Privacy Policy

1. Who is responsible?

WAPA Association (World Apple and Pear Association, ‘WAPA’, ‘we’ or ‘us’) is responsible for the processing described in this policy.

Contact address: Rue de Trèves 49–51, box 8, 1040 Brussels, Belgium.
Email: wapa@wapa-association.org
Telephone: +32 (0)2 777 15 80.

This policy covers the WAPA public website and enquiries addressed to its secretariat. The separate Members area and external event or partner websites may provide additional notices for their own services. This policy does not replace those notices.

2. What information do we process, and why?

Website operation and security

When you request a page, the hosting infrastructure processes technical information such as your IP address, request time, requested URL, browser information and response status. This enables delivery of the website, troubleshooting and protection against misuse. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in operating a reliable and secure website (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Enquiries and membership requests

If you contact us by email or telephone, we process the information you provide, such as your name, professional contact details, organisation and the content of your request. We use it to reply and follow up. Our legitimate interest in responding to professional enquiries is the usual legal basis. Where you personally request steps before entering into a contract, Article 6(1)(b) GDPR may apply instead. Where the contact person acts for an organisation, we rely on our legitimate interest in managing that relationship.

Providing information is voluntary, but we may be unable to answer without suitable contact details and enough information to understand the request. Please avoid sending sensitive personal information unless it is necessary and specifically requested.

Member directory and publications

The website includes professional contact information supplied by member organisations or obtained from their official public sources, and names or professional roles in association news. We publish this information to explain WAPA’s activities and help professional contacts reach the relevant organisations. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in maintaining an informative association website. Please contact us if a professional listing needs to be corrected or reviewed.

Legal requirements

We may process information where necessary to meet an applicable legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c) GDPR) or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, based on our legitimate interests where appropriate.

3. Website features

The current public website provides email links rather than a contact form. It does not offer a public account registration, newsletter subscription or payment facility. We do not use the public website for behavioural advertising or automated decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects on individuals.

See the Cookie Policy for information about cookies and similar technologies. Opening the Members area link takes you to a separate service at memberscloud.app; it is not embedded in the public website.

4. Who can receive your information?

Access is limited to authorised WAPA personnel and service providers who need information for the relevant task. These can include the secretariat’s communication service providers, website hosting and IT maintenance providers. The website is hosted by Infomaniak. Providers acting on WAPA’s instructions must be subject to appropriate data-processing and confidentiality arrangements.

We may disclose relevant information to competent authorities where required by law, or to professional advisers where necessary to protect or exercise legal rights. We do not sell personal information.

Professional information intentionally included in the member directory or publications is publicly accessible. A link to an external website does not itself transfer your enquiry to that organisation; when you follow the link, the destination processes your visit under its own privacy notice.

5. International transfers

Infomaniak provides hosting infrastructure in Switzerland, outside the European Economic Area. Switzerland benefits from a European Commission adequacy decision, which provides a basis for relevant transfers under Article 45 GDPR.

If another service requires a transfer to a country without an applicable adequacy decision, an appropriate safeguard is required, such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses, together with supplementary measures where needed. You can contact WAPA for information about the safeguards applicable to your data and how to obtain a copy. We do not make a blanket assurance that all service providers process data exclusively inside the European Union.

6. How long is information kept?

Enquiries received by email and their follow-up correspondence are retained for up to two years after the last substantive exchange, unless an applicable legal requirement or a specific ongoing dispute justifies keeping the relevant records for longer. If an enquiry becomes a membership or other contractual relationship, the records needed to administer that relationship are handled under the information provided for that service.

Technical logs follow the hosting service’s retention and rotation settings, with retention limited to what is needed for operation, security and incident investigation. Relevant records may be retained for a specific incident or legal claim. Backup copies follow the service’s backup rotation and are not kept as an indefinite archive.

Professional directory details are retained while they remain relevant to the organisation’s listing. Dated news archives may be kept for their historical and informational value; requests concerning personal information in those archives are assessed in light of the applicable rights and public-information interests.

7. Your rights

Subject to the conditions in the GDPR, you may request access, correction, erasure or restriction of processing. You may object to processing based on legitimate interests for reasons relating to your particular situation. Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of earlier processing. Data portability applies where the statutory conditions are met, including automated processing based on consent or a contract.

You have an unconditional right to object to processing for direct marketing, including related profiling. The current public website does not carry out behavioural marketing.

To exercise your rights, write to wapa@wapa-association.org or to the postal address above. We may request proportionate additional information if needed to confirm your identity. We normally respond within one month. Where permitted, this may be extended by up to two further months for complex or numerous requests; we will explain the extension within the first month.

You may complain to the Belgian Data Protection Authority, Rue de la Presse 35, 1000 Brussels, Belgium, or to the competent supervisory authority in the country where you live or work or where an alleged infringement occurred. You do not have to contact us first to exercise that right.

8. Security and updates

We use measures appropriate to the risks, including encrypted website connections and restricted administrative access. No online system can be guaranteed completely secure.

We will review this notice when the website or the relevant processing changes. The revision date below identifies this version. Material changes affecting your rights will be communicated as required by law.