OAJ’s Privacy Statement

Your privacy is important to us. OAJ is committed to protecting your privacy with the utmost level of care and to processing your personal data in a transparent manner, in accordance with the law in force at the time and good data protection practices.

Organisation
04.10.2024 - 10:50

Updated on 22 February 2024

1. Introduction

Your privacy is important to us. The Trade Union of Education in Finland OAJ (hereinafter “OAJ”) is committed to protecting your privacy with the utmost level of care and to processing your personal data in a transparent manner, in accordance with the law in force at the time and good data protection practices.

This Privacy Statement explains how we collect, process and protect your personal data in all our activities, both during and after your membership.

Here, “personal data” refers to any information, on its own or in combination with other information, that allows us to identify you. 

“Sensitive data” refers to any information revealing the data subject’s ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership. Sensitive data also includes information concerning a person’s health. OAJ may only process your sensitive personal data in the situations specified below.

“Processing” of personal data refers to all activities pertaining to the handling of personal data, including both automated and manual data processing. Processing of personal data thus refers to, for example, the collection, storage and organisation of data.

“Controller” refers to the entity that, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data. OAJ is the Controller of the personal data of its members.

“Joint Controller” refers to when at least two Controllers jointly determine the purposes and means of the processing of personal data, i.e. why and how personal data is processed. The Joint Controllers define their areas of responsibility in a mutually agreed and transparent manner in order to comply with the obligations laid down in the legislation. OAJ acts as Joint Controller with the member associations described in Section 13.

2. Purposes of the processing of personal data

OAJ processes your personal data in accordance with legitimate activities related to trade union activities pursuant to Article 9.2(d) of the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union for the following predefined purposes:

Maintenance of the membership register. The register consisting of the members’ personal data is the main source of personal data managed by OAJ, and we use the basic information stored therein in connection with other processing purposes. In order to maintain the membership register, we process personal data, contact information, membership information, professional information and employment relationship information.


OAJ maintains a list of members in accordance with the Associations Act. The list includes the full names and addresses of the members.

Advocacy. The starting point of OAJ’s operations is to protect the interests of teaching staff, improve their position and develop education and training. In order to perform this task, OAJ particularly processes the professional information and employment relationship information of its members.

Managing matters related to membership. OAJ processes the personal data it collects for purposes related to membership matters and maintaining member relations. Membership matters include payment transaction information.

Organising member events. OAJ processes the personal data of its members in order to organise and coordinate training and other events.

Compiling studies and statistics and developing services. To support its members and develop its services, OAJ draws up various surveys and compiles statistics, for which purpose it processes the personal data of its members.

Implementation of the union’s communications. OAJ processes its members’ contact information in order to implement its internal communications.

Direct marketing. OAJ engages in traditional direct marketing. For this purpose, it processes the members’ personal information and contact information. OAJ separately requests the members’ consent for this purpose.

3. The personal data we process

OAJ only processes personal data that is necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement. The purpose of use defines in more detail which information about members is used in which situation.

This information includes information provided by members and other identifying information:

  • Personal data, such as name, social security number, gender, nationality and language information
  • Contact information, such as address, telephone number, e-mail address and possible protection order or disclosure prohibition
  • Membership information, such as membership number, memberships in OAJ’s member organisations, membership benefit information and information on possible co-membership or unemployment fund membership, membership category, participation in events, union positions and positions of trust
  • Professional information, such as studying and degree information and special areas of expertise
    Information concerning the employment relationship, such as employer, workplace, job title, position, work history and contract sector information
  • Membership fee information, such as union and association fees and collection authorisation information

Contact persons for employers and workplaces

Data from the processing of enquiries, such as other information provided by the members themselves, including information on disputes.

The processed data concerning non-members, such as shop stewards, is limited to the contact information and classification information, including profession, degree of education and field of education.

4. Sources of personal data

In general, the information in the member register is obtained from the members themselves, either electronically or by telephone. A member association can also update the member’s contact information and tasks. Information on shop stewards is obtained from the Negotiation Organisation for Public Sector Professionals JUKO and its members.

Occupational health and safety organisations’ information is obtained from members.

Changes of address are obtained periodically as file transfers from the Finnish postal service company Posti. The information of members who are subject to a disclosure prohibition or a protection order issued by the local register officer (Digital and Population Data Services Agency), or living abroad, is not updated by way of Posti file transfers.

The information of a member transferring over from another union can be obtained as a transfer with a power of attorney provided by the member..

5. Sensitive personal data

Special categories of personal data, so-called “sensitive personal data”, refers to personal data that reveal racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership, genetic or biometric data or data concerning the health, sex life or sexual orientation of a natural person.

The processing of trade union membership is only permitted in connection with the legitimate activities of a foundation, association or other non-profit organisation related to trade union activities. The processing may only concern current and former members of the union. The processing of other sensitive data is only permitted if it is necessary in order to comply with obligations related to employment law, social security or social protection, or with the member’s express consent. OAJ only processes data concerning the trade union membership of current and former OAJ members.

