This policy provides as clear and as simple information as possible in a single document about the data processing by the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (hereinafter referred to as "The Museums") on changing-natures.org. It will allow you to understand what personal data we collect and how we use it, while respecting your rights.
The Museums are committed to protecting your privacy in accordance with current legislation by ensuring the protection, confidentiality, non-alteration, availability and security of the personal data you entrust to us.
The data controllers are the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, represented by its chairman Dr. Bruno David, and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, represented by its Managing Director Prof. Johannes Vogel. These are public institutions whose registered offices are located respectively at 57, rue Cuvier - Paris 05 and Invalidenstr. 43 - 10115 Berlin. Email: bruno.david [at] mnhn.fr; johannes.vogel [at] mfn.berlin
The Privacy Policy is directly accessible from the website during registration and visible through a link in the footer on all pages of the website.
This policy may be updated at any time. Therefore, the user is invited to refer to the latest version in force.
1. The main principles
The Museums are committed to the following main principles to ensure that fundamental rights are respected:
- Transparency: we provide you with all relevant information about the processing of your data, including the purposes and recipients;
- Data minimization: we collect and process only data that is adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purposes for which it was collected;
- Confidentiality and integrity: we implement all reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data against disclosure, loss, alteration or access by unauthorized third parties;
- Data retention: we keep your personal data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes of the particular processing or service;
- Respect for your rights: we offer you the possibility to access, modify and object to the processing of your data, either directly via your personal areas, or via the project team or the Data Protection Officers. When the law allows it, we also offer you the possibility to exercise your right to limit the processing, as well as your right to the portability of your data;
- Commitment of our partners: the operations for which we call upon specialized partners are the subject of a contract in order to ensure the protection of your data and the respect of your rights.
1.1 When do we process your personal data?
Your data may be collected and processed for:
- the setting up of public user profiles in order to associate a contribution with its author;
- the setting up of internal user profiles including their contact information;
- exchanges between the platform hosts and the users: creation of an account, notifications about contributions, information about the project or about the use of the platform;
- anonymous user surveys for research purposes and to improve the ergonomics of the interface.
1.2 What personal data do we collect?
A personal data is an information relating to a natural person who can be identified directly or indirectly.
The Museums collect and/or process information that is strictly necessary to provide its services. This information is indicated by an asterisk and generally concerns your user name and e-mail address and, optionally, your year of birth and profile picture. The IP addresses of the users of the website are also collected by MNHN for a limited time in a request log.
In accordance with the law, the Museums do not collect Data that reveal racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning the sex life or sexual orientation of a natural person.
2. How do we use your data?
The personal data collected directly from you are those that are communicated on the forms put online on the website. It is collected for the purposes detailed below.
Some information is essential to benefit from the service concerned (indicated by an asterisk). If you do not provide this information, we will not be able to provide you with this service.
The storage time for your data is defined by the Museums in accordance with legal and contractual requirements. These delays are set according to the purposes for which the data is collected. Once these delays have expired, the data is either deleted or kept after having been anonymized, i.e. modified in such a way as to make it impossible to link it to a person.
In application of the European regulation on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data, we may be required to keep certain documents concerning you, which are of administrative use or of scientific, statistical or historical interest, after the end of the retention period.
As a user, you guarantee that the information you provide is accurate, complete and up-to-date.
User account management and functionality
| Purposes | User account creation and management |
| Legal basis | Performance of a contract |
| Data processed and retention periods | E-mail address*, user name*, year of birth, profile picture. These data are kept for a period of 5 years from the last connection of the User, unless the User unsubscribes. The user’s name and the year of birth may be retained if needed for research purposes. |
| Recipients | The relevant departments of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. |
Allocation of the data of a participation to its author
| Purposes | Ensure the reliability and usability of the participation data collected |
| Legal basis | Legitimate grounds of the controller: Connect user profiles with contributions. |
| Data processed and retention periods | E-mail address*, user name*. The identification data is kept as long as the participation data is used. |
| Recipients | The relevant departments of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. |
Conducting anonymous user surveys
| Purposes | Conduct research |
| Legal basis | The data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data. |
| Data processed and retention periods | User name, e-mail address, year of birth. The identification data is kept as long as the participation data is used. |
| Recipients | The relevant departments of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin in consultation with their scientific partners. |
Administrative and technical management of the website
| Purposes | Develop, operate and maintain the website |
| Legal basis | Legitimate grounds of the controller: Detect, resolve and prevent fraudulent activities on the platform. |
| Data processed and retention periods | Nominative connection statistics. These data are kept for a maximum of 6 months. |
| Recipients | The Mosaic Service Unit (MNHN-SU). |
Management of requests for access, rectification, opposition, deletion, limitation, portability
| Purposes | Allow you to exercise your rights regarding your personal data |
| Legal basis | Legal requirement |
| Data processed and retention periods | Content of exchanges, family name*, first name*, e-mail address, proof of identity (exceptionally if we have no other way to identify you), copy of the requested data (1 year) |
| Recipients | The relevant departments of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. |
Legal or regulatory requirement
The Museums may be required to disclose your personal data in response to legitimate requests from public authorities, including to meet national security, anti-fraud or other legal requirements.
