Protection of Personal Data

In this section, you will find information on how the Association for Foreign Investment, Identification no.: 63835339, with its registered office at Štěpánská 538/11, Nové Město, Prague 120 00, an interest association of legal entities registered with the Municipal Court in Prague, Section L, File 58511 (hereinafter referred to as the “AFI” or “we”, “us”, “our”), processes personal data in connection with its activities.

When processing personal data, the AFI proceeds in accordance with the relevant legal regulations, particularly the General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter referred to as the “GDPR”). Therefore, the AFI is committed to processing personal data only in accordance with this Protection of Personal Data section, and part of this commitment comprises the AFI’s obligation to duly inform you of processing activities and your rights.

Information on personal data processing

Within all personal data processing activities carried out by AFI, the AFI is the administrator of personal data in the sense of the GDPR, as it independently determines the purposes and means of processing such personal data.

What kind of personal data does the AFI process?

One of the AFI’s basic objectives is to support the mutual exchange of information between companies, investors and the public sector. Therefore, the AFI’s activities cannot be carried out without communication between the parties involved and thus the related processing of personal data. Therefore, it can happen that we will process your personal data in the following scope:

AFI members, investors, partners, entrepreneurs and other involved parties

In relation to the involved parties, which are AFI members, existing and potential Czech and foreign investors, partners, bodies of the public administration, officials and other persons whose aim is to support investments in the Czech Republic (hereinafter referred to as “involved parties”), the processed data comprises particularly the identification data of the given organisation (name, identification no., address, website, size of the enterprise), identification and contact data of the contact person (name and surname, position, gender, contact information) and information on the source from which the data was obtained, as well as information provided to us by such persons/entities in the course of communication with the AFI.

Event attendees

If you attend any events organised by the AFI, we process your identification and contact data, particularly for the purposes of your participation in such event. If photographs are taken at an event organised by the AFI, you will be notified of such fact and you may contact AFI to exercise your rights as a data subject, which are described below in this Information on Personal Data Processing.

Employment applicants

In the event that you contact us in connection with an offer of employment at the AFI, we will process your identification and contact data, your CV and other information that you provide to us for the purposes of negotiations leading to the conclusion of an employment contract.

Publicly available information

Because the AFI is involved in the business environment in the Czech Republic and abroad, we process, in connection with our activities, publicly available information on persons and organisations operating in the field of investment. Public sources of information are, in particular, media outlets and the websites of such organisations. However, we only process such data for purposes that are compatible with the original purpose of publication of the given data. If you are unsure as to whether the AFI is processing information about you from public sources, you can contact us to exercise your right of access as described below in this Information on Personal Data Processing.

Why do we process your data?

Within its activities, the AFI processes personal data for the following purposes:

Communication and mutual exchange of information with involved parties and internal communication between AFI members and partners within working groups.
Performance of contracts to which the AFI is a party, if personal data has been collected for such purpose.
Participation of personal-data subjects in events organised by the AFI.
Marketing and promotion of the AFI, particularly the sending of invitations to events and sending of commercial messages (if you grant consent to the sending of commercial messages).
Administration of AFI membership, particularly maintaining the list of AFI members and administration of initiation fees and membership dues.
Evaluation of the quality of AFI services, particularly consisting in the processing of anonymised statistics of participation in events organised by the AFI.
Operational and administrative purposes (administration of IT systems and infrastructure, processing for the purposes of accounting and archiving, and other processing required by law).

What are our legal grounds for processing personal data?

Personal data cannot be processed without the proper fulfilment of the legal requirements.

We process your personal data on the basis of the legal grounds set forth below:

If processing is based on your consent, we process your data in the necessary scope with your free, express and specific consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes. You can also grant us such consent by, for example, contacting us with an enquiry via our website or e-mail address, by telephone or in person at any event with AFI representatives.
If processing is necessary for the fulfilment of our contractual obligations toward you or for implementing measures adopted at your request prior to conclusion of a contract.
If processing is necessary for the fulfilment of our legal obligations arising from the law or other legal regulation.
If processing is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests and does not unreasonably infringe on your interests or basic rights and freedoms. Please bear in mind that we always strive to find a balance between our legitimate interests and your privacy when processing personal data on this legal basis. Our legitimate interests include, for example, evaluation of the quality of our services, prevention of fraud and security of our IT systems and networks, as well as marketing and promotion of the AFI, including the sending of commercial messages.

From which sources do we obtain data?

We collect personal data directly and indirectly from the following sources:

directly from you when you contact us directly and communicate with our employees and/or IT systems.
when you give us your business card.
when you express interest in attending an event organised by the AFI.
when you register to receive our commercial messages.
when you apply for employment at the AFI.
when you visit our website or fill out our contact form.
through photographs at our events.
through the organisation for which you work, or through one of your colleagues.
through AFI members and other involved parties.
from public sources (e.g. the Commercial Register or the database of incentives issued by CzechInvest), though only for purposes that are compatible with the purposes of publishing such data.

