This site (community-led-housing.eu) is operated in the context of CHOICE, a project co-funded by the European Union’s Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) Programme.
The site is managed by GEN Europe, with legal seat at:
ZEGG Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 89 14806 Bad Belzig, Germany
Funding disclaimer: Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
1) Who We Are
Our website address is: https://community-led-housing.eu
CHOICE brings together partners from across Europe working on Community-Led Housing, Social Solidarity Economy, and Socio-Environmental Justice. This policy explains how we collect, use, and protect personal data in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, 2016/679).
For all requests regarding GDPR, please contact us at: communications(at)gen-europe.org
2) What Data We Collect
2.1) Newsletter and communications: If you opt in to receive updates — by signing up via an online form, subscribing to our newsletter, or registering at an offline event – we collect only the minimum data needed to keep in contact, typically name, gender,country, and email address. We do not sell or share your data with third parties for commercial purposes.
2.2) Comments: When visitors leave comments on the website, we collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string, to help with spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (a “hash”) may be shared with the Gravatar service to check whether you use it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available at https://automattic.com/privacy/. After your comment is approved, your profile picture is publicly visible alongside your comment.
2.3) Media: If you upload images to the site, please avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS). Visitors to the site can download and extract location data from any images published here.
2.4) Events: If you register for CHOICE events, workshops, or activities, we collect registration data to organise participation effectively – for example, accessibility needs or dietary requirements – and to enable coordinators to plan accordingly.
2.5) Legal basis for each purpose
| Purpose | Legal basis (GDPR Art. 6) |
|---|---|
| Newsletter / communications sign-up | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) |
| Analytics cookies | Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) |
| Event registration | Contract / consent (Art. 6(1)(b)/(a)), depending on how registration is framed |
| Comment spam filtering | Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) — protecting the site from spam and abuse |
| Grant reporting and audit retention | Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) — under the CHOICE grant agreement |
3) Cookies
If you leave a comment on the site, you may opt in to saving your name, email address, and website in cookies for your convenience, so you don’t need to re-enter this information for future comments. These cookies last one year.
If you visit our login page, a temporary cookie is set to determine whether your browser accepts cookies. It contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
We also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics — _ga, _gid). These are not essential to the functioning of the site and are only set after you give consent via the cookie banner shown on your first visit. You can withdraw this consent at any time by [adjusting your cookie settings / link]. Google Analytics (GA4) involves a transfer of data to the United States; this transfer relies on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and/or EU Standard Contractual Clauses as an additional safeguard, and a data processing agreement is in place with Google.
4) Embedded Content
Pages on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles). Embedded content behaves exactly as if the visitor had visited the other website directly. These external sites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with the embedded content — including tracking your interactions if you have an account and are logged in to that site.
5) Who We Share Your Data With
Data may be shared with CHOICE project partners where strictly necessary to deliver an activity, service, or event you have consented to participate in — for example, sharing event registration details with the team coordinating that specific event. Only the data relevant to that purpose is shared, and only with the relevant partner team.
We do not sell personal data.
In addition, where your data forms part of the project’s activity or financial records, it may be shared with the European Union bodies responsible for overseeing the CHOICE grant — see Section 8 below.
6) How Long We Retain Your Data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely, so we can recognise and automatically approve any follow-up comments rather than holding them in a moderation queue.
Newsletter and communications data is retained for as long as you remain subscribed. Event registration data is retained for as long as needed to organise and report on the relevant activity, and as required for EU grant reporting and audit purposes under the CERV Programme — records may be kept for up to five years after the final payment under the grant agreement.
7) Your Rights
If you have signed up for our newsletter, registered for an event, have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request:
- Access — a copy of the personal data we hold about you
- Rectification — correction of inaccurate data
- Erasure — deletion of your personal data (except where we are legally obliged to retain it for administrative, legal, security, or EU grant-reporting purposes)
- Restriction of processing — asking us to limit how we use your data in certain circumstances (Art. 18 GDPR)
- Object — objecting to processing based on legitimate interest, including for spam-filtering purposes (Art. 21 GDPR)
- Withdraw consent — where processing is based on consent (e.g. newsletter, analytics cookies, event registration), you can withdraw it at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal (Art. 7(3) GDPR)
- Data portability — an exported file of your data
We will respond to such requests within one month of receipt. Where a request is complex or we receive a high number of requests, this may be extended by a further two months; if so, we will inform you within one month of the reason for the delay (Art. 12(3) GDPR).
Requests should be sent to communications(at)gen-europe.org
8) Where Your Data Is Sent
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam-detection service.
Where CHOICE project data is processed by tools or processors located outside the EU/EEA, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place in line with GDPR requirements on international data transfers.
Sharing with EU institutions and oversight bodies. As CHOICE is funded under the EU’s CERV Programme, personal data relating to project participants (e.g. event registrants, newsletter subscribers whose engagement is reported for grant purposes) may be transferred to the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), the European Commission, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), and the European Court of Auditors, where these bodies exercise their rights of access to records — including personal data — under the CHOICE grant agreement. This processing is based on our legal obligation under the grant agreement and the public interest in the sound management of EU funds (Art. 6(1)(c) and (e) GDPR). For more information on how the European Commission processes personal data in this context, see the Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement.
9) Technical Security
The site is hosted on WordPress with HTTPS encryption for all forms and data transmission.
10) Data Breaches
In the event of a data breach affecting your personal data, we are required under GDPR to report this to the relevant supervisory authority within 72 hours, and we will notify affected individuals so they can take appropriate protective measures.
11) Complaints
If you have a complaint about how your data is handled, please contact us at communications(at)gen-europe.org. We treat all complaints seriously and confidentially. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may lodge a complaint with your national Data Protection Authority.
This project is funded by the European Union under the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) Programme. Views expressed are those of the CHOICE partners only.
