Legal notice

1. General terms and conditions of use

• The user of the present website of VAST, hereafter referred to as «user», acknowledges that the user has verified that the computer configuration used does not contain any viruses or any other malicious software and that it operates perfectly.
• The user is solely responsible for the selection, use and interpretation of the data which the user consults, searches and transmits on the Internet.
• VAST Consortium, the responsible for this website, reserves the right to modify the present legal notice at any time. The user shall abide by the conditions of use of the portal contained in the most recent version of the legal notice available on the portal at the time of such use.

2. Contents of the website

VAST maintains this website to enhance public access to information about its initiatives and to inform about the current status of the project in general.

This information is:

• of a general nature only and is not intended to address the specific circumstances of any particular individual or entity;
• not necessarily comprehensive, complete, accurate or up to date;
• sometimes linked to external sites, over which VAST has no control and for which it assumes no responsibility;
• not professional or legal advice (if you need specific advice, you should always consult a suitably qualified professional).

Our goal is to keep this information timely and accurate. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them. We reserve the right to correct the content of this website at any time and without notice.

However VAST accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the information neither for the presence of viruses or malicious software on its website.

It is our goal to minimise disruption caused by technical errors. However some data or information on our site may have been created or structured in files or formats that are not error-free and we cannot guarantee that our service will not be interrupted or otherwise affected by such problems. VAST accepts no responsibility with regard to such problems incurred as a result of using this site or any linked external sites.

This disclaimer is not intended to limit the liability of VAST in contravention of any requirements laid down in applicable national law nor to exclude its liability for matters which may not be excluded under that law.

Any user who discovers inaccuracies, erroneous information or information of a clearly unlawful nature is invited to inform the Communications Department, VAST Consortium, National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos, Ag. Paraskevi, Attiki, Greece.

3. Use of hyperlinks

• This site includes information made available by hyperlinks to other sites which have not been developed by VAST.
• VAST shall under no circumstances be liable for hyperlinks to other sites from this site.
• The existence of a link from this site to another site shall not constitute any acquiescence or warranty on the part of VAST with respect to content or any person who runs such other site.
• The creation of hyperlinks to this site shall be subject to the explicit prior approval of the VAST.

4. Data privacy

Here is a general overview of some of the ways this website processes your personal data including the use of cookies.

4.1.1 In the following we inform about the collection of personal data when using our website. Personal data are all data by which a person is identified or is identifiable. This data includes, for example, the name of a person but also data from which a person can be determined (e.g. e-mail address, account connection data, etc.).

4.1.2 The data collected on the website of VAST stem exclusively from the voluntary registering of your personal data, for example by subscribing to our newsletter or any event related to VAST. It will not be shared with any organisation – commercial or otherwise excepted in case of external consultancy in relation with the website. In such case appropriate measures will be implemented. We will never divulge your personal data for direct marketing purposes. We put in place measures to ensure that your data are kept up-to-date and processed securely in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (hereafter “GDPR”).

4.1.3 The person responsible for the processing of personal data on this website pursuant to Art. 4 para. 7 of the Basic EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the DPO of VAST Consortium.
To contact the person responsible:

DPO Officer
National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos, Patr. Gregoriou E & 27 Neapoleos Str, 15341 Agia Paraskevi, GREECE

4.1.4 When using the website for information purposes only, i.e. if you do not register or otherwise provide us with information, we only collect the personal data that your browser transmits to our server. If you wish to view our website, we collect the following data, which is technically necessary for us to display our website to you and to ensure stability and security. The legal basis for this is a balancing of interests pursuant to Art. 6 para. 1 sentence 1 lit. f GDPR:
– IP address
– Date and time of the request
– Time zone difference to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
– Content of the request (specific page)
– Access status/HTTP status code
– Amount of data transferred in each case
– Website from which the request comes
– Browser
– Operating system and its interface
– Language and version of the browser software.

4.1.5 According to the GDPR You have the following rights towards us with regard to personal data concerning you

1. • Right of access (Art. 15 GDPR)
   • Right of correction or deletion (Art. 16 GDPR Art. 17 GDPR)
   • Right of limitation of processing (Art. 18 GDPR)
   • Right of opposition to processing (Art. 21 GDPR)
   • Right of data transferability (Art. 20 GDPR)
2. You also have the right to complain to a data protection supervisory authority about our processing of your personal data.
3. You can exercise your rights by sending us an email here : vastproject2020 (at) gmail.com
4. You can contact our data protection coordinator at any time:
   Contact details vastproject2020 (at) gmail.com
5. We do not keep your personal information for longer than necessary for the purposes for which we collected it. However, we may keep your information for a longer period for historical, statistical or scientific purposes with the appropriate safeguards in place.

4.2. Cookies
Cookies are used on VAST website for its technical functioning and for gathering statistics.
The legal basis for processing personal data by using session cookies is Art. 6 para. 1 point (f) GDPR (legitimate interest). Without the use of the session cookies especially, several functions could not be offered on our website.

A cookie is a small piece of data that a website stores on the visitor’s computer or mobile device.
The information on this page lists the cookies that this website uses and describes their purpose.
You will also find more details here about cookies relating to our social media channels and Google Analytics, the service we use for our statistics.

4.2.1. Social media cookies
VAST is active on social media platforms. For instance, VAST is present on four key social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook, Mailchimp, Github. These communities strengthen our online presence and visibility.

• VAST website does not set cookies with the display of links to our social media channels when you are browsing our website;
• By clicking on the Twitter, Mailchimp and Github button on our website, you will be redirected to those websites, which have their own cookie and privacy policies over which we have no control.

4.2.2. Session cookies
VAST is using session cookies to ensure the correct usage of the website. Cookies used by VAST are deleted after the session.

