Privacy notice

Introduction 

Dear Subscriber,
We are glad to share with you the latest news on the developments of the cultural and promotional activities of Fondazione ICONS. This Privacy Notice refers to you as data subject, i.e. the owner of your personal data. It explains which personal data we collect and how we use it.
This Privacy Notice regulates the processing of personal data by Fondazione ICONS, with its registered office in Italy at I-26900 Piazza della Vittoria 1, Lodi, TAX ID 92563110151, e-mail icons@icons.it, Tel. +39 0371 091065. In this respect, Fondazione acts as data controller.

Fondazione ICONS fully controls and shares resources, facilities and infrastructure with ICONS srl. They also jointly determine the purpose and means of data processing, sharing the same legal background, the LIA, where applicable. For this reason, ICONS srl and Fondazione ICONS have signed a joint control agreement pursuant to Art. 26 of European Regulation 679/2016 – GDPR.

Please read this document carefully; it contains essential information about the way your personal data is processed and about the cookies that are used.

Fondazione ICONS’ mission is to disseminate the results of scientific research and cultural projects to the general public. Fondazione ICONS acts as the communication, dissemination and exploitation partner in many scientific and cultural research consortia, mostly publicly (EU and national) funded, occasionally privately funded. We help scientists, researchers and cultural operators to share the results of their work with the general public, researchers and innovators.
Fondazione ICONS is also responsible for communication and dissemination activities of several Scientific research projects public or privately Founded. The personal data and the data treatment described below is managed by Fondazione ICONS staff, who act according to high and proven professionalism in the design of communication strategies and they support the other consortium partners in the management of this data where required. The processing activities involving your personal data do not include automated individual decision-making, nor profiling as defined under Article 22 of the GDPR.

1. Type of data and related processing

1.1 Data voluntarily provided by the Subscriber  

The explicit and voluntary provision of personal data from you is essential in order to have access to certain services offered by the data controller through the website (e.g. newsletter subscription) or the participation to in-person and on-line events (e.g. webinars, trainings, conferences) and to receive the requested updates. This involves the collection of personal data and contact details, as well as any other personal data that is required in order to respond to requests or to provide the available services, such as the audio-video registration of online event/training or images taken during in-person events. Fondazione ICONS doesn’t collect nor process sensitive data. Once the project or the initiative to which you have subscribed or participated is terminated, your personal data might be used as per Art.2 in other similar projects such as projects which belongs to the same thematic research area or technology, where Fondazione ICONS, or ICONS S.R.L. carries out communication and dissemination or exploitation activities. This data can also be used for generic communication activities in the content areas for which you have expressed your interest.

1.2 Navigation Data (data deriving from user’s navigation)

During routine activities, the computer system may store some of your browsing data. This data, although not collected to be associated with your identity, may allow indirect recognition of your identity when processing and associating with the data held by the data controller. According to the Privacy Regulation they could be considered “personal data”. This category of data (which includes, by way of example but not limited to, IP addresses and domain names of the User’s computer) is collected by the data controller for statistical purposes in anonymous form, but by means of some data processing procedures it could be possible to trace the user identity in order to ascertain any liability for crimes committed via the website or damages against it.
Fondazione ICONS shall not use (and shall not allow any third party to use), collect or upload any data that may/can identify an individual (for example name, email address, IP address, billing information) or other data that can be reasonably linked to such information. You may decline cookies by deactivating them in your browser.

1.3 Navigation data processed with Matomo or similar applications

Our website uses Matomo, an open-source software tool that helps website owners to measure how users interact with website content. Matomo enables us to track visitor interactions by using first-party cookies. These cookies can record information about the time and the page a user has seen, for example the URL of the page. They can “remember” what a user has done on previous pages and the “cache memory” of the pages or websites the user has seen or interacted with. Matomo tracks and traces the website visitors’ IP addresses to identify the visitors based on the geographical location they provided. Matomo does collect and gives the opportunity to use IP address and geolocalization, about the website users when it reports website trends which are considered personal information under the GDPR,
Fondazione ICONS shall not use (and shall not allow any third party to use) this service to record, collect or upload any data that may/can identify an individual (such as for example name, email address, IP address, billing information) or other data that can be reasonably linked to such information by Matomo. You may decline the use of cookies using the banner that appears on the website when you access it.

