Terms of use

MedPAN and SPA/RAC reserve the right to modify these Terms of Use at any time and without prior notice. Consequently, any modification shall take effect immediately upon publication. Users who do not have a personal account are required to regularly consult these General Terms of Use on the Site. The applicable General Conditions of Use are those in force and made available to the User.

PREAMBLE

1.1 General presentation

The website is published by:

the MedPAN Association, a non-profit association under the law of 1 July 1901, declared on 31 March 2016 to the Prefecture of Bouches-du-Rhône, registered in the SIREN register under the number 509 161 402, whose intra-community VAT number is FR 95509161402 and whose head office is located at 58, Quai du Port, 13002 Marseille (hereinafter referred to as “MedPAN”).

The contact details of MedPAN are

Telephone: +33 (0)4 91 52 34 33
Mail address: Contact@MedPAN.org

MedPAN is an association whose aim is to promote the creation, sustainability and operation of a Mediterranean network of Marine Protected Areas in partnership with local, regional, national and international governmental and non-governmental organisations to develop its activities.

and

SPA/RAC, the Specially Protected Areas Regional Activity Centre. SPA/RAC is a component of UNEP/MAP-Barcelona Convention. The Centre’s objective is to contribute to the conservation of marine biodiversity in the Mediterranean, in particular through the creation and effective management of marine and coastal protected areas.

The SPA/RAC contact details are as follows

Telephone: +216 71 206 649 / 71 206 485
Mail address: car-asp@spa-rac.org

The website https://www.medmpaforum.org (hereinafter referred to as the “Site”) mainly allows users (hereinafter referred to as “Users”) to learn about the activities and actions of the Forum process, to contact MedPAN and SPA/RAC and, when they have a personal account, to subscribe to the newsletters or to make contributions (hereinafter referred to as “Personal Account”).

1.2 Hosting provider

The Website is hosted by OVH.

PURPOSE

2.1 The purpose of these General Conditions of Use is to define the terms and conditions of use of the Site and its services by the User, as well as the rights and obligations of the Parties.

2.2 The provisions of these General Terms of Use referring to the User are applicable to users with a personal Account and to ordinary visitors. The provisions of these General Conditions of Use referring to the User with a personal Account are applicable only to the latter, to the exclusion of all other Users.

ACCEPTANCE AND MODIFICATION OF THE GENERAL TERMS OF USE

3.1 The General Conditions of Use apply to any User who, without having a Personal Account, browses the Site.

3.2 The General Conditions of Use are explicitly accepted in their entirety by every User, when creating his personal Account, by ticking the box provided for this purpose.

3.3 MedPAN and SPA/RAC reserve the right to modify these Terms of Use at any time and without prior notice. Consequently, any modification shall take effect immediately upon publication. The User is obliged to regularly consult these General Terms of Use on the Website. The applicable General Conditions of Use are those in force and made available to the User.

It is the User’s responsibility to consult the latest version of the General Conditions of Use which is presented to him/her when finalising the creation of a personal Account.

ACCESS TO THE SITE

Access to the url is free. The costs of access and use of the telecommunication network shall be borne by any user of the Site, in accordance with the terms and conditions laid down by their access providers and telecommunication operators.

It is reminded that the fact of fraudulently accessing or remaining in a computer system, of hindering or distorting the operation of such a system, of fraudulently introducing or modifying data in a computer system constitute offences subject to criminal sanctions.

CONTENT OF THE SITE

MedPAN and SPA/RAC make every effort to ensure that the information published on this site is accurate and up-to-date, and reserves the right to modify the content or presentation of this site at any time and without prior notice. However, MedPAN and SPA/RAC cannot guarantee the completeness or the absence of modification by a third party (intrusion, virus).

Furthermore, MedPAN and SPA/RAC do not guarantee and shall not be liable in any way for the accuracy, absence of errors, truthfulness, up-to-dateness, fairness, merchantability, correctness, non-infringement and availability of the information contained on this website.

MedPAN and SPA/RAC decline all responsibility in case of delay, error or omission in the content of these pages, as well as in case of interruption or unavailability of the service. In this respect, MedPAN and SPA/RAC cannot be held responsible for any indirect damage whatsoever.

MedPAN and SPA/RAC cannot be held responsible for any decision taken on the basis of information contained on this Site, nor for the use that could be made of it by third parties and in particular declines all responsibility arising from the transmission of confidential information on the Internet.

