Access and research in the Diplomatic and Historical Archives through catalog search or AI-powered natural language queries
A web application for accessing the catalogs and archival materials of the Service of Diplomatic and Historical Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The application was implemented within the framework of the Operational Program "Digital Convergence" of NSRF 2007-2013 and was financed by resources from Greece and the European Union.
Access to the archival material, the management of which is under the responsibility of the Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is governed by the provisions of Article 142 of Law 4781/2021 (Government Gazette 31/A'/2021 - Organization and operation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Council of Hellenic Diaspora, regulation of issues of international development cooperation and humanitarian aid and other provisions) and the Ministerial Decisions and Presidential Decrees issued in accordance with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Organization. Supplementarily, the provisions of Law 4624/2019, Government Gazette 137/A'/2019 (Personal Data Protection Authority etc.) apply.
The use of archival material catalogs available at the Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is free. Searches are conducted through the search engine operating on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website. Printing or digital storage of search results through the electronic catalog is permitted only for the researcher's personal use. Further reproduction, distribution or commercial use of search results through the electronic catalog by any means, without the written permission of the Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service, is not permitted.
Access to digitized material is provided only to registered users, in accordance with the relevant terms. The registration process is intended to maintain statistics on access to the material, as well as to protect the Ministry of Foreign Affairs archival material from abusive use, in accordance with the provisions of the relevant legislation.
Access to archival material that is not digitized but is included in the catalog of the Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service is provided at the Service's Reading Room, upon application by the interested researcher and approval thereof, in accordance with the prescribed procedure.
The Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service reserves the right, exceptionally and in application of the provisions referred to in Article 1 of these Regulations, to provide access to digitized files or documents for which specific issues may arise, such as intellectual property rights of Organizations, natural persons, etc., only upon special authorization. Such material bears special marking in the electronic catalog.
The Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, within the framework of exercising its responsibilities as derived from Law 4781 (Government Gazette A' 31/28.2.2021), maintains archives and collections and processes personal data contained therein. As such, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs bears the capacity of Personal Data Controller in accordance with the legislation (General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2016/679/EU).
The researcher has the obligation to treat as confidential any information referring to natural persons (personal data) to which they gain access or knowledge in the context of conducting their research or incidentally thereto.
The researcher undertakes the obligation to process personal data only for the purpose declared in their application. Specifically, the researcher will extract from each archive (document or any other archival material evidence) only those elements that are necessary, according to their scientific judgment, for the completion of the specific research as declared in their application.
The researcher undertakes the obligation to protect and safeguard the confidential nature of the aforementioned data and not to communicate, announce, transmit them to third parties or make them available to them in any way.
Upon publication of the research or part thereof, the researcher takes every necessary measure to maintain anonymity. In case the researcher wishes to publish personal data, including data that may identify the data subject, they must submit a relevant special request to the Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
These obligations remain in force even after the end of the study period of the archives kept at the Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Violation of the above obligations entails sanctions as provided for in the relevant provisions, in particular the General Data Protection Regulation.
In application of Regulation 2016/679 for the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data, we inform you that the controller of personal data is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs processes the data you declare in the relevant applications of the Reading Room or the online platform (name, capacity, permanent residence address, telephone/fax, email address, identity card or passport details) for the purpose of exercising a legal obligation arising from Law 4781 (Government Gazette A'31/28.2.2021). Specifically, the processing of your personal data through their registration in an automated system ensures access to the archives and collections available at the Reading Room of the Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its online platform, while guaranteeing the security of the use of archival material. Additionally, anonymous data processing is carried out for the annual statistical representation of the traffic on the platform of the Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Your personal data is retained for reasons of security of use of archival material.
As a data subject, you may exercise the rights provided for in the provisions of Regulation 2016/679. Specifically, you have the right of access to your personal data, meaning you can request a copy of the personal data concerning you which is processed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Additionally, you may exercise the rights of rectification, erasure, as well as restriction of processing of the data you declare in the applications of the Reading Room and the online platform of the Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In case of submitting a request for erasure of your personal data, access to the archives and collections available at the Reading Room of the Diplomatic and Historical Archive Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will no longer be possible.
To exercise the above rights, you may contact archive1@mfa.gr.
For monitoring the compliance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Regulation 2016/679/EU on data protection, a Data Protection Officer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been appointed, whom citizens may contact at the email address dpo@mfa.gr.
The supervising Greek Authority for monitoring the implementation of Regulation 2016/679 and the submission of complaints has been designated as the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (HDPA), 1-3 Kifisias Avenue, P.C. 11523, Tel.: 2106475600, Fax: 2106475628, Email: contact@dpa.gr and complaints@dpa.gr.
[1] Processing of personal data means: any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organization, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction (Article 4, paragraph 2, GDPR).
[2] Personal data means: any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person (Article 4, paragraph 1, GDPR).
