Wallonie Finances Expertises Policy on the Protection of Privacy in Relation to the Processing of Personal Data in the Performance of Its Public Service Tasks
1. General
This policy describes how Wallonie Finances Expertises processes your personal data in the performance of its public-interest tasks, as well as your rights in this regard.
Wallonie Finances Expertises processes your personal data in accordance with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation, abbreviated as the GDPR1, and the Data Protection Act2.
Wallonie Finances Expertises ensures that your personal data is processed in a way that is adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes for which it is collected.
2. Who is the controller and who is the Data Protection Officer (DPO)?
Wallonie Finances Expertises is the controller of the personal data it processes in the performance of its public service tasks. This means that, having regard to the tasks entrusted to it by the Walloon Government, it determines the purposes for which such personal data is processed, as well as the means used for that processing. The DPO of Wallonie Finances Expertises is the contact person for all questions relating to the processing of your personal data and to the exercise of your rights under the GDPR (wfe.dpo@wfe.wallonie.be).
3. For what purposes does Wallonie Finances Expertises process your personal data?
WFE processes your personal data to carry out its public service tasks3. The public service tasks entrusted to Wallonie Finances Expertises are set out in the Walloon Government Decree of 25 April 2024 establishing the Strategic Centre for Fiscal, Financial and Budgetary Expertise, abbreviated as CeSEFFB, repealing the Walloon Government Decrees of 27 March 2002 establishing a fiscal unit of the Walloon Region and of 8 May 2014 establishing the financial information unit and repealing the Walloon Government Decree of 24 March 2005, and withdrawing the Walloon Government Decree of 20 July 2023 establishing the Strategic Centre for Fiscal, Financial and Budgetary Expertise, abbreviated as CeSEFFB, and repealing various related provisions (which may be consulted here). An overview of the tasks of Wallonie Finances Expertises is available on our website. Your personal data will not be processed by Wallonie Finances Expertises for commercial or advertising purposes, nor will it be transferred to third parties that would use it for such purposes.
More generally, the statutes of Wallonie Finances Expertises provide that: “The Centre receives, collects, holds and transmits the data and information necessary for the pursuit of its tasks in compliance with the applicable legal and regulatory provisions.”
4. What personal data is processed by Wallonie Finances Expertises?
4.1. Data collected directly by Wallonie Finances Expertises
Wallonie Finances Expertises, in particular because of its role as the ICN’s single point of contact, has been entrusted with collecting financial information from the Walloon public sector (See here). In addition, Wallonie Finances Expertises is a key interlocutor for the Walloon public sector, particularly in financial and budgetary matters.
The data processed within the meaning of the GDPR (Article 4(2) of the GDPR) is necessary for the performance of the public service tasks entrusted to Wallonie Finances Expertises (Article 6(1)(e) of the GDPR).
For the most part, the data collected and transmitted to the National Accounts Institute does not constitute personal data within the meaning of the GDPR. Indeed, it concerns legal persons and therefore falls outside the scope of the European Regulation, which applies only to data relating to natural persons.
However, to carry out its task of collecting financial and budgetary data, Wallonie Finances Expertises stores and uses the data of natural persons identified by organisations as contact points, so that reporting schedules, requests and reminders related to reporting can be sent efficiently and effectively. It also keeps identification data relating to persons who log into its main reporting tool for a limited period of 30 days.
In addition, to carry out its funding-related task (see here), the funding division of Wallonie Finances Expertises keeps up to date the contact details of its contacts within the financial institutions that act as its counterparts.
This data consists of surnames, first names, job titles, professional email addresses and professional mobile phone numbers communicated to Wallonie Finances Expertises by each organisation.
This data is used exclusively to contact the representatives and correspondents of Walloon bodies involved in the collection of financial information by Wallonie Finances Expertises, mainly for transmission to the National Accounts Institute and the BDG, as well as the contact details of persons employed by financial institutions that are in contact with Wallonia.
This data is disclosed free of charge, and only upon request, to public authorities (ministerial offices) or their processors in the context of requests addressed to Wallonie Finances Expertises, which, as stated above, acts as a regular point of contact for the bodies concerned.
You may access and rectify your personal data at any time, in accordance with the legislation in force, by contacting Wallonie Finances Expertises at the following email address: wfe.dpo@wfe.wallonie.be.
In addition, certain information-gathering exercises – notably building blocks – require public bodies to identify their shareholding structure or the counterparty to certain of their transactions (revenue received by certain public units).
Where such reporting would involve the transmission of personal data relating to natural persons, the organisations transmitting that data to Wallonie Finances Expertises are expressly asked to group all such persons under a generic heading (for example, household sector S.14), so that the information sent to Wallonie Finances Expertises contains no personal data relating to natural persons.
4.2. Processing of data collected by third parties
For the performance of its public service tasks, Wallonie Finances Expertises also collects data from other controllers, particularly the Walloon Public Service.
The personal data that may be collected for this purpose may include the following categories of personal data:
- identification data (e.g. surname, first name, date of birth);
- contact details (e.g. home address, region);
- certain financial data (for example, the receipt of a subsidy).
Wallonie Finances Expertises takes care, whenever technically possible for the performance of its public-interest tasks, to ensure that the data communicated to it is anonymised (for example through aggregation). In all cases, Wallonie Finances Expertises minimises processing and anonymises the personal data it processes as soon as such anonymisation is technically possible, while ensuring that personal data is not retained unnecessarily.
5. Who are the recipients of your personal data?
As part of its public-interest tasks, Wallonie Finances Expertises develops applications for monitoring and budgetary and financial follow-up in Wallonia. Where these tools require the integration of personal data collected by public authorities, Wallonie Finances Expertises applies several strict rules designed to preserve the rights of the persons concerned. First, it processes such data only under a protocol concluded with the public authority (for example, the Walloon Public Service) that collected the data. Second, access to that data by Wallonie Finances Expertises staff is restricted and subject to authorisation and access rights granted personally to the agents who need it. Finally, Wallonie Finances Expertises designs its applications so that their users cannot access personal data. In all circumstances, Wallonie Finances Expertises does not retain personal data that is not or is no longer necessary for its processing operations.
6. Data security and confidentiality
Wallonie Finances Expertises takes all necessary steps to ensure the security of your personal data and makes sure it is protected, against unauthorised access, unlawful use, loss or unauthorised alteration. To ensure the security and confidentiality of your personal data, Wallonie Finances Expertises has implemented various technical and organisational measures. It strictly regulates for its staff authorisations to access the personal data processed and the ways in which that data may be processed. In addition, thanks to these technical and organisational measures, such data is accessible only to persons and applications expressly authorised based on functional need.
7. Retention of your personal data
Your personal data is not kept for longer than is necessary in relation to the purposes for which it is processed.
8. What rights do you have where personal data is processed by Wallonie Finances Expertises?
Generally, the processing carried out by Wallonie Finances Expertises does not have an immediate impact on your rights and freedoms. In practice, Wallonie Finances Expertises limits itself to collecting pre-existing data from public entities with which it is required to cooperate in the performance of its tasks and is not the recipient of personal data within the meaning of the GDPR, except for the specific data mentioned in section 4.1 of this statement.
In principle, you have the right to consult your personal data insofar as it is processed by Wallonie Finances Expertises and to have it completed or corrected.
You may also request that Wallonie Finances Expertises erase your personal data or restrict its processing under the circumstances and conditions provided for by the GDPR.
Wallonie Finances Expertises may refuse erasure or restriction of the processing of personal data that is necessary for the performance of its public service obligations, for as long as such data remains necessary for the purposes for which it was collected.
Lastly, you have the right to object, on serious and legitimate grounds, to the processing of your personal data. In any event, if you wish to exercise your rights in relation to personal data, in particular to complete or correct it, it is preferable to contact directly the administrative entities from which Wallonie Finances Expertises collected the data.
Wallonie Finances Expertises confirms that the processing of personal data involves no profiling and that you will not be subject to decisions based exclusively on automated processing.
9. How can you exercise your rights?
If you wish to exercise your rights, please send your signed request by email to wfe.dpo@wfe.wallonie.be or by post to Wallonie Finances Expertises, Boulevard Mélot 42, 6th floor, 5000 Namur.
Your request will be processed within one month of receipt. Depending on the complexity of your request and the number of requests to be handled, this period may, where necessary, be extended by a further two months.
10. Remedies
Without prejudice to any other administrative or judicial remedy, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority if you consider that your rights have not been respected or that the processing of personal data concerning you constitutes an infringement of the GDPR.
To lodge a complaint, please send your request to: Data Protection Authority, Rue de la Presse 35, 1000 Brussels. Email: contact@apd-gba.be.
Updates to the privacy policy This policy may be updated and amended from time to time. You are therefore invited to review it regularly to stay informed of the latest changes. The updated policy will always comply with the GDPR. Last updated
1 Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC.
2 Act of 30 July 2018 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data.
3 Article 6(1)(e) of the GDPR.