MedPAN and SPA/RAC cannot be held responsible for elements beyond its control and for any damage that may be suffered by the technical environment of any User and in particular, his computer, software, network equipment (modems, telephones…) and any equipment used to access or use the service and/or information.

CONDITIONS OF ACCESS TO SERVICES – PERSONAL ACCOUNT

6.1 Access to the Site does not require the creation of a personal account. However, access to all the services offered on the Site requires the creation of a Personal Account and logging into it.

6.2 To connect to his personal Account, the User must identify himself from the “My Space” section on the Site.

6.3 The creation of a Personal Account is also accessible from the “My Space” section, then “Create my account”.

To create a personal account, the User must enter his/her email address, title, first name, surname, name of the organisation and country to enable MedPAN and SPA/RAC to identify and differentiate each User of the Site. The User is also required to choose a Password. This password must be composed of at least 16 characters, one upper case, one lower case, one number and one symbol.

In order to finalise the creation of his/her personal Account, the User must accept the present General Conditions of Use and the MedPAN and SPA/RAC Privacy Policy.

After accepting the General Conditions of Use and the Privacy Policy, the User will receive an email confirming the creation of his/her Personal Account at the e-mail address provided during registration. It is then the User’s responsibility to ensure that he/she has received the e-mail, in particular by checking his/her junk mail, in order to verify that the e-mail address provided is correct.

6.4 By creating a personal Account, the User guarantees :

to be a natural person over the age of eighteen (18) ;
to provide accurate and up-to-date information concerning his identity and contact details and in particular to provide an e-mail address of which he is the owner;
in the event of a change, to update without delay the information provided concerning his/her identity and contact details.

MedPAN and SPA/RAC reserve the right to refuse a registration or to suspend or close, without notice or compensation, a Personal Account if it has doubts about this information.

6.5 The User undertakes to keep the identification elements of his/her Personal Account strictly confidential and to inform MedPAN and SPA/RAC without delay of any unauthorised use of his/her Personal Account and of any breach of confidentiality and security of his/her identification means, at the following address Contact@medmpaforum.org, after having taken care to change his password.

The User is therefore fully and exclusively responsible for his password, for preserving its confidentiality and for any use that may be made of it, in particular by a third party. In this respect, the User is required to log out after each visit to the site.

In any case, MedPAN and SPA/RAC cannot be held responsible for the loss, theft or use by a third party of the User’s password, the User alone bearing all the consequences resulting from this.

6.6 The User may at any time request the deletion of his/her personal Account by sending a request to MedPAN and SPA/RAC. In accordance with his right to portability of his Personal Data, the User will be able to recover all his personal data in a structured format commonly used and readable by machine, in accordance with article 11 of the present General Conditions of Use.

DESCRIPTION OF THE SERVICES

7.1 MedPAN and SPA/RAC provide services mainly allowing Users with a Personal Account to make requests or to contribute to the association.

7.2 In the absence of a Personal Account, the User can only :

Visit the Forum process website;
Consult publications about the Forum and Roadmap;
Access all the information made available by MedPAN and SPA/RAC and related to the use of the Site (General Conditions of Use, Privacy Policy…);
Subscribe to the newsletter;
Use the contact form.

7.3 Users who have a Personal Account may in particular:

Submitting a contribution and monitoring its progress;
Make requests to MedPAN and SPA/RAC concerning the Forum process;
Consult and modify all personal data.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

MedPAN and SPA/RAC are the exclusive owners of the website, its distinctive signs such as its logo and its content, or if necessary, has all the necessary authorisations for their use under the conditions defined in these General Conditions of Use.

The Site and its content are protected by copyright, trademark law, database producers’ rights or any other intellectual property right recognised by the legislation in force.

Consequently, any copy, imitation, reproduction, representation, adaptation, alteration, modification, distribution, in whole or in part, of the content of MedPAN and SPA/RAC, without prior authorisation, is prohibited and may result in legal proceedings. Similarly, within the limits permitted by law and subject to any other provision contained in these General Conditions of Use, it is expressly forbidden, under any pretext whatsoever, to modify, adapt, alter, rework, transform, translate all or part of the Site, to carry out reverse engineering operations, to copy, reproduce, duplicate the Site for purposes other than that of use for one’s own needs, to create works derived from the Site or its content.

For example, it is expressly forbidden to use techniques allowing access to the source code or to bypass security systems.