6. Disclosure and transfer of data

OAJ may disclose your personal data to third parties if you have given your consent to do so. OAJ will handle your personal data confidentially and will not disclose it to third parties except in the following cases:

  • To the OAJ member associations to which you belong and which act with OAJ as a Joint Controller for managing membership matters
  • To shop stewards and occupational safety and health representatives for the purpose of advocacy
  • To the insurance company and unemployment fund for the implementation of membership benefits

We also use subcontractors and service providers (e.g. for technical maintenance) for the processing of your personal data, who are only entitled to process your data to the extent required for the agreed services. This means that they cannot use your data for their own purposes. We obligate them by contract to ensure an adequate level of data protection and the lawfulness of processing.

We transfer personal data to the following third parties:

  • OAJ member associations
  • employers
  • shop stewards, occupational safety and health representatives
  • technical maintenance service providers
  • JUKO
  • Akava
  • communications service providers
  • service providers for membership-based benefits
  • Posti
  • banks
  • authorities
  • event organisers

Some of the data we collect is processed outside the European Economic Area, for example, when the service provider we use is located or stores data outside the European Economic Area. The transfers are based on the EU Commission’s standard contractual clauses.

Any service provider we use is contractually obligated to ensure that an adequate level of data protection is guaranteed in all processing of your personal data.

7. Data security

We have appropriate technical and organisational security measures in place to protect personal data against loss, misuse or other similar unlawful access. Such measures include the use of firewalls, encryption technologies and secure device facilities.

Access to your personal data is also restricted internally by means of access control and granting and controlling access rights. Your personal data will only be processed by employees who are entitled to do so in order to carry out their work tasks.

8. Access to data and exercising of rights

You have the right to check what information we have collected about you in our registers and to influence how we use it. You can decide whether you wish to receive direct marketing and, in certain cases, you have the right to be forgotten or to request the transfer of your data to another controller. The legislation in force guarantees you, for example, the following rights:

Right to withdraw consent

If the processing of personal data is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

Right of access and right to rectification

You have the right at any time to check what information we have collected about you or get confirmation that we do not have any personal data about you in our register. If your information is incorrect, inaccurate or incomplete, you can submit a request to us to correct or supplement it.

Restriction of processing and right to object

If your data is incorrect in some respects, you have the right to request temporary restriction of processing until we have verified the accuracy of the data. In certain situations, you also have the right to object the processing of your personal data altogether.

Right to prohibit direct marketing

In addition, you can prohibit direct marketing (including profiling for direct marketing purposes) at any time.

Right to be forgotten

In certain cases, you have the right to be forgotten. We will delete all information we have collected about you if the personal data is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was originally collected. We will also delete the data if the processing of the personal data is based on consent and you withdraw your consent, or if you object to the processing of your personal data, unless there are other grounds for processing.

Right to transfer data from one system to another

You can request the transfer of your personal data, in which case we will provide you with your personal data in a machine-readable format. You can store them yourself or transfer them to another controller (e.g. another service provider). This only applies to data that you have provided to us yourself.

Right to appeal

In addition to the rights mentioned above, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority about the processing of your personal data.

You can submit a request to exercise these rights by using the contact form on the contact page.

Go to OAJ’s contact form

9. Storing data

We will only store your data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes specified above, always within the boundaries set by the legislation in force at the time, such as the Accounting Act.

Data concerning members who have either left or been dismissed from the union are retained in accordance with mandatory legislation and a separate archiving policy, but they are not maintained or disclosed to others.

When there is no legitimate need to retain the data, the data is either destroyed or rendered unidentifiable by irreversibly changing it into a format that makes the identification of an individual impossible.

10. Use of cookies

We may collect information about your computer by using cookies and other similar technologies. A cookie is a small text file that your browser saves on your computer. Cookies contain a unique identifier and are used to identify and count the browsers that visit our site. You have the right to block the use of cookies, but this may affect the functionality of our services. You can delete cookies in your browser settings.

To learn more about website analytics, the use of cookies and opting out of cookies, please read our cookie policy here.

11. Changes to the Privacy Statement

We are constantly developing our privacy practices, which is why we may make changes to this Privacy Statement from time to time. The changes may also be based on changes in legislation. We recommend that you visit this Privacy Statement page from time to time to check for any changes. If necessary, we can also notify you directly of any changes.

12. Controller and contact information

Trade Union of Education in Finland OAJ
Kellosilta 7
00520 Helsinki, Finland

Trade Union of Education in Finland OAJ
Data Protection Officer Janne Hälinen, tietosuoja@oaj.fi
P.O. Box 20, 00521 Helsinki

13. Joint controllership

The following OAJ member associations act as Joint Controllers with OAJ and may also process your personal data if you are a member of the member association in question. The Joint Controllers process your data for the purpose of maintaining the membership register, advocacy, managing matters related to memberships, organising member events, conducting surveys, compiling statistics, developing services and implementing the organisation’s communications.

Early Childhood Education Teachers’ Union VOL
Rautatieläisenkatu 6
00520 Helsinki, Finland

Helsingin opettajien ammattiyhdistys HOAY
Rautatieläisenkatu 6
00520 Helsinki, Finland

TOOL ry
Rautatieläisenkatu 6
00520 Helsinki, Finland

Teachers in Higher and Secondary Education in Finland SKO
Rautatieläisenkatu 6
00520 Helsinki, Finland

Teacher Student Union of Finland SOOL
Rautatieläisenkatu 6
00520 Helsinki, Finland

Retired Teachers in Finland OSJ
Rautatieläisenkatu 6
00520 Helsinki, Finland