Our privacy policy

Owner and Data Controller

AE nv/sa 
Interleuvenlaan 27b
3001 Heverlee
Belgium

Owner contact email: privacy@ae.be

1. Identification of the Controller  

Your personal data is collected and processed by AE NV with registered office at Interleuvenlaan 27b, 3001 Leuven, Belgium, registered with company number 0466.550.303, e-mail info@ae.be, URL https://www.ae.be/en.

Unless otherwise stated, AE is data controller for the personal data collected and processed to which this Privacy Statement applies. AE is an end-to-end consulting company offering services and consulting in digital transformation to organisations. In providing these services and, more generally, in it course of business and during the interaction with applicants, prospects, customers, partners and website visitors, whether via the website or via other ways, AE may process personal data of natural persons (hereinafter “data subject”, you” or “your”).

AE commits to process your personal data in accordance with the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (“GDPR”), including any current or future national or international act or regulation in execution or replacement of the GDPR such as the Belgian act of 30 July 2018 on the protection of natural persons concerning the processing of personal data (hereinafter together referred to as “Applicable Data Protection Law”).

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully, as it contains essential information on how AE, as the data controller, collects and processes your personal data, for what purposes, on what legal basis and it explains your rights as a data subject.

2. Scope of the Privacy Statement

This Privacy Statement is applicable to the following data subjects:

• Applicants;

• Prospects;

• Customers (this includes natural persons or legal persons whom, whether or not for compensation, call upon the services of AE); 

• Partners;

• Website visitors.

3. Collection and Processing of Personal Data

3.1 Collection of Personal Data

AE processes personal data that you voluntarily provide when completing the contact form, asking a question, requesting a whitepaper, one-pager, webinar or case, registering for an event, communicating with AE via social media platforms, entering into a partnership or supplier agreement, applying for a job, or providing information necessary for the execution of its services.

Additionally, AE automatically collects data about the use of, access to, or interaction with its website through cookies or similar technologies, including monitoring the website's functionality, detecting fraud, and/or addressing security breaches, using IP addresses and browser information.

Finally, AE may also receive information about you from other sources, including third parties such as partners with whom it jointly offers services or conducts marketing activities or recruitment and selection activities or prospecting activities. AE may also obtain information about you from social media platforms (e.g., META and LinkedIn), for example, when you interact with AE on these platforms.

When the provision of personal data is a statutory or contractual requirement, or a requirement necessary to enter into a contract, you are obliged to provide the personal data. In those cases, if you do not provide (certain) personal data, AE may not be able to provide its services or otherwise perform its contractual relation with you.

3.2 The Purpose and Legal Ground for processing Personal Data 

AE may process your personal data in the context of the following activities, for the corresponding purposes and based on the stated legal grounds:

4. Cookies and website widgets

By using the AE website, cookies may be placed on your device's hard drive. 

As a user of the website, you will be asked to give your consent for loading certain cookies. This may occur via a bar at the bottom of the website, with a reference to AE's cookie policy for more information. 

However, browsing the website will not be blocked, but if you decline, only functional and analytical (insofar those are essential) cookies will be placed. The AE website also uses marketing or advertising plug-ins such as META and LinkedIn. By placing these plug-ins, your personal data may be collected and forwarded to these third parties. In accordance with Article 26 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of May 24, 2016, regarding the protection of privacy in the processing of personal data, AE is jointly responsible with these third parties for the processing. For the rights and obligations of each data controller, please refer to the respective privacy statements of these platforms. As a user of the website, you will, in any case, be asked to give your active and informed consent for forwarding your personal data to these third parties.

 For more information about the cookies used, AE refers you to its Cookie Policy, available at https://www.iubenda.com/privacy-policy/8043754/cookie-policy 

5. Your Rights as a Data Subject

In certain cases, in accordance with and, where applicable, subject to the restrictions under Applicable Data Protection Law, the data subject may exercise the following rights:

5.1 Right of access

You have the right to obtain from AE confirmation as to whether or not personal data concerning you are being processed, and, where that is the case, to obtain access your personal data, specific information and to request a copy of this personal data.

5.2 Right to rectification

You have the right to have incorrect personal data corrected, or incomplete personal data completed.

5.3 Right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”)

In certain cases, you have the right to obtain from AE the erasure of personal data concerning you.

5.4 Right to object

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data if the processing takes place on the ground of the legitimate interest of AE or on the ground of the public interest. We will stop the processing unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

You can also object to the processing of your personal data of direct marketing purposes, including profiling to the extent that it is relate to such direct marketing, in which case the personal data will no longer be processed for these purposes.

5.5 Right to withdraw consent

You can withdraw your consent at any time for the processing of your personal data by AE on the basis of your consent. However, the withdrawal of your consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

5.6 Right to restriction of processing

In certain cases, you are entitled to obtain the restriction of the processing of his or her personal data. In such cases, with the exception of storage, your personal data will only be processed with your consent or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or for the protection of rights of another natural or legal person or for reasons of important public interest of the Union or of a Member State.