Without the express written permission of MedPAN and SPA/RAC, it is expressly forbidden to reproduce any brand, logo or other distinctive sign of MedPAN and SPA/RAC or all or part of the content of the website. In particular, it is expressly forbidden to use framing techniques for this purpose.

Without the express written permission of MedPAN and SPA/RAC, it is expressly forbidden to use meta tags or other hidden text using the name of MedPAN and SPA/RAC or distinctive signs belonging to MedPAN and SPA/RAC.

MedPAN and SPA/RAC reserve the right to delete the personal account of any User who does not respect the provisions of this article. The User is duly informed that any violation of the present article constitutes an act of counterfeiting which is civilly and criminally punishable.

HYPERLINKS

MedPAN and SPA/RAC are not responsible for the hypertext links pointing to the present Site and the creation of hypertext links to the url is subject to the express prior agreement of the Director of the Publication. The hypertext links established towards other sites from the Site cannot, in any case, engage the responsibility of MedPAN and SPA/RAC, in particular, but not exclusively, as for the contents of these sites.

The User shall immediately inform MedPAN and SPA/RAC of any inappropriate or illicit content to which he/she would be redirected thanks to a hypertext link on the Site.

Undertakings of the user with a personal account

10.1 The User undertakes to use the Personal Account in good faith and in accordance with its purpose, for lawful purposes and in strict compliance with these General Terms of Use.

The User undertakes not to use the Personal Account for fraudulent purposes, to carry out an illegal activity or to cause disturbance or nuisance to others.

The User undertakes not to infringe the intellectual property rights of MedPAN and SPA/RAC or third parties.

10.2 By using the Personal Account, and in particular by creating a Personal Account, the User guarantees to provide accurate and up-to-date information concerning his identity and contact details.

In addition, any usurpation of identity may give rise to prosecution, in particular criminal prosecution, in accordance with the provisions of Article L.226-4-1 of the French Criminal Code, which states that “The fact of usurping the identity of a third party or of using one or more data of any kind that makes it possible to identify him or her with a view to disturbing his or her peace of mind or that of others, or to undermining his or her honour or reputation, is punishable by one year’s imprisonment and a fine of €15,000. This offence is punishable by the same penalties when it is committed on an online public communication network.

10.3 In the event of a breach by the User of the General Terms and Conditions of Use or of behaviour likely to damage the image and reputation of MedPAN and SPA/RAC, MedPAN and SPA/RAC reserve the right to no longer authorise access to and use of the Personal Account, in particular by means of the suspension or deletion of the Personal Account. In this case, MedPAN and SPA/RAC will inform the User concerned by e-mail and will respect a fifteen (15) days notice before proceeding to the effective suspension or deletion of the Personal Account, without the User being able to request any justification or compensation from MedPAN and SPA/RAC.

The duration of the suspension is determined unilaterally by MedPAN and SPA/RAC.

In case of serious misconduct by the User, the deletion of the Personal Account will take place after a five (5) days notice.

In any case, the User shall bear all the consequences resulting from a suspension or deletion of the Personal Account. It being specified that a suspension or deletion of the Personal Account does not deprive the User of exercising his rights relating to his Personal Data in accordance with Article 11 of these General Terms of Use.

PERSONAL DATA

11.1 In the context of the use of the services, MedPAN and SPA/RAC collects and processes Personal Data relating to the User

The detailed conditions of collection and processing are defined in the Privacy Policy, which can be consulted at any time from the tab provided for this purpose on the Site.

Pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the Protection of Personal Data, the User may, at any time, exercise his/her rights of access, rectification, limitation, deletion or opposition to the processing of his/her personal data. Similarly, the User has a right to the portability of his/her data which must be returned to him/her in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. The User may formulate advance directives on the use of his/her data after his/her death.

The User may exercise his rights by sending a request to this effect to the following address

By e-mail to the following address contact@medmpaforum.org ;
By registered mail to the following address MedPAN, 58, Quai du Port, 13002 Marseille

The User also has the right to refer the matter to the CNIL in the event of non-compliance with the legislative and regulatory provisions relating to the protection of personal data.

11.2 Furthermore, through the use of the Website, information relating to the User’s browsing may be recorded on the terminal that he/she uses (computer, tablet, smartphone) in files called “cookies”, and according to the settings chosen by the User in his/her browser. For more information on this subject, all Users are invited to consult the Policy on cookies.

