Privacy policy

What personal data we collect and why we collect it:

Comments

When visitors post comments on the site, we collect the data displayed in the comment form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and user agent string (this identifies the browser) to help detect spam.

An anonymized string may be created from your email address (also called a hash) and passed to the Gravatar service to check if you are using it. The privacy policy of the Gravatar service can be found here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After your comment is approved, your profile picture is publicly visible in the context of your comment.

Media

If you are a registered user and upload photos to this website, you should avoid uploading photos with an EXIF GPS location. Visitors to this website might download photos stored on this website and extract their location information.

Cookies

When you post a comment on our website, this may be consent to store your name, email address and website in cookies. This is a convenience feature so that when you post another comment, you don’t have to re-enter all this data. These cookies are stored for one year.

If you have an account and log in to this website, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie does not contain any personally identifiable information and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will set some cookies to store your login information and viewing options. Login cookies expire after two days and display option cookies expire after one year. If you select “Stay logged in” when you sign up, your login will be kept for two weeks. When you log out of your account, the login cookies are deleted.

When you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie is stored in your browser. This cookie does not contain any personal data and only refers to the post ID of the article you just edited. The cookie expires after one day.

Embedded content from other websites

Beiträge auf dieser Website können eingebettete Inhalte beinhalten (z. B. Videos, Bilder, Beiträge etc.). Eingebettete Inhalte von anderen Websites verhalten sich exakt so, als ob der Besucher die andere Website besucht hätte.

Diese Websites können Daten über dich sammeln, Cookies benutzen, zusätzliche Tracking-Dienste von Dritten einbetten und deine Interaktion mit diesem eingebetteten Inhalt aufzeichnen, inklusive deiner Interaktion mit dem eingebetteten Inhalt, falls du ein Konto hast und auf dieser Website angemeldet bist.

Your data subject rights

You can exercise the following rights at any time using the contact details provided by our data protection officer:

• Information about your data stored by us and its processing,
• Correction of incorrect personal data,
• Deletion of your data stored by us,
• Restriction of data processing, if we are not yet allowed to delete your data due to legal obligations,
• objection to the processing of your data by us and
• Data portability, provided that you have consented to the data processing or have concluded a contract with us.

If you have given us consent, you can revoke this at any time with effect for the future.

You can contact the supervisory authority responsible for you at any time with a complaint. Your competent supervisory authority depends on the federal state of your residence, your work or the alleged violation. A list of supervisory authorities (for the non-public sector) with address can be found at: https://www.bfdi.bund.de/DE/Infothek/Anschriften_Links/anschriften_links-node.html.

Purposes of data processing by the controller and third parties

We process your personal data only for the purposes stated in this privacy policy. We do not transfer your personal data to third parties for purposes other than those stated. We will only disclose your personal data to third parties if:

• you have given your express consent to this,
• the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with you,
• the processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation,

the processing is necessary to protect legitimate interests and there is no reason to assume that you have an overriding legitimate interest in not disclosing your data.

Deletion or blocking of the data

We adhere to the principles of data avoidance and data economy. We therefore only store your personal data for as long as is necessary to achieve the purposes stated here or as stipulated by the various storage periods provided for by law. After the respective purpose has ceased to exist or these periods have expired, the corresponding data is routinely blocked or deleted in accordance with the statutory provisions.

Collection of general information when visiting our website

When you access our website, information of a general nature is automatically collected by means of a cookie. This information (server log files) includes, for example, the type of web browser, the operating system used, the domain name of your Internet service provider and the like. This is exclusively information that does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about your person.

This information is technically necessary in order to correctly deliver the content of web pages requested by you and is mandatory when using the Internet. In particular, it is processed for the following purposes:

• Ensuring a smooth connection of the website,
• Ensuring a smooth use of our website,
• evaluation of system security and stability, and
• for further administrative purposes.

The processing of your personal data is based on our legitimate interest from the aforementioned purposes for data collection. We do not use your data to draw conclusions about your person. Recipients of the data are only the responsible body and, if applicable, order processors.

Anonymous information of this kind is statistically evaluated by us, if necessary, in order to optimize our Internet presence and the technology behind it.

SSL encryption

To protect the security of your data during transmission, we use state-of-the-art encryption methods (e.g. SSL) via HTTPS.

Contact form

If you contact us by e-mail or contact form regarding questions of any kind, you give us your voluntary consent for the purpose of contacting you. For this purpose, it is necessary to provide a valid e-mail address. This serves the assignment of the request and the subsequent response to the same. The provision of further data is optional. The information you provide will be stored for the purpose of processing the request and for possible follow-up questions. After completion of your request, personal data will be deleted automatically.

Use of Google Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (hereinafter: Google). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this website is usually transmitted to a Google server in the USA and stored there. However, due to the activation of IP anonymization on these web pages, your IP address will be truncated beforehand by Google within member states of the European Union or in other contracting states of the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and shortened there. On behalf of the operator of this website, Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage to the website operator. The IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with other data from Google.

The purposes of data processing are to evaluate the use of the website and to compile reports on website activities. Based on the use of the website and the Internet, other related services shall then be provided. The processing is based on the legitimate interest of the website operator.