5.7 Right to data portability

In certain cases, the data subject has the right to receive the personal data concerning him or her, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or to transmit those data to another controller.

5.8 Exercise of these rights

These rights can be exercised free of charge by sending an e-mail to dpo-office@ae.be. We commit to answering your request within the deadlines prescribed by Applicable Data Protection Law.

You can lodge an official complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority: Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit, Drukpersstraat 35, 1000 Brussels, Tel +32 (0)2 274 48 00, e-mail: contact@apd-gba.be.

7. Storage and security 

AE takes the processing of your personal data very seriously and strives to implement the necessary technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data and help prevent theft, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction of your information. AE regularly inspects its systems for potential security risks and attacks. However, it cannot guarantee the security of data you transmit. In the event of a data breach, AE will respond promptly and notify the relevant parties. Nevertheless, AE cannot be held liable for direct, indirect, or consequential damages caused by the improper or unlawful use of personal data by a third party.

The collected personal data is stored and processed in Belgium, either at AE’s registered office, additional branches, or with external service providers, also located in Belgium or within Europe. Data transmitted from the website to the server occurs exclusively via a secure connection.

Some data may be stored and processed by external service providers outside the European Union. If data is handled by external providers with servers outside the European Economic Area (EEA), AE assumes that a level of protection equivalent to that in the European Union is ensured for the processing of these data. To this end, where necessary, appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses with additional protections (e.g., encryption or pseudonymization of personal data, with encryption keys retained in the EU) and adequacy decisions may be applied when transferring your personal data to countries outside the EEA.

For more information, AE refers to the privacy statements of these external services providers. 

6. Access, disclosure and transfers of personal data

AE will refrain from disclosing personal data of data subjects to third parties as well as publicly disclosing data subjects’ personal data, unless in the following specific cases:

• AE grants access to its appointees and personnel. However, AE ensures a similar level of protection by imposing contractual obligations on these appointees and personnel that align with this Privacy Policy

• Personal data can be shared between the different branches of AE for e.g. the performance of our contract or for legitimate business purposes;

• Personal data can be shared with third parties insofar necessary for the execution of the agreement; 

• Personal data can be shared with third party service providers (external suppliers) to which AE outsourced certain processing activities such as cloud, processing billing information, administration, prospecting, recruitment, mailing services, event organisations. To the extent that these third-party service providers act as our processor, they only process your personal data in accordance with our documented instructions and the data processing agreement concluded with them.

• If and to the extent it is required by applicable law or to comply with a judicial request or to protect the rights of AE, its affiliated third parties, or its customers, AE may disclose your personal data to law enforcement authorities, investigative organizations, affiliated entities, or in legal proceedings, including (judicial) reorganization, bankruptcy, or transfer. In such cases, AE will, wherever possible, attempt to inform you in advance of any potential transfer.

Regarding transfers of personal data, in principle, your personal data are only transferred outside the EEA in case an adequacy decision applies for this country or recipient. In other cases when we transfer personal data outside the EEA, we ensure to have appropriate safeguards and, to the extent required, supplementary measures in place which ensure the adequate protection of your personal data. 

7. Retention of your Personal Data

Generally, AE does not retain your personal data longer than strictly necessary for the realisation of the purposes for which we received the data. The retention periods differ with regards to the type of processing activity and the purpose for which the personal data were collected.

In particular,

• We process personal data for your job application only as long as required to process your application. In case of a negative hiring decision, your personal data will be removed unless you consent to us retaining your personal data for two years. 

• We keep personal data about our contract/collaboration for as long as necessary to execute our contract, to comply with our legal obligations (such as accounting and tax obligations) and to resolve disputes or enforce contracts. Therefore, this personal data is retained for the duration of our contractual relationship and for 10 years thereafter.

• The personal data that we collect on the basis of your consent will be kept as long as your consent remains valid and is not withdrawn.

For more information on the retention periods that we apply, please contact us via the details provided in section 8 below.

8. Contact us

If you have comments, questions, concerns or complaints about this Privacy Statement, or any other issues relating to the processing of your personal data by AE, please contact us via dpo-office@ae.be.

In the event you prefer to contact us by post, you can do so on the following address: Interleuvenlaan 27b, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.

9. Updates to our Privacy Statement

We may amend or update this Privacy Statement from time to time to reflect changes in our practices with respect to the processing of your personal data, or changes in applicable law including but not limited to Applicable Data Protection Law.

We will be doing this by posting the updated version on the AE website and by actively informing you to the extent required by applicable law. When we publish changes to our Privacy Statement, we will always change the date and version number of the “last update” of our Privacy Statement. Significant changes will also be reported on our homepage. Nevertheless, we encourage you to read our Privacy Statement periodically.

Leuven, january 2025