RESPONSIBILITY

MedPAN and SPA/RAC are subject to the limits and characteristics of telecommunications networks and services, and cannot be held responsible for any malfunction or interruption of the Site or of all or part of the services that may be linked to the coverage of the Internet network or mobile telephone networks, whatever the duration or for whatever reason. MedPAN and SPA/RAC nevertheless undertake to use their best efforts to try to resolve these difficulties as soon as possible.

Given the free nature of the Site and services for the User with a personal account, the latter may not in any case seek the responsibility of MedPAN and SPA/RAC for any interruption of access to the Site.

NOTIFICATION OF INFRINGEMENT OF RIGHTS OR ILLEGAL CONTENT

If a User notices that a content published on the Site is illicit or infringes his rights, the User can report the litigious content to MedPAN and SPA/RAC:

Using the contact form located at homepage
By e-mail to the following address contact@medmpaforum.org ;
By registered mail to the following address MedPAN, 58, Quai du Port, 13002 Marseille

All reports sent to MedPAN and SPA/RAC must contain the following information

The term “Report”;
The identification of the author of the alert, namely
If it is a natural person: name, first name, profession, address, nationality, date and place of birth;
In the case of a legal person: name, registered office, identity and capacity of the body representing it;
The reasons, in particular legal, for which the content is considered illicit or infringing (violation of an intellectual property right, defamatory or insulting remarks, obscene content, etc.);
The electronic address (URL) where the contentious content can be found or, if this is not possible, the description of the content, its precise location and the identity of the author of the content
A copy of the correspondence addressed to the author of the contentious content requesting its removal or modification, or the justification that the author of the content could not be contacted;

It is also possible to attach any additional information and any document deemed useful in support of the report (e.g. certificate of trademark registration).

The User acknowledges that the fact of presenting a content as illicit with the aim of obtaining its withdrawal or stopping its distribution when he/she knows that this information is inaccurate, exposes him/her to a penalty of one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 15,000 €. In case of doubt, it is recommended that you seek legal advice.

Upon receipt of a report duly made in the above-mentioned forms and under the conditions that the grievances reproached to the litigious content are serious and verifiable, MedPAN and SPA/RAC will take, as soon as possible, all appropriate measures, including the withdrawal of the litigious content. Nevertheless, these measures are taken without prejudice, without recognition on the part of MedPAN and SPA/RAC of any responsibility whatsoever and without prejudice to all means, rights and actions in defence on the part of the person whose content has been reported.

MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS

14.1 The User may contact MedPAN and SPA/RAC at the address and phone number indicated on the Site and

Using the Contact Form tab located at the bottom of the homepage;
By e-mail at the following address contact@medmpaforum.org ;
By registered mail at the following address MedPAN, 58, Quai du Port, 13002 Marseille

14.2 If one or more provisions of the General Terms of Use are held to be invalid or declared as such in application of a treaty, a law or a regulation, or following a final decision of a competent court, the other provisions will retain all their force and scope.

14.3 No act, delay in taking action or any other attitude, passive or active, on the part of either Party shall be deemed to constitute a waiver by that Party of any of the rights and actions to which it is entitled under the General Terms of Use, unless such waiver is evidenced by a writing signed by a duly authorised representative.

14.4 In the event of a contradiction between the title of a clause and the content of the same clause, the content of the clause shall prevail.

14.5 The General Terms of Use shall not, in any way, create a legal relationship outside the purpose for which they are accepted.

APPLICABLE LAW

The user is informed of the fact that the Site is intended for Users residing in France and is therefore subject to French law.

Consequently, the General Conditions of Use are governed and interpreted according to French laws and regulations.

POSSIBLE DISPUTES

In the event of a dispute or claim relating to the formation, validity, execution, interpretation, non-execution, interruption, realisation or denunciation of the present General Conditions of Use, for whatever reason and on whatever basis, the User is obliged to contact MedPAN and SPA/RAC first to try to find an amicable solution to the dispute.

Any complaint must be addressed in writing to MedPAN and SPA/RAC accompanied by supporting documents:

Using the Contact Form tab located at the homepage
By e-mail to the following address contact@medmpaforum.org ;
By registered mail to the following address MedPAN, 58, Quai du Port, 13002 Marseille

A copy of the correspondence addressed to the author of the contentious content requesting its removal or modification, or the justification that the author of the content could not be contacted;

It is also possible to attach any additional information and any document deemed useful in support of the report (e.g. certificate of trademark registration).