We have written this privacy policy (version 09.03.2025-122864558) in order to explain to you, in accordance with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and applicable national laws, which personal data (data for short) we as the controller – and the processors commissioned by us (e.g. providers) – process, will process in the future and what legal options you have. The terms used are to be considered gender-neutral.
In short: We provide you with comprehensive information about any of your personal data we process.
Privacy policies usually sound very technical and use legal terminology. However, this privacy policy is intended to describe the most important things to you as simply and transparently as possible. So long as it aids transparency, technical terms are explained in a reader-friendly manner, links to further information are provided and graphics are used. We are thus informing in clear and simple language that we only process personal data in the context of our business activities if there is a legal basis for it. This is certainly not possible with brief, unclear and legal-technical statements, as is often standard on the internet when it comes to data protection. I hope you find the following explanations interesting and informative. Maybe you will also find some information that you have not been familiar with.
If you still have questions, we kindly ask you to contact the responsible body named below or in the imprint, follow the existing links and look at further information on third-party sites. You can of course also find our contact details in the imprint.
This privacy policy applies to all personal data processed by our company and to all personal data processed by companies commissioned by us (processors). With the term personal data, we refer to information within the meaning of Article 4 No. 1 GDPR, such as the name, email address and postal address of a person. The processing of personal data ensures that we can offer and invoice our services and products, be it online or offline. The scope of this privacy policy includes:
In short: This privacy policy applies to all areas in which personal data is processed in a structured manner by the company via the channels mentioned. Should we enter into legal relations with you outside of these channels, we will inform you separately if necessary.
In the following privacy policy, we provide you with transparent information on the legal principles and regulations, i.e. the legal bases of the General Data Protection Regulation, which enable us to process personal data.
Whenever EU law is concerned, we refer to REGULATION (EU) 2016/679 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of April 27, 2016. You can of course access the General Data Protection Regulation of the EU online at EUR-Lex, the gateway to EU law, at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32016R0679.
We only process your data if at least one of the following conditions applies:
Other conditions such as making recordings in the interest of the public, the exercise of official authority as well as the protection of vital interests do not usually occur with us. Should such a legal basis be relevant, it will be disclosed in the appropriate place.
In addition to the EU regulation, national laws also apply:
Should other regional or national laws apply, we will inform you about them in the following sections.
If you have any questions about data protection or the processing of personal data, you will find below the contact details of the controller in accordance with Article 4(7) of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR):
SMILE-Translations Organisation GmbH
Zögernsee 23
2000 Stockerau/Wien
Österreich
Authorised to represent: Franz Harnacker
E-Mail: fh@smile-translations.at
Phone: +43(0)699/10531177
Company details: https://www.smile-translations.at/impressum/
It is a general criterion for us to store personal data only for as long as is absolutely necessary for the provision of our services and products. This means that we delete personal data as soon as any reason for the data processing no longer exists. In some cases, we are legally obliged to keep certain data stored even after the original purpose no longer exists, such as for accounting purposes.
If you want your data to be deleted or if you want to revoke your consent to data processing, the data will be deleted as soon as possible, provided there is no obligation to continue its storage.
We will inform you below about the specific duration of the respective data processing, provided we have further information.
In accordance with Articles 13, 14 of the GDPR, we inform you about the following rights you have to ensure fair and transparent processing of data:
In short: you have rights – do not hesitate to contact the responsible party listed above with us!
If you believe that the processing of your data violates data protection law or your data protection rights have been violated in any other way, you can complain to the supervisory authority. For Austria, this is the data protection authority, whose website can be found at https://www.dsb.gv.at/. In Germany, there is a data protection officer for each federal state. For more information, you can contact the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI). The following local data protection authority is responsible for our company:
Manager:Dr. Matthias Schmidl
Address: Barichgasse 40-42, 1030 Wien
Phone number.: +43 1 52 152-0
E-mail address: dsb@dsb.gv.at
Website: https://www.dsb.gv.at/
We only transfer or process data to countries outside the scope of the GDPR (third countries) if you consent to this processing or if there is another legal permission. This is particularly true when processing is legally required or necessary for the performance of a contractual relationship, and in any case, only to the extent permitted by law. Your consent is in most cases the primary reason for us to process data in third countries. Processing of personal data in third countries such as the USA, where many software providers offer services and have their server locations, may mean that personal data is processed and stored in unexpected ways.
We explicitly point out that, according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently only an adequate level of protection for data transfers to the USA if a US company processing personal data of EU citizens in the USA is an active participant in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. More information can be found at: https://commission.europa.eu/document/fa09cbad-dd7d-4684-ae60-be03fcb0fddf_en
Data processing by US services that are not active participants in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework may result in data not being anonymized and processed, if applicable. Additionally, US government authorities may potentially have access to individual data. Furthermore, it may occur that collected data is linked with data from other services of the same provider, if you have a corresponding user account. Where possible, we try to use server locations within the EU, if offered.
We will inform you in the appropriate sections of this privacy policy in more detail about data transfers to third countries, if applicable.
In order to protect personal data, we have implemented both technical and organisational measures. We encrypt or pseudonymise personal data wherever this is possible. Thus, we make it as difficult as we can for third parties to extract personal information from our data.
Article 25 of the GDPR refers to “data protection by technical design and by data protection-friendly default” which means that both software (e.g. forms) and hardware (e.g. access to server rooms) appropriate safeguards and security measures shall always be placed. If applicable, we will outline the specific measures below.
The terms TLS, encryption and https sound very technical, which they are indeed. We use HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to securely transfer data on the Internet.
This means that the entire transmission of all data from your browser to our web server is secured – nobody can “listen in”.
We have thus introduced an additional layer of security and meet privacy requirements through technology design Article 25 Section 1 GDPR). With the use of TLS (Transport Layer Security), which is an encryption protocol for safe data transfer on the internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential information.
You can recognise the use of this safeguarding tool by the little lock-symbol 
, which is situated in your browser’s top left corner in the left of the internet address (e.g. examplepage.uk), as well as by the display of the letters https (instead of http) as a part of our web address.
If you want to know more about encryption, we recommend you to do a Google search for “Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure wiki” to find good links to further information.
| Communications Overview 👥 Affected parties: Anyone who communicates with us via phone, email or online form 🤝 Processed data: e. g. telephone number, name, email address or data entered in forms. You can find more details on this under the respective form of contact 📓 Purpose: handling communication with customers, business partners, etc. 📅 Storage duration: for the duration of the business case and the legal requirements ⚖️ Legal basis: Article 6 (1) (a) GDPR (consent), Article 6 (1) (b) GDPR (contract), Article 6 (1) (f) GDPR (legitimate interests) |
If you contact us and communicate with us via phone, email or online form, your personal data may be processed.
The data will be processed for handling and processing your request and for the related business transaction. The data is stored for this period of time or for as long as is legally required.
The above-mentioned processes affect all those who seek contact with us via the communication channels we provide.
When you call us, the call data is stored in a pseudonymised form on the respective terminal device, as well as by the telecommunications provider that is being used. In addition, data such as your name and telephone number may be sent via email and stored for answering your inquiries. The data will be erased as soon as the business case has ended and the legal requirements allow for its erasure.
If you communicate with us via email, your data is stored on the respective terminal device (computer, laptop, smartphone, …) as well as on the email server. The data will be deleted as soon as the business case has ended and the legal requirements allow for its erasure.
If you communicate with us using an online form, your data is stored on our web server and, if necessary, forwarded to our email address. The data will be erased as soon as the business case has ended and the legal requirements allow for its erasure.
Data processing is based on the following legal bases:
In this section, we would like to explain what a Data Processing Agreement is and why it is needed. As the term “Data Processing Agreement” is quite lengthy, we will often only use the acronym DPA here in this text. Like most companies, we do not work alone, but also use the services of other companies or individuals. By involving different companies or service providers, we may pass on personal data for processing. These partners then act as processors with whom we conclude a contract, the so-called Data Processing Agreement (DPA). Most importantly for you to know is that any processing of your personal data takes place exclusively according to our instructions and must be regulated by the DPA.