You may choose to prevent this website from aggregating and analysing the actions you take here. Doing so you will also prevent the owner from learning from your actions and creating a better experience for you and other users.

2. What do we do with your personal data?
Your data is part of our general database that we use to organise dissemination, communication and networking activities related to the projects that we are working on.
We use your personal data for the following purposes (by means of traditional and web-based contact methods such as e-mail, text messages etc.):

  • To send newsletters and information on the activities carried out by the Fondazione ICONS and ICONS srl;
  • To provide information and answers about our activities, research results and content from the projects we work on
  • To carry out statistics and reports in anonymous form (e.g. assessment the download of the material provided, the number of times a website was accessed, the most visited pages, the average visit duration, the country of origin of Users etc.)
  • To organize on-line and in-person events
  • To disseminate the company’s and project’s activities, results and contents; this might include the publication of an event’s pictures or video-audio recordings
  • To carry out other legitimate purposes, as well as other lawful purposes, such as communication activities in relation to other similar areas, projects or about other networking activities of the data controller.

We commit to ensure that Subscribers will always be free to opt out and exercise their rights as regard to the treatments mentioned above. Each communication has an opt-out link where you can inform us about your decisions.

3. Where do we store and protect your data? 

The data processing related to the website’s services takes place at the Headquarters of Fondazione ICONS located in Lodi (Italy) I-26900 via Volturno 15. The applicable law, in addition to the EU GDPR 679/2016, is the Italian Privacy Regulation, considering the effective and actual processing activity and the context in which personal data is processed.
The data processing is performed by authorised members of the Fondazione ICONS staff who have been appointed and trained in maintaining security and confidentiality of personal data.
In addition to the data collection, the processing of your personal data may involve its recording, storage, modification, communication, and cancellation. The data processing shall be carried out with the use of electronic equipment. Storage of personal data shall be in electronic form, for only as long as is strictly necessary to meet the purposes and in accordance with local regulations and internal processes.
With regards to the personal information you provide, please note that all the necessary steps will be taken to ensure the confidentiality and security of shared data, in compliance with the provisions of the Privacy Regulation. In particular, we have implemented all the technical, organisational, logistical and procedural security measures in line with technological developments pursuant to the Privacy Regulation, in order to guarantee the minimum level of data protection required by the legislation in force.
The data is stored in a database hosted by a hosting & cloud service provider, which Fondazione ICONS relies on. The hosting and the related responsibilities are governed by a specific contract. In this contract the above-mentioned provider has confirmed that the servers used to host and store the database are located in data centres within the European Union.
The services offered comply with the relevant legislation on data protection thanks to the adoption of appropriate security measures.

4. Who processes your data?

Fondazione ICONS is the Data Controller. This means that the Fondazione ICONS’ management is accountable and responsible for establishing the structure and procedures to process and protect your data.
Appointed members of the staff are responsible for the actual processing of your data; specifically they will process your data as described in the previous section.

5. Cookies Policy
5.1 WordPress Session Cookies
Cookies are small text files that are stored on the browser directory of the user’s computer when visiting certain websites. The website uses cookies for specific and limited purposes, namely, to provide easier navigation and for the purposes of internal security, of statistical analysis related to navigation and of system administration. Session cookies allow users to be recognised within a website so any page changes or item or data selection you do is remembered from page to page. Session cookies are temporarily stored in the computer memory only during a user’s browsing session and are automatically deleted from the user’s computer when the browser is closed. Persistent cookies remain in the browser’s subfolder and are activated again once the user visits the website that created that particular cookie thus facilitating the navigation and making it faster (with the “keep me logged in” option). Analytical cookies collect anonymous data for internal purposes with the aim of providing a better browsing experience to the user. This data helps us to understand how visitors use our website, the number of visits, the most visited pages, the average duration of visits and much more, allowing us to improve the content of our website and the way it is presented. These are third-party cookies, meaning that they are sent and managed by a third party whom the data controller has engaged to store user preferences and for marketing purposes. No personal information is collected about you or about your computer. All collected data are anonymous and aggregated.

5.2 Third Party Cookies

Cookie               Domain Description
_pk_id.2.75b3 Fondazione ICONS Website Fondazione ICONS uses Matomo, which sets a cookie in order to anonymously identify when users return to specific websites.
Matomo uses the information sent with this cookie to store a history of website pages visited in a user’s session. This data will not be used to associate any part of your identity, anonymous or not, with any other data held by Matomo.
Further information and the applicable data protection provisions of Matomo can be found at https://matomo.org/privacy/.

