Privacy Policy
Last updated: 13 November 2026.
This notice explains how personal data may be processed when you use ecrgroup.eu, contact the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Parliament (ECR Group), or access the services linked from this website.
This is an interim website privacy notice. The ECR Group is reviewing the applicable legal bases, retention arrangements and supplier safeguards with its legal advisers. It will replace or supplement this notice as that review is completed. Separate notices provided for a particular subscription, event, recruitment procedure or other activity should also be read.
1. Who is responsible and how to contact us
The website is operated for the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR Group), Rue Wiertz 60, B-1047 Brussels, Belgium. For enquiries about this notice or your personal data, email ECR.Press@europarl.europa.eu.
The data protection contact identified in the ECR Group’s supplied documentation is Ralph Packet, ralph.packet@europarl.europa.eu. You may contact this address to ask about data protection or exercise your rights.
2. Scope and data protection framework
The ECR Group is a political group within the European Parliament. Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 governs personal-data processing by Union institutions and bodies, including political groups acting as controllers within that framework. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) may apply to processing carried out by independent external organisations. A provider’s own notice explains its responsibilities for its services.
The legal basis must be established for each activity: performance of a task in the public interest where grounded in applicable Union law; compliance with a legal obligation where applicable; steps requested before entering a contract or performance of a contract where relevant; or your consent for optional subscriptions and non-essential tracking where required. This interim notice does not assert a statutory public-interest mandate, an exemption from consent, or a legitimate-interest basis for every website activity. The activity-specific legal assessment is being finalised by the ECR Group.
3. Browsing, search and website security
When you visit the website, the hosting and security systems may process your IP address, requested page or file, date and time, browser and device information, referrer information where supplied, and security or error events. These data allow pages and publications to be delivered, searches and event filters to work, faults to be diagnosed and abusive activity to be investigated. Search terms you submit form part of the request sent to the site and may appear in server logs.
The site is hosted through Register.it and uses WordPress and Wordfence security functionality. Access is restricted to authorised personnel and technical service providers according to their responsibilities. Security tools may process technical information to detect malicious requests. This is separate from consent to advertising or optional embedded media.
4. Contacting the ECR Group and its teams
The Contact page and team directories provide email links and contact details. Clicking an email link opens your email application; it does not, by itself, submit a contact form to WordPress. If you send a message, the receiving team processes your email address, name and any information or attachments you choose to provide in order to handle your enquiry and any necessary follow-up.
Providing information for an enquiry is voluntary. We may be unable to respond without a working contact address or the details needed to understand your request. Please avoid including sensitive personal information unless it is relevant and you have been asked to use an appropriate channel. Recruitment enquiries and applications, tender submissions and other formal procedures may require their own privacy notices and retention rules.
5. Newsletter
The newsletter links take you to the ECR Group’s subscription page hosted by Mailchimp. Information entered there, such as your email address, name and choices requested by the subscription form, is processed for managing the mailing list and sending the communications you subscribe to. The subscription form and the Intuit/Mailchimp privacy statement provide information about that service.
You can unsubscribe using the link in a newsletter or contact the ECR Group. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing that was lawful before withdrawal. Operational details such as confirmation of subscriptions, email interaction tracking, suppression lists and international-transfer arrangements are subject to the ECR Group’s review of its Mailchimp configuration and agreement; this notice does not assume that every optional Mailchimp feature is enabled.
6. Events, working groups and publications
You can browse events, working groups, news and publications, and open or download public PDFs without creating a public account. These actions generate the technical browsing data described above. Where an event or publication links to an external registration, booking, streaming or download service, that service may receive your browser data and any information you submit there.
If an event registration or other application form is made available, read the notice accompanying it before submitting personal data. The event organiser must explain the required fields, recipients, legal basis and retention period, and any photography or recording arrangements relevant to that activity. Installation of an events plugin does not mean that every event collects attendee information.
7. People directories and published content
The site publishes professional profiles, roles, affiliations, photographs and business contact information for MEPs, ECR staff and other people featured in its activities. These data are obtained from the ECR Group, the people concerned, or relevant public professional sources to explain the Group’s organisation and work. News and event coverage may also contain names, quotations, images or recordings.
If information about you is inaccurate or you have a concern about its publication, contact the ECR Group using the details above. Editorial or historical material may need to be retained for documented institutional or archival purposes, subject to the applicable rules and your rights. This notice does not authorise visitors to reuse personal data for unrelated purposes.