4.2.3. Persistent Cookies
Google Analytics

• Google Analytics is a service which monitors and evaluates the effectiveness and efficiency of VAST website.
• This platform enables the protection of end-user personal data thanks to features such as IP address de-identification and a mechanism for users to opt-out so that their browsing is not processed for analytics purposes.
• Google provides information about the cookies used by Google Analytics.
• The cookies used by Google Analytics will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States.

4.3. Privacy measures
Google Analytics is configured to use the domain https://www.vast-project.eu/ and to store first-party cookies that expire after 2 years.

Cookies are used by VAST to track the following information about visitors. We use this information to prepare aggregated, anonymous statistics reports of visitor activity:
– IP address (masked)
– Location: country, region, city, approximate latitude and longitude (Geolocation)
– Date and time of the request (visit to the site)
– Title of the page being viewed (Page Title)
– URL of the page being viewed (Page URL)
– URL of the page that was viewed prior to the current page (Referrer URL)
– Screen resolution of user’s device
– Time in local visitor’s time-zone
– Files that were clicked and downloaded (Download)
– Links to an outside domain that were clicked (Outlink)
– Pages generation time (the time it takes for webpages to be generated by the webserver and then downloaded by the visitor: Page speed)
– Main language of the browser being used (Accept-Language header)
– Browser version, browser plugins (PDF, Flash, Java, …) operating system version, device identifier (User-Agent header)
– Language of the visited page
– Campaigns
– Site Search
– Events

Persistent cookies are saved on your computer and are not deleted automatically when you close your browser, unlike a session cookie, which is deleted when you close your browser. Persistent cookies are automatically deleted after a specified period, which may vary depending on the cookie. You can delete cookies at any time in the security settings of your browser.

4.4 Opting out
By default, the browsing experience of website visitors is tracked by Google Analytics in order to produce anonymised statistics.

You may choose not to be tracked (opt-out).

If you change your mind, you can choose to be tracked again (opt-in).
Opt-in to Google Analytics
Please note: this feature will opt you out (or in) of cookies too. If you choose to opt-out, you will receive an opt-out cookie so that your decision is remembered. If you regularly delete your cookies, you will need to opt-out each time you delete them.

4.5. Do not track preferences
Do not track is a function that allows visitors to opt out from being tracked by websites for any purpose including the use of analytics services, advertising networks and social platforms. Do not track options are available in a number of browsers including: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Opera.

• If you enable do not track in your web browser, Google Analytics will respect your choice;
• If you have enabled the do not track function, you will not be tracked. This is in addition to your opting-out of the aggregation and analysis of data for our website statistics;
• If you have not enabled the do not track option but you choose to opt-out, the cookie ‘ga-disable-UA’ will be stored in your browser. All visitors with a ga-disable-UA cookie will not be tracked by Google Analytics;
• If you have disabled all cookies from your browser, we will still collect some general data about your browsing (e.g. a record of a visitor to our website) but they will be less accurate and your visit will not be tracked.

4.6. Restricted access to information
All analytics data communication is encrypted via HTTPS protocol. The analytical reports generated can only be accessed by authorised University staff dealing with Google Analytics or by duly authorised external sub-contractors, who may be required to analyse, develop and/or regularly maintain certain websites.

4.7. Masking of IP addresses
Note: Institution, city and country origin are determined from the full IP, then stored and aggregated before a mask is applied. Google Analytics uses an IP de-identification mechanism that automatically masks a portion of each visitor’s IP (Internet Protocol), effectively making it impossible to identify a particular visitor via the sole IP address.

4.8. Visitor logs
Google Analytics automatically deletes visitors’ logs after 25 months. Anonymised and aggregated data are stored for an indefinite period by the University for analysis purposes.

4.9. Contact
Specific questions about the storage and use of Google Analytics data by VAST can be sent to us at info (at) iit.demokritos.gr.

5. Intellectual property

All the information available on the website https://www.vast-project.eu/ is protected by copyright. We also use creative content from websites that provide free of charge and royalty free content, fully respecting and taking under consideration any specific licensing terms of copyright exploitation. Unless otherwise indicated, reproduction of texts from these sites for non-commercial purposes and especially in educational situations is permitted, subject to the following three conditions being met:

• Free dissemination;
• Respect for the integrity of the reproduced documents: no modification or alteration of any kind;
• Explicit mention of the websites used as a source and statement that the rights of reproduction are reserved and limited.
• Any exception to these rules shall be subject to the prior written approval of VAST and the author of the creative content.

6. Responsibility

• The user accepts that any access to the website or any use of the website shall be on the user own responsibility.
• VAST declines all liability for direct or indirect damage which may be caused by the use of the site, particularly in relation to an interruption to or cessation of the operation of the site or a dysfunction of the site which may result in particular from a shutdown for maintenance or upgrading of the computer system of VAST, technical faults or network overloads, faults in telephone lines, errors, negligence or misdemeanours by suppliers of Internet services or by a third party, or a virus acquired via the Internet.

7. VAST on Social Networks

VAST wishes to use social networks for maximum proximity with stakeholders, industry, researchers, etc. The aim is to provide them with special access to useful information likely to be of interest to them. To guarantee quality information flows where people remain respectful of good social practices and can participate freely, two guideline documents have been developed to assist users.

8. Greek law and courts

• The law of Greece shall apply.
• The user is informed that only Athens courts are competent to pronounce a ruling with respect to any disputes which may arise relating to the use, interpretation and implementation of the information and data featured on this website.

9. Contact

The Communications Team of the VAST Consortium, National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos, Ag. Paraskevi, Attiki, Greece. Email: egalif (at) iit.demokritos.gr.
The user acknowledges that the user has taken note of this legal notice and undertakes to observe it.