parties except when strictly necessary for event organization (e.g., event platforms such as Eventbrite or email communication providers such as Mailchimp).

In such cases, those providers act as data processors under Article 28 GDPR and ensure an adequate level of protection for your personal data, including through standard contractual clauses when outside the EEA.

7. Your rights

Under the GDPR, you have the following rights at any time:

• Right of access (Article 15)
• Right to rectification (Article 16)
• Right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”) (Article 17)
• Right to restriction of processing (Article 18)
• Right to data portability (Article 20)
• Right to object (Article 21)

To exercise your rights, please contact: info@chinaeu.eu

8. Right to lodge a complaint

If you believe your personal data have been processed unlawfully, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (Autorité de Protection des Données / Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit) or with the data protection authority of your country of residence.

Updates

This Privacy Notice was updated in October, 2025. We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Notice from time to time to comply with changing legal requirements or in case we would need to adapt our processing practices because of new services that ChinaEU would launch. Any such changes will be posted on this website and will be effective upon posting. If material changes occur, we will notify registered participants by email.

See also our Cookie Policy page.

ChinaEU AISBL
Rue de la loi 28 Brussels – Belgium
info@chinaeu.eu
www.chinaeu.eu