Information pursuant to Article 13 (1) and (2) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) due to the collection of personal data – privacy statement

Within the scope of vehicle noise and pollutant emission measurements under the Horizon Europe project LENS (https://www.lens-horizoneurope.eu/), license plate numbers will be collected in Leuven in the following streets and on the following dates:

The following data protection information is provided for this purpose.

1. Purpose, description and scope of processing

The measurements of noise and pollutant emissions along with a license plates survey are carried out within the project LENS – L-vehicles Emissions and Noise Mitigation Solutions – a research project commissioned by the European Commission within the Horizon Europe program (Agreement no. 101056777), with the aim of assisting enforcement authorities, cities, and regulators to decrease the contribution of L-category vehicles (LVs: mopeds, motorcycles, tricycles and quadri-mobiles) to noise and air pollution.

The experimental and testing activities carried out in Leuven aim to use noise measurement systems as well as various pollutant emission measurement systems to measure the noise and pollutant emissions from passing vehicles from the roadside, focusing on passing LVs. Some of the  measured LVs will be pulled over to the roadside by the Leuven city traffic police to be subject to visual inspections and some noise and pollutant emissions tests for research purposes (not for enforcement purposes).

The results that will emerge from the measurements in Leuven will works on the development and promotion of interventions and best practices to solve the problem of noise and pollutant emissions from LVs, also suggesting solutions to improve the performance of future vehicles and minimise the impact of existing vehicles.

In order to determine the possibilities and limitations of the instruments for measuring noise and pollutant emissions of passing L-vehicles from the roadside and for investigating the effect of air pollution control measures, it is necessary to have precise knowledge of the composition of passing L-vehicles and their actual emissions in real driving conditions.

The license plate survey is therefore expressly not intended to punish traffic violations or to sanction the owners of vehicles with high polluting emissions.

The license plate number data will be communicated to the national vehicle registry in Belgium without any information on location or time and there will be no query of the owner data.

Based on the license plates, the following technical characteristics of vehicles, if available, are queried for the calculation of pollutant emissions at the Central Database of Vehicles and Drivers:

  • Year of first registration (Belgium or elsewhere)
  • Year of first registration (Belgium)
  • Vehicle class
  • Vehicle UN-ECE category
  • Body type
  • Manufacturer
  • Model
  • Emission class (i.e., Euro standard)
  • Fuel type
  • Drivetrain
  • Engine displacement
  • Engine power
  • Number of cylinders
  • Unladen weight
  • Total weight
  • CO2 emission value for passenger cars
  • Aftertreatment system
  • Mileage
  • Date mileage check
  • Other technical features available

The information regarding the vehicle characteristics and measured noise and emissions (without indication of the license plates) will be passed on to all contractual partners of the LENS project for further processing. Before that, all license plate numbers will be anonymised.

Name and address of the body responsible (Data Controller) for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation in the LENS project:

Emisia S.A.

Antoni Tritsi 21

P.O. Box 8138

GR 57 001 Thessaloniki

Greece

Website: https://www.emisia.com/   

The company Opus RSE (Madrid, Spain), as well as the Technical University Graz (Austria) and Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) are commissioned to carry out the noise and pollutant emission measurements and license plate survey, each of which have signed a GDPR compliant data processing agreement with Emisia, covering the processing of the license plate number, noise and emission measurement data.

2. Legal basis for the processing

The license plate survey serves to fulfill the statutory tasks Art. 6 (1) e) GDPR, which means that the processing of data involving license plate numbers “is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest”, i.e., the results and their beneficial impact on the environment (reduced noise and air pollutant emissions from L-category vehicles in the European Union), being disseminated and presented to the public.

3. Recipients of the personal data

License plate numbers of the vehicles recorded during the measurements are passed on to:

Federale Overheidsdienst Mobiliteit en Vervoer

Dienst inschrijving voertuigen

City Atrium

Vooruitgangstraat 56

1210 Sint-Joost-ten-Node

België

4. Duration of storage of the personal data

The license plates of the vehicles recorded during the measurements will be deleted no later than 13 May 2025.

5. Rights of the data subjects

The Data Subjects is guardanteed the exercise of the rights mentioned in article 12 ff of EU Regulation 2016/679. In particular, the Data Subject is ensured the right to:

  • access his/her own personal data
  • obtain the rectification of inaccurate personal information
  • obtain the erasure of personal information
  • obtain the restriction of the processing
  • object to the processing
  • obtain the portability of personal data
  • withdraw the consent to data processing without prejudice to the legitimacy of the previous data processing activity
  • report any wrongdoing or submit any claim to the Authority for Personal Data Protection, in accordance with the procedures in force.

In order to exercise the aforementioned rights, the Data Subject can submit a request to the Data Controller using the contact details above.

6.0 Inquiries

Inquiries about the project and data protection should be directed to the Data Controller.

Contact person: Leonidas Ntziachristos (coordinator of the LENS project),

e-mail: leon@auth.gr, phone: T: +30 2310 996003 / M: +30 6940 770296