Registration as a donor, the donor screening at a location and the actual donation take place on a voluntary basis. As a donor, you can always make the decision not to donate. At Sanquin, we require a valid reason in order to be allowed to process your personal data. This reason is called a legal basis.
The valid reasons, or legal bases, which we use are:
• consent;
• performance of a contract;
• a legal obligation;
• legitimate interest of Sanquin or a third party.
The valid reasons, or legal bases, which we use for special personal data (such as data concerning health and genetic data) are:
• explicit consent;
• the necessity for purposes of preventive medicine, medical diagnoses or the provision of health care or treatments;
• the necessity for reasons of general interest in the field of public health or ensuring high standards of quality and safety of health care and medicinal products;
• the necessity with regard to scientific research.
If we process your personal data for the purpose of our legitimate interests or those of third parties, the processing will be preceded by carefully weighing up these interests against your right to privacy. We take all precautionary measures to protect your privacy and, where necessary, to prevent your interests from being harmed. We can supply more information on request about how the interests are weighed up.
To ensure a safe blood supply for both donor and patient, we require certain personal data. We are legally required to request and store this data. If you do not want to provide us with any or all of this data, there is a chance that we cannot register you as a donor or invite you to donate blood.
Recruiting and inviting donors to donate blood
We ongoingly recruit new donors and invite existing donors to donate blood, in order to ensure that we always have enough blood products to be able to meet demands. We process personal data for this purpose based on:
• your (explicit) consent when registering as a new donor and inviting you to donate blood as an existing donor;
• a legal obligation, for screening whether or not you may become a donor;
• legitimate interest of Sanquin, when inviting you to donate blood as an existing donor.
Legitimate interest of Sanquin: we use personal data to invite donors to donate blood by invitation card, email, telephone and/or text message. We use lists for this purpose containing personal data in order to assess who we can/may invite to donate blood and when, and to schedule appointments.
The actual donation, associated administration and production
To be allowed to donate, we require some information from you. You will need to provide proof of identity, complete the screening sample form and undergo a screening. After your donation, we will test your blood to check whether it can be used and we still store the products for as long as they are needed. We will record and store all of this information because we are legally required to do so. We process personal data for this purpose based on:
• your (explicit) consent;
• a legal obligation;
• the necessity for purposes of preventive medicine, medical diagnoses or the provision of health care or treatments.
Contacting and maintaining contact with donors
Donors contact us by email, telephone and social media asking all kinds of questions about being allowed to donate or postponing a blood donation, for example. We record this in the donor's file if it is relevant to his/ her donation.
For you as a donor, we publish a donor magazine, we organise donor evenings and issue personal donor cards. We process personal data for this purpose based on:
• your (explicit) consent;
• a legal obligation;
• legitimate interest of Sanquin.
Legitimate interest of Sanquin: we use your personal data to send you our donor magazine and issue you a personal donor card.
Registering and reporting positive results, side effects and incidents
In the event of a positive result (for hepatitis C, for example), we are obliged to report the result to the IGJ and GGD. We will only pass on the result to your general practitioner with your permission to do so.
Things do not always turn out as expected. In the event of an incident, complaint or side effect, we register it so that it can be dealt with as effectively as possible and in certain cases, we have to report it to the IGJ. We process personal data for this purpose based on:
• your (explicit) consent;
• a legal obligation;
• the necessity for reasons of general interest in the field of public health.
Contact with medical institutions, specialists and general practitioners regarding donations, blood products and transfusions: supplying not-for-transfusion products to third parties
We are in contact with various parties regarding the request and delivery of blood products and for special samples. This includes contact with the specialist at the hospital where the transfusion will take place and with the general practitioner and/or specialist if extra information is requested in the event of a transfusion or for a donation.
We also supply, but only subject to approval from you as the donor, not-for-transfusion blood products to third parties and personal data to Matchis for stem cell donations:
• your (explicit) consent;
• a legal obligation;
• the necessity for purposes of preventive medicine, medical diagnoses or the provision of health care or treatments.
Scientific research
Within the blood supply organization, research is conducted with the aim of improving the blood supply and for medical scientific purposes. We can also use the data for statistical purposes.
• (Explicit) consent;
• Legitimate interest of Sanquin or a third party;
• The necessity with regard to scientific research or statistical purposes.
Legitimate interest of Sanquin: we process your pseudonymized or anonymous personal data for medical scientific purposes in the general interest. When processing these, such safeguards have been provided for that the privacy of donors will not be impacted disproportionally.