Professional affiliations and political coverage may reveal political opinions. Any processing of such information requires the additional conditions and safeguards applicable to special categories of personal data. Consent to cookies is not consent to political profiling.
8. Social media, embedded content and fonts
The website links to the ECR Group’s social media channels and displays or may display content from services such as X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok through feed integrations. Some images and media can be requested from those providers’ servers. Embedded players and platform functionality may disclose your IP address, browser details, page information and interactions to the provider and may use cookies or similar storage. If you are signed in to a platform, it may associate those interactions with your account.
External fonts used by the site include Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts. Loading a font from an external server discloses technical request information to that provider. Non-essential external services are controlled through the consent settings where configured. External links only take you to a provider when you choose to follow them; the destination’s privacy notice then applies.
Provider information is available from X, Meta, Google/YouTube, TikTok and Adobe. A social-media link does not, by itself, mean that the ECR Group runs advertising pixels or profiling on this website.
9. Accessibility widget
The site loads the AccessiWay/accessiBe accessibility widget from embeds.acswapp.com. It offers optional display and accessibility adjustments. Loading the service involves requests to the provider’s infrastructure, which receive the technical information needed to serve the request. Accessibility preferences may be stored in your browser so that your choices can be remembered. You do not need to disclose a disability or medical condition to use these controls.
For information about the provider’s handling of data, see AccessiWay’s privacy information and the accessiBe privacy notice. The widget complements the site’s accessibility work; it is not a statement that every page or downloadable document meets all accessibility requirements.
10. Cookies and your choices
The website uses Complianz to present consent choices and remember your cookie preferences. Necessary functionality remains available without agreeing to optional services. You can accept all, reject non-essential cookies or save your selected preferences, and reopen the controls using “Review your cookie choices” on the Cookie Policy page, linked from the footer. Preferences are configured to expire after 180 days, unless you change or clear them earlier.
Read the Cookie Policy for further information. The supplied cookie inventory and statements about analytics settings are being reconciled with the current implementation. No exemption from consent for a particular analytics configuration should be inferred from this interim privacy notice. Choosing not to load optional content may limit the corresponding third-party feature.
11. Who may receive data and international transfers
Depending on the activity, recipients may include the relevant ECR Group team, authorised website administrators and support providers, hosting and security suppliers, newsletter providers, event service providers and external platforms you choose to use. Publicly published professional or editorial information is accessible to website visitors. Competent authorities may receive information where disclosure is required by law.
Some suppliers or their subprocessors may process data outside the European Economic Area. Any applicable transfer mechanism, destination, safeguard and means of obtaining a copy must be established for the service concerned. The ECR Group is verifying these arrangements with its suppliers; this notice does not certify that a particular supplier is covered by an adequacy decision or a particular contract. Please contact the data protection contact for information about a specific processing activity.
12. Retention and security
Data should be kept for no longer than necessary for the activity concerned, taking account of the enquiry or procedure, ongoing correspondence, security needs, applicable legal obligations and any documented institutional or archival requirements. Newsletter contact data are used while a subscription remains active; limited suppression information may need to be kept to honour an unsubscribe request. Authorised user account information is needed while access remains necessary. Technical logs and backups follow the applicable hosting and security arrangements.
The ECR Group is confirming the specific retention schedules and deletion arrangements for these activities. You can request information about the period or criteria applicable to your data. Access controls, authenticated administration and security monitoring help protect information, but no online service can guarantee absolute security.
13. Your rights and complaints
Subject to the conditions of the applicable law, you may request access to your personal data, correction of inaccurate data, erasure, restriction of processing, portability where applicable, and object to processing in the circumstances provided by law. Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of earlier processing. We may need proportionate information to verify your identity when handling a request.
Contact ralph.packet@europarl.europa.eu or ECR.Press@europarl.europa.eu. You may lodge a complaint with the European Data Protection Supervisor for processing subject to Regulation (EU) 2018/1725, or the competent national supervisory authority for processing subject to the GDPR.
No automated decision-making with legal or similarly significant effects has been identified in the public website functions reviewed for this notice. Security filtering and optional third-party platform features are separate from decisions about eligibility or access to ECR activities. If such decision-making is introduced, information about it must be provided before the relevant processing.
14. Updates and separate services
We will update this notice when the website’s services or the ECR Group’s validated processing arrangements change. A chatbot, Local Leaders application service or other future collection of personal data must be covered by an appropriate notice when activated. This notice does not describe those features as already collecting visitors’ submissions.
See also the Cookie Policy and Legal Notice & Disclaimer.
