Privacy Policy

This privacy policy tells you what to expect when Alcoholics Anonymous Continental European Region (CER) collects personal data.

The Use of Cookies and Displaying Content from External Platforms

When you visit www.alcoholics-anonymous.eu we use third-party services to enable the site to work and make the experience better for you. For more information please refer to our Cookie Policy page.

When You Contact Us

Any information submitted to us via the facilitation of online forms or via email communications will be treated in confidence. AA will not disclose any personal information to any third parties.

When You Use Our “Contact Us” Form

By filling in the “Contact Us” form with their data (first name and email address), the user authorises us to use these details to reply to requests for help or more information.

When You Use Our Help Response Service Email Service (HRS)

This website offers an email help service called “Help Response Service” (HRS). The address is help@alcoholics-anonymous.eu. It is staffed by AA member volunteers who respond to email queries received. Messages through our “Contact Us” form on our website are sent to this email address.

Our email server uses TLS/SSL encryption (Transport Layer Security) and the server also accepts STARTTLS encrypted connections. This security encrypts data only between the servers used for sending the email data – there is no protection against computer viruses of any kind. It also offers no protection against errors like addressing the email to the wrong person or other people being able to read the email if you send to an incorrect address.

We will monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send is within the bounds of the law. We encourage you to use good virus protection.

If you choose, while emailing with the HRS service, to give your name and any other personal details, neither they nor any other part of your email will be given or shown to anyone else. We will use anonymous data in the form of numbers of people who use the service only to monitor and report the number of users internally. This makes sure we are doing the best we can for people who ask for help and helps us to improve service

We will store the emails sent to us at the help@alcoholics-anonymous.eu email address and replies from that address for six months. Only specific members of the HRS volunteer team have access to this data and it is not shared with anyone else. The reason for keeping the contents of your email is for training purposes and to enable us to continue the service and carry the message of AA. All emails older than six months are deleted.

When You Provide Contacts for Your Meeting Listing

Members whose name, email, and/or phone number appear as meeting contacts should be prepared to take responsibility as AA contacts. This implies that these contact details will be listed online as the local meeting contact on our website, and that the contact is prepared at any time to:

• accept a call/email for help
• receive calls/emails from members of the Fellowship enquiring about the meeting

We suggest that generic and anonymous AA service-based email accounts and help-line numbers are used wherever possible.

ArenA Newsletter Mailing List

By registering for our ArenA Newsletter, the user’s data (first name and email address), will be added to our ArenA Newsletter mailing list and will receive periodic emails from us that contain non-commercial information about CER, for example articles from members and notifications of upcoming AA Events.

Secretary’s Assembly Mailing List

All personal email addresses are kept in a secure and well-managed mailing list. Protecting your data is important to us and in line with our Traditions as well as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We do not share or sell your information to anyone. You can ask for us to remove you from this list and delete your information at any time.

Online File Store

We provide our members a password protected online file storage facility for the service structure. It is intended to be used for sharing information related to our service work and no personal data should be included.

Access to Personal Information

CER tries to be as open as it can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information while keeping in mind the Twelfth Tradition “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities”. We only store the data we need in order to do our service work.

Links to Other Websites

Our website’s policy is no links to other websites other than Alcoholics Anonymous national websites and Intergroups within CER websites.

The only exceptions are the provision of links to download the Meeting Guide App (as listed on Google Play Store and the Apple App Store) and to website third party services’ privacy policies and cookie management pages. These links are provided as a courtesy to our members and for informational purposes only, their provision does not constitute endorsement or affiliation.

Because of the structure of AA as set down in our Twelve Traditions, Tradition 4 “Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups, or A.A. as a whole” and the inclusion of websites whose content is managed by their group and intergroup owners, some external links may be visible in some cases. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on all the other websites you visit to see how they handle your personal data. This privacy notice does not cover the links within this site that may have been placed, against policy and guidance, by AA groups, intergroups or any others.

This Privacy Notice

We have written this notice in a way which we hope is clear and easy to understand. It does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of CER’s collection and use of personal information. However, we are happy to help and to provide any additional information or explanation needed.

If you agree, we will try to deal with your request informally, for example by providing you with the specific information you need over the telephone or, if you prefer by letter or email. We are happy to provide copies of the data in a format that is easily accessible and easy for you to use.

Any requests for information or more details should be sent via email to secretary.cer@aamail.org

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review and make updates as and when required.

21 September 2018