Personal Data Protection
The European Union is committed to user privacy.
The policy on "protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions" is based on Regulation (EC) N° 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000.
This general policy covers the European Union's family of institutional Web Sites, within the eu domain.
Although you can browse through most of these Web Sites without giving any information about yourself, in some cases, personal information is required in order to provide the e-services you request.
Web Sites that require such information treat it according to the policy described in the Regulation mentioned above and provide information about the use of your data in their specific privacy policy statements.In this respect:
- For each specific e-service, a controller determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data and ensures conformity of the specific e-service with the privacy policy;
- Within each Institution, a Data Protection Officer ensures that the provisions of the Regulation are applied and advises controllers on fulfilling their obligations (see art. 24 of the Regulation);
- For all the Institutions, the European Data Protection Supervisor  [98 KB] will act as an independent supervisory authority (see art. 41 to 45 of the Regulation).
The European Union's family of institutional Web Sites, within the eu domain, provides links to third party sites. Since we do not control them, we encourage you to review their privacy policies.
What is an e-service?
An e-service on EUROPA is a service or resource made available on the Internet in order to improve the communication between citizens and businesses on the one hand and the European Institutions on the other hand.
Three types of e-services are or will be offered by EUROPA:
- Information services that provide citizens, media, business, administrations and other decision makers with easy and effective access to information, thus increasing transparency and understanding of the policies and activities of the EU;
- Interactive communication services that allow better contacts with citizens, business, civil society and public actors thus facilitating policy consultations, and feedback mechanisms, in order to contribute to the shaping of policies, the activities and the services of the EU;
- Transaction services that allow access to all basic forms of transactions with the EU, e.g. procurement, financial operations, recruitment, event enrolment, acquisition or purchase of documents etc.
How do we treat the emails you send us?
Many web pages on talktoeu.ie have an "Ask a question" button, which invites you to send your comments to a specific functional mailbox.
When you send such a message, your personal data is collected only to the extent necessary to reply. If the management team of the mailbox is unable to answer your question, it will forward your e-mail to another service. You will be informed, via e-mail, about which service your question has been forwarded to.
If you have any questions about the processing of your e-mail and related personal data, do not hesitate to include them in your message.