EXIT INTERVIEW SURVEY - Jan 2025

DATA PROTECTION NOTICE

EXIT INTERVIEW SURVEY

1. Introduction

The European Economic and Social Committee (hereafter 'EESC') is committed to protect your personal data and to respect your privacy. The EESC collects and further processes personal data pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by the Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies and on the free movement of such data (hereafter 'EUDPR').

Your personal data may be collected and processed for the purpose of an exit interview survey in order to gather useful feedback from staff leaving the institution. This feedback can help guide future practices and improve retention of experienced and qualified staff within the institution.

Participation in this exercise is on voluntary basis and no consequences derive from either participating or not participating. By participating, you consent to your personal data being processed for the purposes of the procedure described in this data protection notice.

2. Who is responsible for the processing of personal data?

The EESC is responsible (as controller) for the processing of personal data. The responsible service (delegated controller) is Directorate E - Human Resources and Finance - E.1 HR Planning & training unit

3. What is the purpose of the processing?

The exit interviews have the following objectives:

• To learn about a person's reasons for departure
• To provide insights about:
  • the institution,
  • all aspects of the working environment,
  • the working culture, processes and systems in place,
  • management at unit and Directorate level, and
  • development perceptions.
• To create a confidential environment for sharing feedback.
• To provide opportunities for the staff member to leave on a positive note
•  As valuable insight would be gained into various aspects of the working environment certain trends may emerge that could be used efficiently in the institution's strategic development.

4. What is the legal basis for the processing?

The legal basis allowing collecting information including personal data is Article 5(1)(d) of the EUDPR, according to which "the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes".

5. What personal data are processed?

The following data will be handled in the process by the Planning sector within Unit E1:

• Full name
• Last date of employment
• Age range
• Gender
• Seniority
• Grade category
• Directorate of assignment
• Unit of departure within the European Economic and Social Committee
• Management function
• Personal opinion of the leaving staff member.

All these data are optional and you can choose whether answer or not to these questions.

This survey uses the Commission's online questionnaire tool EUSurvey that requires you to login via your ‘EU Login’ or ‘social media account’. ‘EU Login’ requires certain personal data such as the name, surname and e-mail address of the registrant. For further information, please refer to the privacy statements of ‘EU Login’ and ‘EU Survey’ as well as the processing operations ‘Identity & Access Management Service (IAMS)' (reference number in the public DPO register: DPR-EC-03187) and ‘EUSurvey’ (reference number: DPR-EC-01488). Should you choose to log in through your social media account, please refer to the pertinent social media platform’s privacy statement.

Please note that the Data Controller does not request nor expect that data subjects provide any special categories of data under Article 10(1) of the EUDPR (that is “personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation”) related to themselves or to third persons in their contributions to the targeted consultation activity. Any spontaneous inclusion of these types of personal data is the responsibility of the data subject and by including any of these types of data the data subject is considered to provide his/her explicit consent to the processing, in accordance with Article 10(2)(a) of the EUDPR.

Therefore, all personal data will be deleted one year after the reporting has been completed, except data that may serve as evidence in harassment lawsuits and aggregated anonymous data.

Only aggregated, anonymous data will be used in the reporting on the outcome of the exit interviews. For reasons of confidentiality and protection of personal data only strictly objective indicators will be used in the aggregation of statistical data:

• Key statistics
• Key strengths
• Key development areas
• Recommended corrective action

6. Who are the recipients or categories of recipients of your personal data?

Only the staff of the HR Planning sector within Unit E1 has access to the personal data and will be concerned with individual replies to questions in the survey. Neither names nor any other personal data or individual replies will be disclosed in the reporting, or linked in anyway to the replies which will feed into the aggregated report, unless this is not explicitly requested by the respondent.

The final report will be drafted in a way that it will not be possible to track back the individual answers to the actual respondents (only global or aggregated conclusions).

7. Are your personal data transferred to a third country or international organisation?

No, your personal data are not transferred to non-EU Member States or to international organisations.

8. How can you exercise your rights?

You have the right to access your personal data, to rectify any inaccurate or incomplete personal data, to restrict (under certain conditions) the processing of your personal data, to object to the processing of your data and to request the deletion of your personal data (if processed unlawfully).

Where applicable, you have the right to receive your personal data provided to the controller or to have your personal data transmitted directly to another controller (data portability). You also have the right to withdraw your consent at any time You can direct your queries to HR-Planning-EESC@eesc.europa.eu.

Your query will be dealt without undue delay and in any event within one month of receipt of the request. That period may be extended by two further months where necessary.

You have the right of recourse to the European Data Protection Supervisor if you consider that your rights under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 have been infringed as a result of the processing of your personal data by the EESC.

9. How long are your personal data kept for?

In line with the policy established for the conduction of exit interviews survey at the EESC reporting is foreseen to be provided on the four indicators as stated above (key statistics, key strengths, key development areas, recommended corrective actions) every year to the Secretary General as well as to the Director of Directorate E, Human Resources and Finance.

Therefore, all personal data will be deleted one year after the reporting has been completed, except data that may serve as evidence in harassment lawsuits and aggregated anonymous data.

10. Are the personal data collected used for automated decision-making, including profiling?

The EESC will not use your personal data to make automated decisions about you. "Automated decisions" are defined as decisions made without human intervention.

11. Will your personal data be further processed for a purpose other than that for which data have been obtained?

Your personal data will not be further processed for a different purpose.

12. Who do I contact if I have queries or complaints?

If you have comments, questions or concerns about the processing of your personal data, please contact the data controller, HR-Planning-EESC@eesc.europa.eu.

You may also contact the EESC data protection officer by using the relevant contact form and/or the European Data Protection Supervisor by using the relevant contact form at any time.