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Privacy statement

for the processing of personal data related to a research project analysing Twitter data

Data Protection legal framework applicable to the European Central Bank

All personal data are processed in accordance with EU Data Protection Law, i.e. 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, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 and Decision No 1247/2002/EC, OJ L 295, 21.11.2018, p. 39–98.

The European Central Bank as controller of processing personal data

The ECB is the controller for the processing of the personal data. The Monetary Policy Research Division in the Directorate General Research is responsible for the processing.

Purposes for processing personal data

The ECB plans to conduct a research project that analyses tweets which mention the ECB on Twitter using only publicly available data. The data collection will not be regular but it will be a one-off exercise, with the option of a limited number of potential updates. The ECB will study an aspect that has become increasingly important: the flow of information about central banks in the social media. In particular, the project will study how Twitter activity responds to communication by the ECB, for instance surrounding the ECB’s press conference, speeches by the ECB president, tweets by the ECB, etc. The outcome of the research project will be published in the ECB’s Working Paper Series. In this publication, only aggregated data will be used and made available, such that no personal data will be released publicly.

Legal basis of processing operations

Your personal data are being processed by the ECB for the performance of the ECB’s tasks in the public interest, based on Article 5(1)(a) Regulation (EU) 2018/1725. We ensure that adequate and specific safeguards are implemented for the processing of personal data, in line with the applicable data protection legislation.

Which categories of data does the ECB process

The ECB processes the following personal data, which will be collected via Twitter’s Advanced Search tool:

  • content of the tweet
  • the time stamp of the tweet
  • the number of retweets
  • number of favourites of the tweet
  • the account from which the tweet originated
  • the information on this account such as number of followers, number of accounts this account itself is following, total number of tweets posted from this account, date of account creation

Recipients of the personal data

The recipients of the data are two authorised staff members of the Monetary Policy Research Division in the Directorate General Research.

Time limits for storing personal data

The personal data are stored for a maximum of 5 years and are deleted thereafter.

Data subject rights

You have the right to access your personal data and correct any data that are inaccurate or incomplete. You also have (with some limitations) the rights to:

  • delete your personal data
  • restrict or object to the processing of your personal data

in line with the relevant provisions of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725.

Contact Information in case of queries and requests

You can exercise your rights by contacting the Monetary Policy Research Division in the Directorate General Research at twitter_research@ecb.europa.eu. The ECB’s Data Protection Officer at dpo@ecb.europa.eu answers all queries relating to personal data.

Addressing the European Data Protection Supervisor

If you consider that your rights under Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 have been infringed as a result of the processing of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the European Data Protection Supervisor at any time about the processing of your personal data.