Privacy policy

I. PRIVACY POLICY: introduction

This privacy policy concerns how Upkot deals with the personal data of its customers (individuals) and all other private persons who come into contact with Upkot (hereinafter referred to as “you”).

Upkot attaches great importance to protecting your personal data and your privacy and therefore processes and protects your personal data in a transparent, proper, and lawful manner. By ‘personal data’ we understand ‘every form of information that allows you to identify yourself directly or indirectly as a private individual’.

When processing your personal data, Upkot evidently complies with the law, in the past the Belgian Act of 8 December 1992 and, from 25 May 2018, the European Regulation No. 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 on Data Protection (General Data Protection Regulation – GDPR) or any other legislation that changes this.

More information on the protection of personal data can be obtained from the Belgian Data Protection Authority or gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit.

Please read this statement carefully to ensure that you are familiar with and understand Upkot’s privacy policy. Moreover, this statement will be updated on a regular basis. You will find the most recent version on our website. We will notify you via our usual communication channels of any significant changes.

II. PROCESSING OF PERSONAL DATA

Upkot is responsible for the processing of your personal data:

Upkot – Amelia Earhartlaan 2/201, 9051 Ghent – BE 0840.066.124 – privacy@upgrade-estate.be – 092337666

Upkot is accountable to the Data Protection Authority for the processing of your personal data. Upkot determines the purposes for which your personal data will be processed and also the means and processing properties used.

Upkot may use specialised service providers to process your personal data on behalf of Upkot and in accordance with the instructions of Upkot in accordance with this privacy statement. Only the personal data that are strictly necessary will be passed on to these service providers (hereinafter referred to as the ‘processors of Upkot’).

III. Which categories of personal data does Upkot process?

Below is an overview of the categories of personal data that Upkot may process. Moreover, other data may also be processed if these are necessary or useful for the continuation of the contractual relationship with Upkot. Also, the context in which Upkot obtains or processes these data is stated in the table.

Category Examples Context
1/ Identity data of the client or principal (seller or lessor) 2/ Identity data of the prospective buyer or lessee Name, address, e-mail address, place and date of birth, nationality, landline or mobile telephone number. You provide these data, and they are processed if you request information, become a customer, conclude a brokerage agreement or register to use the services of Upkot (online) for every identification or use. Such data may among other things be obtained by reading your identity card or by filling in our client portal ‘Omniboxx’.
Data regarding immovable property of the client or principal (seller or lessor) Title to ownership, town planning extract, inspection certificate for the electrical system, EPC certificate, post-intervention file, information about the susceptibility to flooding, soil certificate, information on the heritage value These data will be provided by you or requested by Upkot on your behalf from the government or technical experts.
Data of a prospective lessee relating to a proposed lease agreement Information on occupation and employment, study, the school where studies are being undertaken, solvency, family situation, wages. These data are collected with the help of forms and contracts which you fill out at your request.
Additional data for the conclusion of a lease agreement or private sale agreement National register number You provide these data yourself. The national register number will only be used in situations provided or required by law.
Data of co-owners (or their tenants) Name, address, place and date of birth, nationality, landline or mobile telephone number and the e-mail address. You, as a co-owner, provide these data to Upkot if Upkot acts as administrator.
Data related to the performance of the administrator’s services Payment operations, including names and account numbers, communication and references, card numbers. These data relate to your operations as a co-owner which are coordinated by the administrator
Data regarding operations between Upkot and you The information in connection with your contacts with Upkot, by telephone, e-mail, fax, etc., and your interactions on the web pages regarding Upkot, its services or its partners, on social networks. These data come from contacts of any kind whatsoever between you and Upkot (at meetings or events, seminars, trade fairs, subscription to a newsletter, social media channels, social networks, etc.)
Data about the conduct and preferences of the client. Information about your conduct and preferences in relation to the use of communication and relations channels, information about your personal choices and lifestyle, private or professional projects. These data are the result of choices that you have made or analyses carried out by Upkot in accordance with this statement and its legal obligations.

Upkot does not process any data revealing your ethnic origin or race, political opinions, philosophical or religious beliefs, trade union membership, health or life details or genetic data, sexual orientation or biometric data.

IV. For what purposes does Upkot process your personal data?

Upkot collects and processes your personal data only for the purposes described below. Upkot ensures that only necessary and relevant data are processed for a specific purpose. Upkot processes your data in situations permitted by law, namely:

  • To comply with the statutory obligations incumbent on Upkot
  • To execute a contract with you or to take specific measures at your request before the conclusion of this contract
  • To protect the legitimate interests of Upkot, whereby these interests are weighed up against your basic rights and fundamental freedoms
  • In specific cases, with your permission, as a consequence of a specific and unambiguous request, preceded by clear information. You may withdraw this permission at any time in accordance with the law.

