General Information
The security and confidentiality of your personal data is important to us. In the following you will find information on how we process your data and the measures taken to protect your privacy as a user of this site. All data collected here is treated as strictly confidential in our area of responsibility in accordance with the provisions of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and in accordance with the country-specific data protection regulations that apply to us, such as the new Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG new) or the Telemedia Act (TMG). The processing takes place either in accordance with Article 6 (1) (a) GDPR on the basis of your consent, in accordance with Article 6 (1) (b) GDPR to fulfill or initiate a contract with you, in accordance with Article 6 (1) (c) GDPR to fulfill a legal obligation on our part or on the basis of Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f GDPR to safeguard our legitimate interests.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Collection and processing of personal data
Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. 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 one or more special features, or the expressions the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.
The processing of personal data can take place with or without the help of data processing systems and includes the following activities: collection, recording, organisation, ordering, storage, adaptation or modification, reading, querying, use, disclosure by transmission, distribution or any other form of making available, matching or linking, restricting, deleting or destroying.
We process your personal information that you provide to us via our website only for correspondence with you and only for the purpose for which you made the data available to us.
Each time you access our website, we automatically and temporarily collect and store information in a so-called log file that your browser leaves behind when you use our website and each time you access a file. In detail, the following data is stored for each access/retrieval:
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- IP address
- Date and time of retrieval
- Retrieved page/name of retrieved file
- Web browser and requesting domain
- Amount of data transferred
- Message whether the access was successful
The processing takes place in accordance with Article 6 Paragraph 1 Letter f GDPR on the basis of our legitimate interest in improving the stability and functionality of our website. The data will not be passed on or used in any other way. However, we reserve the right to subsequently check the server log files if there are concrete indications of illegal use.
Use and Disclosure of Personal Information
Your personal data (e.g. surname, first name, e-mail address) that you provide to us via our website, e.g. via our contact form, will only be processed for correspondence with you, to process your inquiry or for the purpose for which you have provided us with the data. There is no other evaluation of the data, except for statistical purposes and then generally in anonymous form.
How long we retain your data
If you send a message via the contact form, the message and its metadata are retained indefinitely.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
Data Encryption
To protect the confidentiality of your data, we use the state-of-the-art encryption method (e.g. SSL) via HTTPS when transmitting your data.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have filled out the contact form, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where your data is sent
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
Use of Google Analytics
Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, text files that are stored on your computer and enable an analysis of your use of the website. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website is usually transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there. The IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with other Google data. We have also added the “anonymizeIP” code to Google Analytics on this website, which guarantees that your IP address is masked so that all data is collected anonymously. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be sent to a Google server in the USA and shortened there.
On behalf of the operator of our website, Google will use this information to evaluate your use of the website, to compile reports on website activity and to provide other services related to website activity and internet usage to the website operator. You can prevent the storage of cookies by setting your browser software accordingly; we would like to point out to you however that in this case you can if applicable not use all functions of this website in full.
You can prevent Google from collecting the data generated by the cookie and related to your use of the website (including your IP address) and from processing this data by Google by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available under the following link : http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de. As an alternative to the browser add-on, especially for browsers on mobile devices, you can also prevent Google Analytics from collecting data by clicking on this link. An opt-out cookie will be set to prevent future collection of your data when you visit our website. The opt-out cookie is only valid in this browser and only for our website and is stored on your device. If you delete the cookies in this browser, you must set the opt-out cookie again.
We continue to use Google Analytics to evaluate data from double-click cookies and AdWords for statistical purposes. If you do not want this, you can deactivate this via the Ads Preferences Manager (http://www.google.com/settings/ads/onweb/?hl=de).
Use of social media plugins
We use plugins from various social networks on our website. When you visit our website, the plugins initiate the transmission of data such as your IP address to the servers of the provider and, if applicable, which pages of our website have been or will be accessed. Since we have no influence on the type of collection, storage and further processing of the data by these plugins, we hereby refer you to the data protection declarations of the respective providers.
- Google https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de
- Instagram https://help.instagram.com/
To prevent plug-in providers from collecting the above-mentioned data when you visit our website and linking it directly to your provider account, log out of the providers before you visit our site.
Embedded YouTube videos
We embed YouTube videos on our website. The operator of the corresponding plugins for displaying these videos is YouTube LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA.
When you visit a website with a YouTube plugin, a connection to the YouTube servers is established. This tells YouTube which website you are visiting. If you are logged into your YouTube account (Google account), YouTube can assign your surfing behavior to you personally. You can prevent this by logging out of your YouTube account (Google account) beforehand.
If a YouTube video is started, Google uses cookies that collect information about user behavior. If you have deactivated the storage of cookies for the Google Ad program, you will not have to expect any such cookies when watching YouTube videos. However, YouTube also stores non-personal usage information in other cookies. If you want to prevent the storage of cookies, you can set this in your browser.
Further information on data protection at “YouTube” can be found in the provider’s data protection declaration at: https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy/