Table of Contents:

Who are we?

“apertis.org” is managed and maintained by Collabora Limited. We are an IT global consultancy company, specialized in open source software.

Our main office is in The Platinum Building, St John’s Innovation Park, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Our registered company number is 05513718 and our ICO registration number is ZA229843.

If you have any queries in connection with how we use your data, you can contact us by emailing data@collabora.com or phoning one of our offices. You can also contact our EU Representative, Olivier Potin, at olivier.potin@collabora.com.

What data do we collect about you?

1. We collect and process the following data when you sign up to GitLab, in order to create your basic profile with GitLab, and provide the core functionality of our GitLab platform to you:

   • Username
   • First Name
   • Last Name
   • Email Address
   • Date you joined
   • Commit history on the platform
   • Commit history from other other projects

   We handle this data (which we refer to from now on as your Core Account Data) to perform the contract in place between us. Your Core Account Data is critical to us being able to manage the history of, and develop our open source software.

   If you update your Core Account Data with us, we do not apply those changes retrospectively (meaning commits you make to Gitlab under an old email address will remain posted under that email address).

   You are free to delete your GitLab account at any time, but please keep in mind that the right to erasure does not apply to your Core Account Data. This means that your history on our platform (such as your history of working on the GitLab software) will remain publically visible even after you delete your account.

2. You can choose to enhance your GitLab profile and experience by:

   • Following others on GitLab, and engaging with others who follow you
   • Adding detail to your profile such as your job title, where you work, and an avatar

   We handle this data (which we refer to from now on as your Additional Account Data) because of our legitimate interest to build a community of developers who work on our platform. If you choose to delete your GitLab account, which you can do at any time, we will also erase your Additional Account Data.

3. When you contribute to the GitLab project, in addition to your Core Account Data and any Additional Account Data you choose to provide, we collect and process the following data created by you, which we refer to from now on as your Account Activity Data:

   • Issues with the software
   • Merge requests
   • Notes
   • Abuse reports
   • Award emojis

   We handle this data about you under our legitimate interests to ensure the service we provide to you is as expected, and that we are able to take steps to solve any issues/ fix any bugs you highlight to us and respond to any of your queries.

What happens when I delete my account?

When you delete your user account:

• We delete your Additional Account Data.

• Your Core Account Data is not deleted, which means any commits made by a deleted user will still display your username at the time the commit was made.

• Your Account Activity Data is unlinked from your username, and moved to a system-wide user called “Ghost User”, which acts as a container for deleted records. We do this because we want to respect our users’ privacy and ensure the development history of our software remains intact.

Where is your data stored?

Our servers are located in the UK.

Transfer of data to third parties:

No data is transferred to 3rd parties for further processing, and we do not use any non-essential cookies on GitLab. We use the following, essential cookies:

Under no circumstances, does Collabora sell customer data of any kind.

Please keep in mind that information you actively contribute to our GitLab project, including personal data, is publicly visible and can be found by search engines. It is also possible that a third party could decide to create a fork (a spin off project) that involves copying our GitLab, along with its development history and publically available data, and creating their own version of our software. With this in mind, please do not contribute any information that you are uncomfortable making permanently public, such as information revealing your real name or location in your contributions.

Retention Period:

We will only retain your personal information for as long as we need it unless we are required to keep it for longer to comply with our legal, accounting or regulatory requirements. We will usually delete your personal data when you delete your account as described above, or 6 years after the GitLab project shuts down. Any data we have on any backup systems will usually be deleted within 6 months.

In some circumstances we may carefully anonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, and we may use this anonymised information indefinitely without notifying you. We use this anonymised information to analyse our programmes and support other similar programmes around the world.

Your Rights

You have various other rights under applicable data protection laws, including the right to:

• access your personal data (also known as a “subject access request”);
• correct incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you;
• ask us to erase the personal data we hold about you;
• ask us to restrict our handling of your personal data;
• ask us to transfer your personal data to a third party; 
• object to how we are using your personal data; and
• withdraw your consent to us handling your personal data.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your relevant supervisory authority, you can find which one applies to youi here.

To exercise any of the above rights, please contact us using data@collabora.com. Please keep in mind that privacy law is often complicated, and these rights will not be available to you all of the time. And in order to process your request, we may need to verify your identity for your security. In such cases, we may need you to respond with proof of your identity.

This privacy policy was last updated on 23 March 2021.