Your information

2027 engagement questionnaire · Version 1.1 · Effective on opening public collection.

Who is responsible

Helsinki Geoeconomics School Ab and Helsinki Geoeconomics Society r.f. jointly organise this questionnaire and are responsible together for collecting and directing your answers.

The School is responsible for its events and teaching programmes. The Society is responsible for membership, membership changes and resignations, and its committees and governance. Publication and other collaboration enquiries are directed to the organisation responsible for the activity you select. We tell you before involving an additional organisation where this requires further information or permission.

The School maintains the form and its protected response register. The Society handles membership notices and decisions. Dr. Jens Hillebrand Pohl is the common contact for the questionnaire and privacy requests, and receives resignation notices as the Society’s Board Chair. This summarises our arrangement for the shared questionnaire. You may exercise your data-protection rights against either organisation.

Email: secretariat@geoeconomics.fi
Postal contact for this questionnaire: c/o Helsinki Geoeconomics School Ab, Iirislahdenranta 6 C 6, 02230 Espoo, Finland.

What we collect and why

We collect your name and email, your selected interests and membership choice, relevant professional or organisational details, the city and country where you are primarily based if you choose to provide them, any comments you choose to provide, and the acknowledgments and news preferences you select. We also record the submission time, receipt number and questionnaire version. Technical connection and security records help us operate and protect the form.

We use these details to:

• respond to your requests and discuss the activities you select;
• handle membership applications, renewal or category-change requests and resignation notices;
• consider committee, advisory, editorial, peer-review, teaching and collaboration interests;
• plan the programme, including using totals that do not identify you; and
• send ongoing School or Society news if you choose it.

Please use the free-text fields for professional interests and proposals. Avoid including sensitive personal information or other people’s private contact details.

Our legal bases

We rely on our legitimate interests in answering enquiries, planning activities, assessing participation and membership requests, administering the Society and protecting the form. We limit this processing to what is reasonably needed for those purposes.

Where you ask us to take steps toward an event or teaching agreement, or we administer an agreed service, we use the contractual basis where applicable. The Society also processes the information needed to meet its statutory membership-record obligations. Accounting information collected later is handled under the applicable accounting and tax duties.

Optional ongoing news relies on your consent. You can withdraw either news choice independently by contacting us or using the unsubscribe facility in a news message. This does not affect your other requests or the lawfulness of earlier processing.

Who can see your answers

Initially, Dr. Pohl handles the response register. Authorised staff and relevant programme or Society officers receive only the information needed for the requests they handle. Membership and resignation information is handled for the Society; the School’s event team does not need the whole membership record.

Loopia AB, trading as Websupport, hosts the form and its response database. Our communications providers, including Microsoft 365 where used for follow-up, process relevant information under their service arrangements. Submitting this questionnaire does not publish your answers or add you to a public membership directory. Publication of your name or other details requires a separate arrangement.

Provider arrangements may involve processing outside the European Economic Area. Where applicable, we use an adequacy decision or appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses. Contact us for information about the safeguards applicable to your data or a copy of them. Event interest alone does not send your details to an overseas venue or partner.

How long we keep information

• Enquiries that do not develop further: up to 12 months after the last substantive contact. A background system action does not restart this period.
• Closed, withdrawn or unsuccessful applications: up to 12 months after closure.
• The full questionnaire response: up to 12 months after its last selected request is resolved. We first transfer information needed for an ongoing relationship or a membership notice to the appropriate record, and remove unrelated details when no longer needed. Unresolved requests are reviewed at least annually.
• Ongoing membership and accepted participation: necessary administration records are retained during the relationship and normally for three years after it ends. Essential evidence of membership admission, changes or resignation may be retained longer where needed to maintain an accurate membership history, meet a legal duty or deal with a specific claim. We review that need and retain only the relevant evidence.
• Optional news: contact details are kept while you remain subscribed. After withdrawal we retain only the minimum suppression and consent evidence needed to respect your choice and demonstrate compliance.

Accounting and other legally required records have their own retention periods. A documented legal obligation or specific dispute can require longer retention. Deleted information may remain temporarily in restricted backup copies until those copies expire; it is not returned to ordinary use.

Your choices and rights

The form marks the information needed to handle your chosen route. Without your name and email we cannot process an identifiable response or contact you. Most activity interests and all ongoing-news choices are optional.

You may ask to access or correct your data, request deletion or restriction, object to processing based on legitimate interests, and request portability where applicable. Some records must be retained despite a deletion request. We will explain any applicable restriction. You may complain to the Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman in Finland.

Contact secretariat@geoeconomics.fi, preferably with your receipt number. We normally respond to rights requests within one month. Membership admissions, appointments and resignations are handled by people; the form does not make those decisions automatically.

Technology

The questionnaire itself uses no advertising trackers or optional analytics. Its current implementation does not use browser cookies or persistent browser storage to save your answers. Your answers are saved when you submit them; you can then download a copy with its receipt. Hosting security logs and the protected administrator sign-in operate separately.