Privacy Policy
Last updated: 8 October 2026
1. Introduction
Ινστιτούτο Μέριμνα Ε.Ε. Κέντρο Δια Βίου Μάθησης (Merimna Institute – Lifelong Learning Centre; “the Institute”) is a certified and licensed centre for continuing dental education, licensed by the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs – General Secretariat for Vocational Education, Training and Lifelong Learning, and by its official body, the National Organization for Certification of Qualifications and Vocational Guidance (E.O.P.P.E.P.), under Lifelong Learning Centre (K.D.V.M.) licence number 202168085, for both its structures and its programmes.
This Privacy Policy describes how the Institute collects and processes the personal data of visitors and users of its websites. It covers the following websites and their subdomains:
- merimnaseminars.gr and its subdomains: user.merimnaseminars.gr, academy.merimnaseminars.gr, minor.merimnaseminars.gr, learn.merimnaseminars.gr
- merimna.edu.gr
- e-merimna.gr and its subdomain learn.e-merimna.gr
- webinars.edu.gr
- digital-dentistry.gr
This Policy does not cover third-party websites that our websites may link to. The Institute is not responsible for the data protection policies of those third parties.
2. Data controller and Data Protection Officer (DPO)
The data controller is Ινστιτούτο Μέριμνα Ε.Ε. Κέντρο Δια Βίου Μάθησης, 272A Vouliagmenis Avenue, Agios Dimitrios, Athens, postcode 173 43, Greece, tel. +30 210 9734000.
Data Protection Officer (DPO): Nikolaos Nakas, dpo@merimnaseminars.gr.
3. What data we collect and why
A. Contacting you
When you complete a contact or enquiry form (for example to ask a question, register interest in a programme, or send a suggestion or complaint), we process your full name, email address, telephone number, city of residence and any information you write in the free-text field of the form.
B. Interest form for working in the United Kingdom (mydentist)
On the mydentist page we collect your full name, email, telephone number (including country code) and your level of English. With your explicit and separate consent, this information is shared with the company mydentist, which acts as a separate data controller for the purpose of contacting you about job opportunities. We ask for your clear consent before sharing, and you may withdraw it.
C. Accounts and participation in programmes
On our learning platforms learn.merimnaseminars.gr and learn.e-merimna.gr (and possibly on other websites listed in section 1), users create an account. To log in to learn.merimnaseminars.gr, learn.e-merimna.gr and demo.merimnaseminars.gr we collect only: first name, last name, city, email, telephone number and profession. When registering for a webinar we ask whether you want credit points under the Greek continuing education system (“μοριοδότηση”), which applies to dentists in Greece. Only if you choose this, we additionally collect your address, country, the dental association you belong to and your personal dental registry number, and your data is shared with the scientific society organising the webinar so that it can be passed on to the Hellenic Dental Association (Ελληνική Οδοντιατρική Ομοσπονδία). The Institute only passes this data on and does not itself award credit points. Your data is also used to provide educational services, to meet the obligations arising from our licence, and to issue certificates. On the learning platforms we also record attendance hours for webinars and programmes.
Payments: no online payment is made on the Institute’s websites, and none will ever be requested. We do not collect card or bank account details.
merimnaseminars.gr itself does not have user accounts.
D. Newsletters
When you register for a webinar (webinars.edu.gr), you can choose, using a separate and optional consent field, to receive updates from the Institute. Registering for the webinar does not depend on this choice. If you give your consent, we use your full name and email address to inform you about webinars, courses and programmes of the Institute, as well as other topics related to dentistry. Communication is by email. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in every message, or by contacting us on +30 210 9734000 or at dpo@merimnaseminars.gr.
E. Social media and embedded content
Our websites may contain sharing buttons and links to our pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Instagram and Vimeo, as well as embedded videos. When you use such features, the relevant provider may process your personal data (for example IP address, name, email, profile photo, usage data) in accordance with its own policy. The Institute is not responsible for the policies and practices of these providers.