In order to ensure that the data that we have about you is always accurate and up-to-date, we may, at certain intervals, request that you check and confirm such data or supplement it if necessary.

Who has access to your personal data?

Access within the AFI

We store personal data in our IT systems, from where it is accessible to our employees, whose access is necessary for the above-mentioned purposes of processing.

Our service providers, particularly consultants and advisors, IT service providers, security agencies, insurance companies and financial institutions may also have access to your personal data.

Sharing of personal data

We may share your personal data with other involved parties if you grant us consent to do so or if such arises from a contract between you and the AFI.

State and supranational supervisory, regulatory and law-enforcement bodies and courts can gain access to the personal data that we process if we are obligated to provide such access pursuant to the relevant legal regulation or at the request of such bodies.

The transfer of personal data to third parties does not relieve us of our responsibility for the processing of your personal data. With the exception of state bodies, all recipients of personal data are obligated to process such data only in accordance with our precise instructions and only for the purposes specified by us.

Can your personal data be transferred outside of the territory of the European Economic Area?

In connection with the transfer of data to our processors referred to in the “Who has access to your personal data?” section, we can transfer your data also to third countries outside of the European Economic Area that do no ensure the corresponding level of personal data protection. We will carry out all such transfers only in the event that the conditions set forth in Chapter V – GDPR have been fulfilled.

The transfer of data outside the territory of the European Economic Area may occur, particularly when transferring such data to foreign employees of member or partner companies operating in Asia and North America or when transferring data to foreign involved parties.

For how long do we retain your data?

The exact retention period depends on the purpose for which the personal data is processed. When determining the retention period, the AFI takes into account the following criteria: (i) personal data is retained for as long as such data is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, and (ii) always in accordance with the relevant legal and internal regulations.

Personal data relating to a particular contract is retained for the duration of the contract’s period of validity and until all claims arising from such contract are time-barred, unless the legal regulations require a longer data-archiving period. After the expiry of such period, your personal data will be deleted from our database.

If we process your personal data on the basis of your consent, we will process such data for the period for which we have your valid consent.

How is your personal data secured?

The processing of your personal data is subject to internal regulations and processes involving security, confidentiality and protection of personal data. At the same time, we are obligated to comply with the technical and organisational measures that we have implemented in order to protect your personal data. The aforementioned security measures have been tailored to take into account the current state of technological development, the cost of implementing such measures, the risks associated with the processing and character of personal data, the scope of processed data and the risks associated with the processing of such data.

What rights do you have as a subject of personal data?

You have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. These are the right of access, right to correction, right to deletion, right to restriction of processing, right of portability, right to raise objections and the right to file a complaint.

You always have the right to request access to your personal data processed by the AFI and the right to have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected. In some cases, you also have the right to raise objections against the processing of personal data, the right to request the restriction of data processing and the right to request the deletion of certain personal data. Furthermore, in certain cases you have the right to request the transfer of some of your personal data to you or to a third party. The AFI handles the above-mentioned requests and objections in accordance with the legal regulations on protection of personal data.

If the processing of your personal data is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent in full or in part at any time. Withdrawal of consent to processing does not affect the legality of processing carried out on the basis of consent prior to its withdrawal.

If you want to exercise any of your above-mentioned rights, please send an e-mail to events@afi.cz or contact us by post at the AFI’s address: Štěpánská 538/11, Nové Město, 120 00 Prague.

You can also withdraw your consent to the sending of commercial messages by means of the link [Unsubscribe] contained in individual commercial messages. We will inform you of such possibility to unsubscribe free of charge in each individual message that you receive from us.

We take your comments regarding the processing of personal data very seriously and we always address them as quickly as possible. Therefore, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

If you are not satisfied with the manner in which we process your personal data, you have the right to file a complaint with the supervisory body responsible for personal data protection, which in the Czech Republic is the Office for Personal Data Protection, with its registered office at Pplk. Sochora 27, 170 00 Prague 7.

Amendments to this Information on Protection of Personal Data

This Information on Protection of Personal Data may be amended at any time. The most recent change to the principles of personal data processing occurred on [*] 2020. We will inform you of all future changes via our website at www.afi.cz and via our usual communication channels (for example, by e-mail if we have your e-mail address). However, please always check that you have the up-to-date version available.

Contact us

You can always contact us regarding general enquiries pertaining to personal data protection and requests to exercise your rights by sending an e-mail to events@afi.cz. We will always be pleased to assist you.