Statutory obligations

Upkot must comply with legislation that requires it in specific circumstances to process your personal data in the context of its activities. These requirements may mean that Upkot has to cooperate with the competent authorities and/or third parties, and may have to transfer certain personal data to them. These include:
 

  • The obligation to contribute to the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing;
  • The obligation imposed on an administrator regarding the management of co-ownership;
  • The obligation to respond to a formal request from Belgian tax and judicial authorities.

The list of statutory obligations for which Upkot has to process your data is not exhaustive and is subject to change.

Contractual relationship between you as the client and Upkot

Before concluding contracts, Upkot must, in some situations, obtain and process certain data, in particular to, among other things:

  • respond to your request;
  • assist you when providing information and when concluding the contract;
  • follow up a request, assess the suitability and the risks in relation to a potential contract;
  • fulfil your instructions to act as an intermediary.

In the context of ongoing contracts or the management of contracts, Upkot has to process certain personal data, in particular, to comply with administrative and accounting obligations.
In this context, your data may be sent internally – within Upkot – to the various departments, including those not directly responsible for the relationship with you or the execution of a specific contract. More specifically, Upkot processes your data in the execution of contracts as follows:

  • Management of ordered services and/or ongoing contracts;
  • Central management and overall picture of the client;
  • Management of your property;
  • Management of the co-ownership in which you are co-owner.

Upkot may process your personal data for additional purposes in the context of the execution of contracts and the relationship with you.

Legitimate interests of Upkot

Upkot also processes your data to realise its legitimate interests. In this regard, Upkot seeks to achieve a fair balance between respect for your freedoms and rights and the need to process data, including the protection of privacy. Personal data will be processed, among other things, for:

  • Personalising the services of Upkot
  • Improving the quality of the service provided to you by:
  • – Evaluating and improving processes, campaigns, simulations, and sales by the use of various resources such as statistical analysis, satisfaction surveys, and various other research methods;
  • – Improvement of existing – or developing – products or services of Upkot on the basis of surveys of customers of Upkot, statistics, tests and feedback of customers via social networks (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube) linked to Upkot.
  • Monitoring the activities of Upkot, including the turnover, the number of appointments at our offices, the number of calls and visits to the website of Upkot, the type of questions asked by customers, etc.;
  • Preparing studies and statistics, where the data of the data subjects are processed anonymously;
  • Training employees using practical illustrative examples, including recording certain telephone calls;
  • Using cookies to improve the user-friendliness of the website. You will find more information about the functioning of cookies and the possibilities to limit the use of cookies and to remove them in our cookies policy;
  • Storing evidence (in archives);
  • Recording, exercising, defending and maintaining the rights of Upkot or any persons that it represents, for example for collection procedures or disputes.

Specific legitimate interest of Upkot: direct marketing

Upkot carries out customer segmentation – in particular, according to your needs – in order, for example, to offer suitable premises and services that correspond to your professional and personal situation. For this purpose, Upkot may, among other things:

  • Assess the services that you already use and your socio-demographic data (e.g. age, family composition, income);
  • Analyse your behaviour via various channels (visits/meetings, e-mails, website visits, messages via our website, social media), deduce your preferences and use this to personalise the information and the internet pages that you have visited;
  • Adapt the advertisements on the web pages so that they meet the interest that you have shown via your behaviour on our website, social networks, in an office, or elsewhere (e.g. at events where Upkot was present);
  • Simplify the completion of forms by pre-completing certain fields with already known data and ask you to verify the accuracy of these data and if need be to update these;
  • Assess the key moments at which certain services would suit you best;
  • Send personalised advertisements to you by post, e-mail, or by telephone.

Your consent for the processing and sending of electronic advertising (electronic direct marketing)

Upkot may process your personal electronic contact details (i.e. your mobile telephone number and e-mail address) to send you personal information, advertisements or proposals via direct marketing or newsletters. In this case, Upkot has to request your specific prior permission.
By accepting this privacy policy, you are permitting the processing of your personal data for electronic direct marketing purposes and the sending of electronic advertising.

V. To whom WILL Upkot disclose your personal data?

Upkot handles your personal data with great care and will only share your data to offer you the best services when carrying out its task.
Upkot may send your data to other entities within its group in Belgium and abroad, and in particular to other entities in the group that assist Upkot with the implementation, management, and monitoring of the activities, including reporting, support, and computer security, or the offering specific services and products.
In some cases, Upkot is required by law to share your data with third parties, including:

  • Supervisory authorities or government agencies if there is a legal obligation to disclose information;
  • Judicial investigation agencies at their express request.

Upkot will also transfer your data to specific service providers to help with:

  • Designing and maintaining computer equipment and internet applications;
  • Offering advertising and communication services, including online and social network providers;
  • Preparing reports and statistics, printing documents and designing products or services;
  • Commercialising its activities, the organisation of events and the management of customer communications.