You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. You can also prevent the collection of data generated by the cookie and related to your use of the website (including your IP address) to Google and the processing of this data by Google by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at the following link: Browser Add On to disable Google Analytics.

In addition or as an alternative to the browser add-on, you can prevent tracking by Google Analytics on our pages by clicking this link. This will install an opt-out cookie on your device. This will prevent the collection by Google Analytics for this website and for this browser in the future, as long as the cookie remains installed in your browser.

Use of script libraries (Google Webfonts)

In order to display our content correctly and graphically appealing across browsers, we use script libraries and font libraries such as Google Webfonts (https://www.google.com/webfonts/) on this website. Google Web Fonts are transferred to your browser’s cache to avoid multiple loading. If the browser does not support Google Web Fonts or prevents access, content is displayed in a standard font.

Calling up script libraries or font libraries automatically triggers a connection to the operator of the library. It is theoretically possible – although it is currently also unclear whether and, if so, for what purposes – that operators of corresponding libraries collect data.

The privacy policy of the library operator Google can be found here: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/

Using Adobe Typekit

We use Adobe Typekit for the visual design of our website. Typekit is a service provided by Adobe Systems Software Ireland Ltd. that gives us access to a font library. In order to integrate the fonts we use, your browser must establish a connection to an Adobe server in the USA and download the font required for our website. Adobe thereby receives the information that our website was accessed from your IP address. You can find more information about Adobe Typekit in Adobe’s privacy policy, which you can access here:

www.adobe.com/privacy/typekit.html

Use of Google Maps

This website uses Google Maps API to visually display geographical information. When using Google Maps, Google also collects, processes and uses data about the use of the map functions by visitors. You can find more information about data processing by Google in the Google privacy policy. There you can also change your personal privacy settings in the Privacy Center.

Detailed instructions on managing your own data in connection with Google products can be found here.

Social Plugins

Social plugins from the providers listed below are used on our websites. You can recognize the plugins by the fact that they are marked with the corresponding logo.

Information, which may also include personal data, may be sent to the service provider via these plugins and may be used by the service provider. We prevent the unconscious and unintentional collection and transmission of data to the service provider through a 2-click solution. To activate a desired social plugin, it must first be activated by clicking on the corresponding button. Only this activation of the plugin also triggers the collection of information and its transmission to the service provider. We do not collect any personal data ourselves by means of the social plugins or about their use.

We have no influence on what data an activated plugin collects and how it is used by the provider. Currently, it must be assumed that a direct connection to the provider’s services is established and that at least the IP address and device-related information is collected and used. There is also the possibility that the service providers try to save cookies on the computer used. Please refer to the data protection information of the respective service provider to find out which specific data is collected and how it is used. Note: If you are logged into Facebook at the same time, Facebook can identify you as a visitor to a particular page.

We have integrated the social media buttons of the following companies on our website:

Google AdWords

Our website uses Google conversion tracking. If you have reached our website via an ad placed by Google, a cookie is set on your computer by Google Adwords. The conversion tracking cookie is set when a user clicks on an ad placed by Google. These cookies lose their validity after 30 days and are not used for personal identification. If the user visits certain pages of our website and the cookie has not yet expired, we and Google can recognize that the user clicked on the ad and was redirected to this page. Each Google AdWords customer receives a different cookie. Cookies can therefore not be tracked across AdWords customers’ websites. The information obtained using the conversion cookie is used to create conversion statistics for AdWords customers who have opted for conversion tracking. Customers learn the total number of users who clicked on their ad and were redirected to a page tagged with a conversion tracking tag. However, they do not receive any information that can be used to personally identify users.

If you do not wish to participate in the tracking, you can refuse the setting of a cookie required for this – for example, by means of a browser setting that generally deactivates the automatic setting of cookies or by setting your browser so that cookies from the domain “googleleadservices.com” are blocked.

Please note that you may not delete the opt-out cookies as long as you do not want any measurement data to be recorded. If you have deleted all your cookies in the browser, you must set the respective opt-out cookie again.

Use of Google Remarketing

This website uses the remarketing function of Google Inc. The function is used to present interest-based advertisements to website visitors within the Google advertising network. A so-called “cookie” is stored in the browser of the website visitor, which makes it possible to recognize the visitor when they visit websites that belong to the Google advertising network. On these pages, the visitor can be presented with advertisements that relate to content that the visitor has previously accessed on websites that use Google’s remarketing function.

According to its own information, Google does not collect any personal data during this process. If you nevertheless do not wish to use Google’s remarketing function, you can generally deactivate it by making the appropriate settings at http://www.google.com/settings/ads. Alternatively, you can deactivate the use of cookies for interest-based advertising via the advertising network initiative by following the instructions at http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

Change to our privacy policy

We reserve the right to adapt this data protection declaration so that it always complies with the current legal requirements or in order to implement changes to our services in the data protection declaration, e.g. when introducing new services. The new privacy policy will then apply to your next visit.

Questions for the data protection officer

If you have any questions about data protection, please write us an e-mail or contact the person responsible for data protection in our organization directly: