User policy information and code of conduct

Welcome to the ECDC Learning Portal.

This document outlines the key policy statements that govern your participation in ECDC training activities. It includes information on data protection, audiovisual recording, licensing,the code of conduct, and a disclaimer regarding the use of this site and its content. Please read each section carefully to understand your rights and responsibilities.

  1. Data Protection Notice
  2. Privacy Statement for Audio-Visual Recording of Training Sessions
  3. Licensing Policy
  4. Training Code of Conduct
  5. Disclaimer

1. Data Protection Notice

1.1. Introduction

ECDC processes your personal data to allow you to participate to courses in ECDC’s learning portal.

Data are processed in accordance with 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.

1.2. Controller and Data Protection Officer

The data controller for this operation is ECDC.

The delegated controller is the Head of the Public Health Training section whom you can contact at: courses@ecdc.europa.eu.

You can contact the ECDC’s Data Protection Officer at dpo@ecdc.europa.eu.

1.3. Why is ECDC processing your personal data, and under which legal basis?

ECDC is processing your personal data to allow you to enrol to and participate in courses in ECDC’s learning portal and to administer your access.

For the purpose of granting access to the portal we will process your username, email address, first and last name, and IP address.

We will also ask for your country of working affiliation, as it is necessary to report country statistics and estimate future training needs.

We will process the data above pursuant to Article 3(2)(e) and Article 9(6) of ECDC’s Founding Regulation, in conjunction with Article 5(1)(a) of the EUDPR.

On the portal you can upload content (e.g. picture, assignments). ECDC will process it based on your consent, pursuant to Article 5(1)(d) of the EUDPR. Such data is not mandatory and, if you upload it, ECDC considers it is a clear affirmative action that you agree to the processing operation.

1.4. Who will have access to your personal data?

Data are processed by ECDC staff (mainly in the Public Health Training section, IT services) and its contractors.

Trainers and facilitators of a specific course have access to data of the respective participants and trace their activity in the course pages.

The content that you upload will be seen by other participants to the respective course.

1.5. For how long will ECDC process your personal data?

Your user IDs, name, and email are processed to grant you access, for as long as you have an account.

Your course activity will be kept until the course is archived.

1.6. What are your rights as data subject?

You have the right to request ECDC to access, rectify and erase your personal data. You have the right to obtain from ECDC the restriction of processing your personal data, as well as the right to object to processing and the right to data portability.

If you consider that ECDC is processing your personal data unlawfully we invite you to contact ECDC’s Data Protection Officer. At any time you have the right to lodge a complaint to the European Data Protection Supervisor.

2. Privacy Statement for Audio-Visual Recording of Training Sessions

2.1. Purpose of the processing operation

ECDC processes the personal data collected in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2018/1725. The purpose of the processing is to record training sessions, and sharing such recordings as dissemination of scientific knowledge to external stakeholders, which is part of ECDC’s mandate.

2.2 Identify of the data controller

The data controller for this operation is ECDC.

The delegated controller is the Head of the Public Health Training section whom you can contact at: courses@ecdc.europa.eu.

You can contact the ECDC’s Data Protection Officer at dpo@ecdc.europa.eu.

Please note that ECDC as the main controller is responsible for processing your requests for exercising the rights of data subjects under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 and providing you with information about the data processing operation.

2.3 Legal basis for the processing

The legal basis for the processing is:

    • Article 5 (1) (a): the processing is necessary for performance of tasks in the public interest attributed by Union or Member State legislation
    • ECDC Founding regulation 851/2004, specifically article 3.2(b).
    • Regulation (EU) 2022/2370 amending Regulation (EC) No 851/2004 establishing a ECDC, specifically article 3.2(e).

2.4 Categories of personal data collected

The categories of data collected and used for the processing operations are the following:

    • Name (first name and surname);
    • Email;
    • Audio visual recording of the training sessions.
The provision of the personal data is not mandatory.

The processing of your data will not be used for an automated decision making, including profiling.

2.5 Who has access to your information and to whom is it disclosed?

The recipients of the data are the following:
    • ECDC staff;
    • External experts (e.g. external advisors) and contributors (e.g. scientific authors) in public health, food safety or veterinary medicine;
    • ECDC contractors, suppliers and tenderers;
    • General public.

2.6 How long do we keep your data?

ECDC will retain the data as long as it is considered scientifically valid and relevant for training.

2.7 How do we protect and safeguard your information?

In order to protect your personal data, a number of technical and organisational measures have been put in place. Technical measures include appropriate actions to address online security, risk of data loss, alteration of data or unauthorised access, taking into consideration the risk presented by the processing and the nature of the data being processed. Organisational measures include restricting access to the data to authorised persons with a legitimate need to know for the purposes of this processing operation.

2.8 What are your rights and how you can exercise them?

The Controller may be contacted at any time by the data subjects for exercising the right of access, to rectify, to block, to erase, to transmit or to object to the processing of the data. Where the legal basis to the processing is consent, this consent can be withdrawn at any time. The Controller can be contacted on: courses@ecdc.europa.eu


Data subjects can request the deletion of their personal data by the data controller, who will do so within 45 working days.

Data subjects can also contact the ECDC Data Protection Officer (DPO) in case of any difficulties or for any questions relating to the processing of their personal data at the following email address: dpo@ecdc.europa.eu. The data subject has the right of recourse at any time to the European Data Protection Supervisor at edps@edps.europa.eu.

Exceptions based on Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 may apply.


3. Licensing Policy

3.1. Licences to use the materials

The training materials contained on the website are published under a Creative Commons (CC BY) licence. You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests ECDC endorses you or your use. For more information, please check http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

You must abide by all copyright notices or restrictions contained on the website or the online content and courses. You may not delete any attributions, legal or proprietary notices on the website or the online content and courses.

3.2. Content provided by the users

The courses may provide you with the ability to upload notes and replies, discussions, profile pages, other content and media for social interaction, or certain information and materials for use within the website or courses, e.g., written assignments, questions and examples.

ECDC does not claim ownership of any content you may submit or make available for inclusion on the website or courses. Any content you provide will be available under a Creative Commons (CC BY) licence. Accordingly, subject to the licence granted to us and any partner institution, the user will be the sole and exclusive owner of any and all rights, title and interest in and to the content they have provided.

In particular with regards to ECDC, and with respect to any content you submit to us, you grant us an irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such content on the website and/or in the courses or otherwise exploit the content, with the right to sublicence such rights for any purpose associated with the provision of the website and the courses. ECDC reserves the right to remove any content without prior notice at any time and for any reason, in particular if any of the terms stated herein are violated.

Nothing in these terms shall restrict other legal rights ECDC may have to content provided by users, for example under other licences.

To the extent that you provide any content, you represent and warrant that:

  1. you have all necessary rights, licences and/or clearances to provide such content and permit us to use and publish such content as provided above;
  2. such content is accurate and complete to the best of your knowledge and belief;
  3. as between you and us, you are responsible for the payment of any third party fees related to the provision, publication and use of such content; and
  4. such use and/or publication of your content does not and will not infringe or misappropriate any third party rights or constitute a fraudulent statement or misrepresentation.

You acknowledge and agree that the website material and user interaction may be monitored or recorded for quality control purposes and that the information or material provided as part of the services is included within these terms and is provided for educational purposes only.

Any content included on the website or within the courses that infringes the intellectual property rights of any third party will be removed as soon as possible after ECDC is made aware of such infringement.

3.3. Intellectual property rights

If you are the owner of intellectual property rights, or are authorised to act on behalf of an owner, or authorised to act under any exclusive right, you may report any alleged infringements of your intellectual property rights taking place on or through the website by emailing the administrators of the platform at courses@ecdc.europa.eu.

Your written notice must contain the following:

  1. a statement telling us that you have found content on the website which you believe infringes your intellectual property rights;
  2. which country your intellectual property rights apply to;
  3. the title of the content concerned and the full URL for access to that content;
  4. a statement explaining how the content infringes your intellectual property rights;
  5. your mailing address, telephone number and email address so that ECDC can contact you;
  6. a statement that the information contained in the notice is accurate and that you are the owner of the intellectual property rights or have an exclusive legal right to bring infringement proceedings in respect of its use; and
  7. your signature (an electronic signature is sufficient).

ECDC will take whatever action, in its sole discretion, ECDC deems appropriate, including the removal of the challenged content.

4. Training Code of Conduct

As a learner or a facilitator in any ECDC training activity you agree to abide by the following code of conduct.

Respect others when participating in all interactions: orally (in online or face-to face sessions); and in written (e.g. chats and fora), by:

  1. Communicating openly, criticising ideas and not individuals.
  2. Ensuring all participants can express their views and accept the right to be silent.
  3. Being polite and respectful, not insulting or putting down other attendees or trainers.
  4. Avoiding harassment, any comments of sexual nature and discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, or any other criteria, before, during and after training activities.
  5. Before publishing any content, making sure you have the appropriate rights for sharing:
    • Providing proper references when you are citing any material that is not owned by you.
    • Respecting copyright laws and not plagiarizing sources.
  6. Refraining from using the Learning Portal as a place of marketing, self-promotion or promotion and distribution of inappropriate content.
  7. Refraining from using AI assistants to automatically record or process data as well as to generate content for your assignments.

What will be the consequences of inappropriate behaviour?

ECDC has zero tolerance policy for infringement of this code of conduct and will take measures which may, amongst others, result in exclusion from the training.

5. Disclaimer

If you choose to accept this agreement, you must accept it as presented to you, without changes. ECDC will accept no additions or deletions. At any time, ECDC may add, or remove any part of this agreement or any part of the services and features provided by this site. If it does so, ECDC will update this agreement and may also post such changes elsewhere on site.

If any future change is unacceptable to you, you should discontinue using the site. Your continued use of the site will always indicate your acceptance of this agreement and any changes to it.

ECDC maintains its Learning Portal to enhance public access to e-learning courses that it provides. Our goal is to keep this information timely and accurate. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them. However, ECDC accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the information on this site.

The information and materials are:

  • Not necessarily comprehensive, complete, accurate or up-to-date;
  • Sometimes linked to external websites over which the ECDC has no control and for which the ECDC assumes no responsibility.

It is our goal to minimize disruption caused by technical errors. However, some data or information on this platform may have been created or structured in files or formats that are not error-free and we cannot guarantee that our service will not be interrupted or otherwise affected by such problems. ECDC accepts no responsibility with regard to such problems incurred as a result of using this website.

Last modified: Wednesday, 1 October 2025, 1:55 PM