6. Why do we process your personal data?

Fondazione ICONS’ processes personal data in order to accomplish its mission to disseminate the results and activities of cultural and scientific research projects to the general public.

7. Which is the legal basis on which we operate?

The data controller has the Legitimate Interest to process your personal data as per art. 6 (f) GDPR 179/2016. Our detailed rationale for claiming legitimate interest is based on a Legitimate Interest Assessment (LIA), periodically reviewed.
We believe that it is a mutual benefit to remain in contact; you will receive from us communications exclusively as detailed in the previous paragraphs. We hope to hear back from you on the specific topics through our communication activity for a mutual growth.

8. How long will we retain and process your data?

Your data will be processed for the whole duration of the project that you subscribed to or of other similar projects that we proposed to you. You will always have the possibility to opt out from any of these projects if you are not interested in them anymore.
Once a specific project is over, and starting from the last communication that you receive from us, we will keep your data for a further period of 2 years. If, in this period, you don’t receive any further updates from us, we will contact you to verify if you are still interested in being part of the community. Should this be the case, we will extend the retention period for 2 additional years. If, after the 2 additional years, Fondazione ICONS hasn’t performed any communication activity related to your area of interest your data will be deleted.

9. Data transfer

Fondazione ICONS processes do not require any transfer of data to external third parties with the sole exception of auditing authorities of the public or private institutions that funded the research projects in question.
Following the processes described above, your personal data can be communicated to the data controller’s staff.

Furthermore, and insofar as necessary, personal data may be disclosed to the following categories:

  • Persons in charge of managing the website and the related activities;
  • Persons who provide services for the management of the information system of the company;
  • Persons carrying out monitoring, auditing and certification activities with regard to the business in which organisations are in, even in the customers’ interest.

The personal data you provide will not be sold to or shared with third parties.
We will only then share your personal data if necessary and only with vendors or agents who work on our behalf for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice. In this case, your personal data is therefore shared with these parties, but only for the performance of services and on behalf of Fondazione ICONS.
Finally, and only to the extent that this is required by law or strictly necessary for the performance of the services or for the protection of our rights, or the rights of third parties or data subjects affiliated with us, we will provide your personal data to law enforcement agencies, research organisations, affiliated companies or in court proceedings.

10. How to exercise your rights

In order to allow you to exercise your rights, Fondazione ICONS has implemented internal procedures described hereby. If you would like to know more or to exercise your rights, please contact:

  • Fondazione ICONS Headquarters: phone +39 0371 091065

You might contact directly:

An exhaustive list of your rights is shown below:

  1. Right to be informed: about our purposes for processing the personal data, retention periods for that personal data, and whom it will be shared with.
  2. Right of access: to access personal data
  3. Right to rectification: Under Article 16 of the GDPR, individuals have the right to have inaccurate personal data rectified
  4. Right to erasure: Under Article 17 of the GDPR individuals have the right to have personal data erased. This is also known as the ‘right to be forgotten”
  5. Right to restrict processing: Article 18 of the GDPR gives individuals the right to restrict the processing of their personal data in certain circumstances. This means that an individual can limit the way an organisation uses their data. This is an alternative to requesting the erasure of their data.
  6. Right of data portability gives individuals the right to receive personal data they have provided to a controller in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format. It also gives them the right to request that a controller transmits this data directly to another controller.
  7. Right to object: Article 21 of the GDPR gives individuals the right to object to the processing of their personal data. This effectively allows individuals to ask to stop processing their personal data.
  8. Rights related to automated decision making including profiling.
  9. Right to report a misconduct to the Italian Privacy authority.

You can file an official complaint with the Data Protection Authority: www.garantedellaprivacy.it ( https://www.garanteprivacy.it/web/garante-privacy-en/home_en )

11. Changes to Privacy Notice

If necessary, we may amend or update this Privacy Notice to reflect changes on the website and feedback from our users. If there are material changes in the way we use or process your personal data, we will notify you by posting a notice of the changes before these come into effect or by sending a notification to you directly. We encourage you to refer to this notice regularly as a reminder of how we use and protect your data.

September 2025