3. Security and confidentiality of personal data
The Museums commit to undertake all the measures necessary to guarantee the security and confidentiality of the personal data, and particularly to prevent it from being damaged, deleted, or accessed by unauthorised third parties.
4. Rights of persons whose data is collected and processed
It is expressly agreed that the personal data collected by the Museums is used in accordance with the purposes described in the present personal data protection policy.
In accordance with the applicable regulations in the area of personal data protection, and subject to fulfilling the conditions, you have a right of access, rectification and opposition for a legitimate reason (except as regards prospecting, where it is not necessary to give a reason), and where permitted by law, of limitation, portability and deletion of the personal data concerning you. You may also at any time formulate instructions regarding the retention, deletion and communication of your personal data after your death.
These rights may be exercised at any time, provided that you provide proof of identity via an authentication space when this is possible, or by sending a copy of a currently valid identity document. Users can also modify their personal data themselves from their account.
Should you wish to receive further information on the content of these rights, you may contact the Museums’ data protection officers at the addresses dpo [@] mnhn.fr (Paris) or datenschutz [@] mfn.berlin (Berlin).
The Museums will respond to your requests to exercise rights as soon as possible and, in any event, within one month of receipt of such requests.
If you are experiencing difficulties in managing your personal data, you may file a complaint with the French Data Protection Authority (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés - CNIL).
5. Cookies
This website uses cookies and other related technologies (for the sake of simplification, all these technologies are referred to as “cookies”).
5.2 What are cookies?
Cookies are text files that are automatically sent to the hard drive of your computer, tablet or mobile phone when you browse our website. They are managed by your internet browser.
Cookies have many uses: they can be used to memorise your customer ID, to determine the language in which the web page is displayed, to track your browsing for statistical purposes, etc.
There are several types of cookies:
Cookies that do not require your consent:
- "Necessary", internal cookies, which allow information to be recorded between two visits to the same website on the same device (e.g. recording connection identifiers or interface customisation elements);
- “Statistical" cookies, which enable a website to monitor your interactions and to compile statistics in order to optimise the quality of your browsing. The statistics established must be anonymous (i.e. they do not allow you to be identified).
Cookies that require your consent:
- “First-party" cookies, which are deposited by the website. They may be deposited in addition to the necessary cookies and may be used to collect personal data, track user behaviour and serve advertising purposes. For these reasons, their deposit is conditional upon your consent;
- “Third party" cookies are cookies placed by websites other than the main website, usually by third parties who have been requested by the site you visited. This enables these third parties to see which pages you have visited on the website and to collect information about you. For these reasons, their deposit is also conditional upon your consent.
5.3 How do we use cookies?
Technical cookies
This website must use technical cookies to ensure that certain web pages function properly. This is why they do not require your consent.
RememberMe
| Name | Service | Duration | Purpose |
| RememberMe | user service | seven days | maintaining the connection |
Tarteaucitron
| Name | Service | Duration | Purpose |
| Tarteaucitron | user service | one year | storing cookie preferences |
This data is not shared with third parties.
Analytical cookies
This website uses analytical cookies only for the purpose of internal research on how it can improve the service it provides to all its users. These cookies are simply used to assess the way you interact with its website - as an anonymous user (the data collected cannot be used to identify you personally).
Matomo
| Name | Service | Duration | Purpose |
| _pk_ref* | web analytics service | six months | storing referrer ID’s |
| _pk_testcookie* | web analytics service | session | storing and counting pageviews |
| _pk_id* | web analytics service | thirteen months | storing a unique user ID |
| _pk_ses* | web analytics service | thirty minutes | storing a unique session ID |
This data is not shared with third parties.
You can manage your own preferences here
5.4 Enabling/disabling and deleting cookies
You can block or delete your cookies at any time via your browser settings. You can also specify that certain cookies cannot be set. Another option is to set your browser to notify you of any cookie installation. For more information on these options, see the instructions in the Help section of your browser.
5.5 Blocking cookies
Most browsers can be set to prevent cookies being stored on your device, but this may require you to specify some of your preferences each time you visit a website/page. In addition, some services and features may not be available (e.g. logging in with a profile).
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