ESO is an intergovernmental organisation, entrusted with privileges and immunities necessary to fulfil its mission. Nothing in or relating to these terms or other terms and conditions on the website shall be deemed a waiver of any privileges and immunities of ESO in conformity with the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, signed on 12 July 1974.

Access to the User Portal is provided from Garching bei München, Germany, where the ESO Headquarters are located. Additionally, ESO operates observatories in the Atacama Desert in Chile, and offices in Santiago de Chile. ESO operations are shared among all these sites, therefore data that you provide to ESO via the User Portal might be transferred among these locations within the ESO structures.

ESO, within the implementation of its mission that is decided by its member states, is committed to the protection of personal data of the users. As ESO’s privileges and immunities include the inviolability of its premises and archives, personal data protection at/by ESO, including the rights of data subjects, follows some specific rules that are explained below.

The data that users provide on the User Portal will be used only for the purposes established for the User Portal. ESO will not collect data for any commercial purposes.

Submitting data to ESO via the User Portal is voluntary. By doing so, users grant ESO the permission to use the data for the intended purpose. It is noted that not providing certain data may result in ESO’s inability to provide the information or service requested by the user.

ESO will hold your personal data for as long as it is considered necessary for the relevant purpose(s) of the User Portal.

Data on gender shall be used for monitoring and maintaining the gender statistics of the User Portal processes, and it shall have no other use. Data on the year of Ph.D. shall only be used for statistical purposes, and shall have no other use. The ORCID is used for the sole purpose of improving the accuracy of ESO’s Telescope Bibliography (telbib) with regard to identifying papers that use archival data (see the telbib workflow), and it shall have no other use. ESO is not using any personal data from the ORCID database, and ESO will not cross-match any of the data in the User Portal with data in the ORCID database.

Within the limitations arising from ESO’s privileges and immunities, users may ask ESO whether it is keeping personal data about them, and request to receive a copy of that personal data, free of charge by contacting ESO at https://support.eso.org. As a safeguard against abuse, ESO will ask the user to provide a proof of identity before providing the user with any personal data. If the user is not able to provide a proof of identity, ESO reserves the right to refuse to send the personal data.

Users may request at any time that ESO corrects the personal data in its record regarding the user by contacting ESO at https://support.eso.org.

Users may at any time unsubscribe from any newsletters and publications from ESO, by using the link provided at the bottom of the newsletter or by contacting ESO at https://support.eso.org, or within their User Portal account. When you unsubscribe, your data will not be used for the purpose of the newsletter.

ESO has implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security which we deem appropriate, taking into account the categories of data we collect and the way we process it. ESO assumes no responsibility for the security of the personal data provided.