F. Technical data
While you browse, your IP address is recorded for technical reasons, for security, and to compile statistics.
4. Legal basis for processing
- Contacting you and replying to your requests: taking steps at your request / the Institute’s legitimate interest.
- Accounts and participation in programmes: performance of a contract and compliance with legal obligations.
- Newsletters, sharing with mydentist, passing data on for credit points, and statistics and advertising cookies: your consent, which you may withdraw at any time.
5. Cookies
Cookies are small text files stored on your device. Our websites use:
- Necessary / technical cookies, such as storing your language choice and your cookie consent, and keeping the pages working. These do not require consent.
- Analytics cookies: Google Analytics (Google).
- Advertising and measurement cookies: Meta (Facebook) Pixel, through a plugin that may use form data (such as email) to match advertising.
- Embedded third-party content: YouTube (Google) and Vimeo videos, and the GoTo service used to run and register for webinars. These providers may set their own cookies when their content loads.
- Brevo: used to send newsletter emails and may record whether messages are opened and links are clicked.
- Cloudflare: for security and page loading speed.
Analytics and advertising cookies load only after you give your consent through the cookie banner. You can change or withdraw your choices at any time, and set your browser to block cookies or warn you about them. If you disable them, some features may not be available.
6. Who we share data with
The Institute does not sell or rent personal data. We share data only:
- with your explicit consent (for example mydentist, or the scientific society organising a webinar and the Hellenic Dental Association when you choose credit points),
- with providers who process data on our behalf, only as far as necessary for their services, such as email services (Brevo), hosting and security (Cloudflare), analytics and video (Google, YouTube), advertising (Meta), video (Vimeo) and online seminars (GoTo),
- with public authorities, where the law requires it.
Some providers may process data outside the European Economic Area. In such cases the safeguards of the GDPR apply.
7. How long we keep your data
We keep identity and contact data for four (4) years from your last contact, transaction or participation. Newsletter data is kept until you withdraw your consent; otherwise, for four (4) years from your last sign-up. After that period it is deleted or anonymised, unless the law requires a longer retention period.
8. Your rights
Under Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) you have the right to:
- access your data,
- have inaccurate data corrected,
- erasure (“right to be forgotten”),
- restriction of processing,
- data portability,
- object to processing,
- withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.
To exercise your rights, email dpo@merimnaseminars.gr or use the data deletion form.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (HDPA)
9. Security
The Institute takes appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against loss, unauthorised access, alteration or disclosure. These include:
- Encryption in transit: communication between your device and our websites is protected with HTTPS/TLS encryption. This applies to form submissions and to logging in to accounts.
- Network protection: we use Cloudflare to protect against malicious traffic and attacks, and security measures on our servers.
- Access control: access to data is allowed only to authorised persons, to the extent needed for their duties.
- Backups: we keep daily backups of our systems.
- Security updates: the software and plugins of our websites are updated systematically.
- Providers: we work with providers who apply their own security measures, as described in sections 5 and 6.
- Data breaches: if a breach poses a risk to your rights, we will notify the HDPA and, where required, you, in accordance with the GDPR.
No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. We recommend that you protect your account credentials and do not share them with third parties.
10. Links to other websites
Our websites include links to other websites that are not controlled by the Institute. The Institute is not responsible for the personal data protection policies those websites follow.
11. Website content and limitation of liability
The information shown on the websites, such as programme content, instructors and dates, may be changed according to the needs of the programmes, in order to ensure their proper operation, without prior notice. Errors may occur.
Given the nature of the Internet, the Institute is not liable for any harm suffered by the user from actions taken on their own initiative and with knowledge of the terms of this Policy.
12. Governing law and changes
The processing of personal data is governed by Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and applicable Greek legislation. The Institute may amend this Policy, informing users through this page and stating the date of the last update.