Upkot also has to pass your data on to online and social network providers that use Upkot to offer advertising services.
Your personal data may also be disclosed to bailiffs or lawyers in the context of court proceedings.
In the above-mentioned cases, Upkot ensures that third parties only have limited access to the personal data that are needed to carry out the required specific tasks. Upkot will ensure that third parties undertake to use the personal data securely and confidentially in accordance with the instructions of Upkot and its data protection policy.

Upkot stores your personal data within the EEA. No data will be transferred to countries outside the EEA.

VI. How long WILL your personal Data BE retained?

Upkot will not retain your personal data for longer than is necessary for the achievement of the purposes for which the data are collected. This period is linked to Upkot’s statutory and tax obligations and also the statutory requirement to retain your data outside the retention period as evidence or to respond to requests for information from the competent authority, e.g.:

  • Ten years in the context of the anti-money laundering legislation;
  • Ten years in the context of the contractual liability of Upkot;
  • Seven years for the accounts and accountability documents of associations of co-owners in connection with the performance of an administrator’s duties.
    Your personal data will be erased or anonymised outside these periods.

VII. How are your personal data secured?

Upkot applies strict standards to protect the personal data under its control against unlawful and unauthorised processing and accidental loss, damage or destruction. Upkot takes measures of a technical and organisational nature such as encryption, anti-virus, firewalls, access controls and strict selection of employees and suppliers to prevent and detect inappropriate access, disclosure or loss of your personal data.
In the unlikely and unfortunate event that your personal data under the control of Upkot are compromised by a breach of information security, Upkot will immediately act to identify the cause of such breach infringement and take action through appropriate mediating measures. If necessary, Upkot will inform you if this incident in accordance with applicable law.

VIII. What are your rights WITH regard TO THE processing OF your personal data?

Right of INSPECTION, correction, restriction, erasure, data portability and of objection
For the above-mentioned purposes you have the:

  • Right of inspection of your personal data at Upkot. This means that you can ask Upkot whether it processes your personal data, for what purposes your data are processed, what categories of data are processed, and to whom they are disclosed;
  • Right of correction if you determine that your personal data are inaccurate or incomplete;
  • Right of restriction if for example you dispute the accuracy of your personal data and do so during a period that allows Upkot to check this;
  • Right to erasure of your personal data. Once your contract with Upkot has come to an end, you can ask Upkot to erase your personal data if these are no longer needed for the purposes for which they were collected. You also have the possibility at any time to request erasure of your personal data which Upkot processes on the basis of your consent (unless Upkot has other legal grounds for the processing) or on the basis of the legitimate interest of Upkot (unless there are overriding legitimate grounds for the processing). Upkot may, in any event, retain such personal data if this is required for evidence purposes in the context of legal proceedings;
  • Right to data portability as regards data that you have provided to Upkot if your personal data are processed on the basis of an agreement or on the basis of your consent to send electronic communications and these personal data are processed using automated processes. This right allows you to ask Upkot to send your personal data to you or directly to another data controller, insofar as this is technically possible for Upkot.
  • You have the right to object to the processing of your data for the purposes stated in Article IV.3 and IV.4. However, in the case of Article IV.3, Upkot may continue to process the personal data if there are compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which outweigh your interests, rights and freedoms or grounds relating to the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

You can exercise your rights by sending a signed and dated written request by post, including a copy of your proof of identity, to Upkot, Amelia Earhartlaan 2/201 – 9051 Ghent or by e-mail to privacy@upgrade-estate.be or by using the contact form on the website.

Right to object to THE sending of electronic advertising

In IV.5, your permission was requested to process and use your electronic contact details to send you commercial information, advertising or personal proposals (via direct marketing campaigns or electronic newsletters). This applies in particular to communications to your mobile telephone number and your e-mail address.
You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data for electronic direct marketing and to object to receiving such advertising in the future. You can inform us of this in the following ways:

  • By sending an e-mail with a copy of your identity card to privacy@upgrade-estate.be;
  • By sending a letter by post with a copy of your identity card to Upkot – Amelia Earhartlaan 2/201 – 9051 Ghent;
  • By clicking on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of an e-mail or electronic newsletter sent by Upkot;
  • By sending a request via the contact page on our website.

However, the exercise of the right of objection may not prevent Upkot from contacting you for any other purpose, including a legal obligation or the performance of the contract, in accordance with this statement.

Right to lodge a complaint

If you have any complaints regarding the processing of your personal data, you can contact us as follows:

  • By post: Upkot – Amelia Earhartlaan 2/201, 9051 Ghent
  • By e-mail: privacy@upgrade-estate.be
  • By telephone: 09 233 76 66
  • Via the contact form on our website

You can also submit a complaint to the Data Protection Authority, by post to Drukpersstraat 35, 1000 Brussels, by e-mail to commission@privacycommission.be, or by telephone to +32 2 274 48 00.