PHOTOS IN THE INTERNAL COMMISSION DIRECTORY ON INTRACOMM

The purpose of this Notice is to inform staff that, as of 20^th December 2006, they have the opportunity to authorise the display of their ID photo (i.e. the photo which appears on the security badge to enter Commission buildings or another ID photo), on the internal Commission Directory (Guide des Services) available on IntraComm (the Commission's Intranet) and accessible to the other Community institutions and bodies.

Why should I have my ID photo displayed?

The Commission Directory is a widely used reference tool that gives overall support to the numerous tasks carried out by the Institution.

In its current state, the Commission Directory for internal use displays a range of job-related information on Commission staff – contact details, administrative entity and a brief job description, which are extracted from several databases.

DG ADMIN wishes to improve this important tool by enabling staff in an opt-in scenario to include their ID photo in the entry of their contact details. This has several advantages for both staff and the work of the Commission:

• Recognising each other - in a large, complex, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and geographically dispersed organisation such as the Commission, effective communication and collaboration between colleagues can be significantly enhanced by the ability to identify the colleague you are dealing with. The presence of the photos will significantly facilitate this, for example, by enabling staff to recognise each other at meetings.
   
• Avoiding duplication of efforts - a clear example of the need to recognise each other is the growing tendency to create new repositories of photographs in individual DGs/departments (the so-called "Who is who") and make them available on DG Intranets. By making available a central tool, the DGs will not need to duplicate efforts, thereby acting in a cost-efficient way.
   
• Promoting greater openness and transparency in general.

The most obvious and cost-efficient solution to add staff photos to the Commission Directory is to attach to each individual record the ID image held by the Security Directorate in DG ADMIN.

This change of purpose has been agreed by the DG ADMIN Director General, but it also requires your express consent, as laid out in Articles 6 and 5.(d) of the Regulation (EC) 45/2001 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions.

How to attach your ID photo to the Commission Directory on IntraComm

It is very easy to include your photo in your Commission Directory entry. You need to accept that your ID photo or a private photo is stored in Sysper2 and published in the Commission Directory on IntraComm.

This process can be carried out via the Sysper2 application.

Please note that no action will be carried out without your express consent (by default no photo appears). At any time in the future, you can change your mind and decide to revert to the current situation (photo not available through the Commission Directory) or to change the photo.

Different security measures are in place to prevent any misuse of the photos. These include measures common to all IntraComm-stored data, as well as specific measures to protect your photo from being downloaded or modified. These measures are described in detail in the Privacy Statement for the Commission Directory on IntraComm

Due to the technical complexity of this improvement to the Commission Directory, the availability of ID card photos will be progressively phased in from the beginning of 2007. However, all staff will be able to upload a personal photo from the start.

Conditions for reuse by DGs

Since all Commission services can access the data in the Commission Directory on IntraComm, the reusing of these data for similar purposes on DGs' internal applications (i.e. DG "Who is who") does not raise any further privacy issues, provided that the DGs concerned fully comply with the provisions and restrictions laid out in the Notification to the Data Protection Officer and Privacy Statement for the Commission Directory on IntraComm.

A specific information note on the conditions for re-use, including technical guidelines is available upon request from DG DIGIT B.3.

Remarks on Data Protection

The Commission Directory does not store data, but only presents data stored in other systems. The only exception is for data which is stored with the explicit consent of the data subject (e.g. photos). You, the data subject, can at any time revoke your consent and the data concerned will be deleted. Furthermore, data is, in any case, only stored during the active administrative status of a data subject. For further questions about data protection, please consult the Privacy Statement and the Notification to the Data Protection Officer. In addition, you are also entitled to refer to the European Data Protection Supervisor, if your questions are not answered satisfactory.