Privacy Notice (KVKK)

ITECX International Congress on Technology, Education and Contemporary Sciences (ITECX 2026) is held on 30 November – 4 December 2026 in Rome, both on-site and online (hybrid format). The Organising Committee of ITECX International Congress (the “Organising Committee”, “we” or “us”), acting as data controller for the congress, takes the utmost care to process your personal data in accordance with the Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (“KVKK” or the “Law”) and its secondary legislation.

This Privacy Notice has been prepared pursuant to Article 10 of the Law and the Communiqué on the Procedures and Principles to Be Followed in Fulfilling the Obligation to Inform in order to inform you about the processing of your personal data and to explain your rights under the Law.

1. Data Controller

The contact details of the data controller are as follows:

• Address: Via S. Martino della Battaglia, 44, 00185 Rome RM, Italy
• E-mail: info@itecx.international
• Phone: +90 (312) 000 00 00

2. Scope and Data Subjects

This notice covers all natural persons who visit the congress website, create an account, submit a paper, serve as a reviewer or member of the scientific committee, complete registration and payment, receive a certificate or document, or contact us via the contact form or by e-mail.

Before entering the names, e-mail addresses, institutions and countries of co-authors into the system, the submitting author is responsible for informing those co-authors of this Privacy Notice and for confirming that he or she is authorised to share such information.

3. Categories of Personal Data Processed

Depending on the data subject group and the services you use, the following personal data may be processed in the course of the congress:

• Identity: first name, surname, academic title.
• Contact: e-mail address, telephone number.
• Professional and academic information: institution, department, country, city, areas of expertise, ORCID and Google Scholar links, curriculum vitae and biography.
• Account and transaction security: password stored in irreversibly hashed form, sign-in records, failed sign-in counters.
• Submission content: paper title, abstract, keywords, uploaded files, names, e-mail addresses, institutions and countries of co-authors, statement on the use of artificial intelligence, ethics and copyright declarations.
• Review data: reviewer assignments, scores and review comments.
• Registration and financial information: participant type, attendance type, invoice type, name or title on the invoice, tax identification number or Turkish national ID number, tax office, billing address, uploaded payment receipts, transaction reference number.
• Certificate information: name to appear on the certificate, certificate serial number and QR code verification data.
• Request and correspondence information: contact form messages and e-mail correspondence.
• Consent records: type of consent, e-mail address, IP address, browser information (user agent), timestamp.
• Technical and activity records: IP address and audit logs of actions performed in the system.

3.1. Special Categories of Personal Data

We do not intentionally request any of the special categories of personal data listed in Article 6 of the Law (e.g. data concerning health, religious belief or biometric data). Please do not include such data in forms, paper files or messages. Where a participant voluntarily shares health information, for example in connection with accessibility needs, such data are processed only with the explicit consent of the data subject and solely for the purpose of meeting that need.

4. Methods of Collection

Your personal data are collected electronically and by partly automated means through the sign-up form, the participant panel, the paper submission form, the registration and payment receipt upload screens and the contact form, and by non-automated means through e-mail correspondence. IP addresses, browser information and activity records are generated automatically when the system is used. Details of the cookies used on the website are set out in the Cookie Policy.

5. Purposes and Legal Grounds of Processing

Your personal data are processed in line with the principles set out in Article 4 of the Law — lawfulness and fairness; accuracy and, where necessary, being kept up to date; processing for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes; being relevant, limited and proportionate to the purposes for which they are processed; and retention only for as long as necessary — for the following purposes and on the following legal grounds:

Processing based on explicit consent is optional; not giving your explicit consent does not prevent you from creating an account, submitting a paper, registering or taking part in the congress.

6. Transfer of Personal Data

6.1. Recipient Groups

In accordance with Article 8 of the Law, and limited to and proportionate with the purposes set out above, your personal data may be transferred to the following recipient groups:

• Reviewers and the scientific committee: submission content is shared with author identities concealed, in line with the double-blind review principle.
• The organising committee and congress secretariat: access is limited to the duties and authorisations required to run the congress processes.
• Hosting and e-mail (SMTP) service providers: for operating the system and delivering notification e-mails.
• The bank: for executing and verifying payments made by bank transfer.
• Publishers and indexing services: author names, institutions and details of accepted papers appear in the proceedings book and become publicly available when the proceedings book is published and indexed.
• Certificate verification page: anyone who enters a certificate serial number can view the holder’s name and the type of certificate.
• Competent public authorities and institutions: where required under applicable legislation.

6.2. Transfer Abroad

Owing to the international nature of the congress, some members of the scientific committee and some reviewers are located outside Türkiye; submission content with author identities concealed and information relating to the review process may be shared with them. In addition, our website loads fonts and interface components from the Google Fonts, jsDelivr and cdnjs (Cloudflare) content delivery networks, whose servers may be located abroad; for technical reasons these providers may receive the visitor’s IP address and browser information.

Transfers abroad are carried out in accordance with Article 9 of the KVKK as amended by Law No. 7499: on the basis of an adequacy decision concerning the destination country, sector or international organisation where one exists; in the absence of an adequacy decision, by providing one of the appropriate safeguards set out in the Law (e.g. a standard contract notified to the Board); or, in the occasional-transfer cases listed in the Law, by obtaining your explicit consent where necessary.

7. Retention Periods

Your personal data are retained for the period required by the purpose of processing, taking into account the statutory periods laid down in applicable legislation. The main retention criteria are as follows:

• Account, submission, review and certificate data: for the duration of the congress and for 10 years after the congress ends, in order to preserve the proceedings records and maintain certificate verification.
• Accounting, invoice and payment records: for the periods prescribed by applicable legislation, in particular the Tax Procedure Law No. 213 and the Turkish Commercial Code No. 6102 (typically 5 to 10 years).
• Consent records: for as long as necessary to prove that consent or approval was given, limited to the limitation periods applicable to potential disputes.
• Technical and activity records: for a limited period; up to 2 years where obligations under Law No. 5651 apply.

When the retention period expires or the conditions for processing no longer exist, your personal data are erased, destroyed or anonymised in accordance with the Regulation on the Erasure, Destruction or Anonymisation of Personal Data.

8. Data Security

Pursuant to Article 12 of the Law, appropriate administrative and technical measures are taken to prevent the unlawful processing of and unlawful access to your personal data. These measures include:

• storing passwords in irreversibly hashed form using strong algorithms,
• protecting forms against cross-site request forgery (CSRF),
• limiting access to what each role requires through role-based authorisation,
• temporarily locking accounts after consecutive failed sign-in attempts,
• monitoring actions performed in the system through audit logs,
• checking the type of uploaded files and storing them on the server in a non-executable manner.

Should it be determined that your personal data have been obtained by others through unlawful means, you and the Personal Data Protection Board will be notified as soon as possible in accordance with paragraph 5 of Article 12 of the Law.

9. Your Rights as a Data Subject

Pursuant to Article 11 of the Law, by applying to the data controller you have the right to:

• a) learn whether your personal data are processed,
• b) request information if your personal data have been processed,
• c) learn the purpose of processing and whether the data are used in accordance with that purpose,
• ç) know the third parties in Türkiye or abroad to whom your personal data are transferred,
• d) request rectification if your personal data are incomplete or inaccurately processed,
• e) request erasure or destruction of your personal data under the conditions set out in Article 7 of the Law,
• f) request notification of the operations carried out under subparagraphs (d) and (e) to the third parties to whom your personal data have been transferred,
• g) object to a result arising to your detriment from the analysis of the processed data exclusively by means of automated systems,
• ğ) claim compensation for damage suffered as a result of the unlawful processing of your personal data.

Where processing is based on explicit consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time; withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before that date.

10. Application Procedure

You may submit requests concerning your rights, in accordance with the Communiqué on the Procedures and Principles of Application to the Data Controller, by one of the following methods:

• by a petition bearing your wet signature, delivered in person, through a notary public or by registered mail with return receipt to Via S. Martino della Battaglia, 44, 00185 Rome RM, Italy,
• by e-mail sent from the e-mail address registered in our system to info@itecx.international,
• by e-mail signed with a secure electronic signature or mobile signature and sent to info@itecx.international.

Your application must include your first name, surname and, if the application is in writing, your signature; your Turkish national ID number if you are a citizen of the Republic of Türkiye or, if you are a foreign national, your nationality and passport number or identity number, if any; your residential or business address for notification purposes; your e-mail address, telephone and fax number for notification purposes, if any; and the subject of your request. Additional information may be requested in order to verify your identity.

Your application will be concluded free of charge as soon as possible depending on the nature of the request and within 30 days at the latest. If the process requires an additional cost, a fee may be charged according to the tariff determined by the Personal Data Protection Board. If your application is rejected, you find the response insufficient, or no response is given in due time, you may lodge a complaint with the Personal Data Protection Board within 30 days of learning of the response and, in any event, within 60 days of the application date.

11. Changes to this Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice may be updated in line with changes in legislation or in our data processing activities. The current version is always published on this page.

12. Contact

For questions regarding the processing of your personal data, you may send an e-mail to info@itecx.international, call us on +90 (312) 000 00 00 or use our contact page.

Last updated: 14 September 2026