As a company and website owner, we are responsible for any of your data that is processed by us. In addition to the controller, there may also be so-called processors involved. This includes any company or person who processes your personal data. More precisely and according to the GDPR’s definition, this means: Any natural or legal person, authority, institution or other entity that processes your personal data is considered a processor. Processors can therefore be service providers such as hosting or cloud providers, payment or newsletter providers or large companies such as Google or Microsoft.
To make the terminology easier to comprehend, here is an overview of the GDPR’s three roles:
Data subject (you as a customer or interested party) → Controller (we as a company and contracting entity) → Processors (service providers such as web hosts or cloud providers)
As mentioned above, we have concluded a DPA with our partners who act as processors. First and foremost, it states that the processor processes the data exclusively in accordance with the GDPR. The contract must be concluded in writing, although an electronic contract completion is also considered a “written contract”. Any processing of personal data only takes place after this contract is concluded. The contract must contain the following:
Furthermore, the contract contains all obligations of the processor. The most important obligations are:
You can see an example of what a DPA looks like at https://gdpr.eu/data-processing-agreement/. This link shows a sample contract.
| Cookies Overview 👥 Affected parties: visitors to the website 🤝 Purpose: depending on the respective cookie. You can find out more details below or from the software manufacturer that sets the cookie. 📓 Processed data: depends on the cookie used. More details can be found below or from the manufacturer of the software that sets the cookie. 📅 Storage duration: can vary from hours to years, depending on the respective cookie ⚖️ Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
Our website uses HTTP-cookies to store user-specific data.
In the following we explain what cookies are and why they are used, so that you can better understand the following privacy policy.
Whenever you surf the Internet, you are using a browser. Common browsers are for example, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Most websites store small text-files in your browser. These files are called cookies.
It is important to note that cookies are very useful little helpers. Almost every website uses cookies. More precisely, these are HTTP cookies, as there are also other cookies for other uses. HTTP cookies are small files that our website stores on your computer. These cookie files are automatically placed into the cookie-folder, which is the “brain” of your browser. A cookie consists of a name and a value. Moreover, to define a cookie, one or multiple attributes must be specified.
Cookies store certain user data about you, such as language or personal page settings. When you re-open our website to visit again, your browser submits these “user-related” information back to our site. Thanks to cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you the settings you are familiar to. In some browsers, each cookie has its own file, while in others, such as Firefox, all cookies are stored in one single file.
The following graphic shows a possible interaction between a web browser such as Chrome and the web server. The web browser requests a website and receives a cookie back from the server. The browser then uses this again as soon as another page is requested.
There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site, while third-party cookies are created by partner-websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Each cookie must be evaluated individually, as each cookie stores different data. The expiry time of a cookie also varies from a few minutes to a few years. Cookies are not software programs and do not contain viruses, trojans or other malware. Cookies also cannot access your PC’s information.
This is an example of how cookie-files can look:
Name: _ga
Value: GA1.2.1326744211.152122864558-9
Purpose: Differentiation between website visitors
Expiry date: after 2 years
A browser should support these minimum sizes:
The exact cookies that we use, depend on the used services, which will be outlined in the following sections of this privacy policy. Firstly, we will briefly focus on the different types of HTTP-cookies.
There are 4 different types of cookies:
Essential cookies
These cookies are necessary to ensure the basic functions of a website. They are needed when a user for example puts a product into their shopping cart, then continues surfing on different websites and comes back later in order to proceed to the checkout. These cookies ensure the shopping cart does not get deleted, even if the user closes their browser window.
Purposive cookies
These cookies collect information about user behaviour and whether the user receives any error messages. Furthermore, these cookies record the website’s loading time as well as its behaviour in different browsers.
Target-orientated cookies
These cookies ensure better user-friendliness. Thus, information such as previously entered locations, fonts sizes or data in forms stay stored.
Advertising cookies
These cookies are also known as targeting cookies. They serve the purpose of delivering customised advertisements to the user. This can be very practical, but also rather annoying.
Upon your first visit to a website you are usually asked which of these cookie-types you want to accept. Furthermore, this decision will of course also be stored in a cookie.
If you want to learn more about cookies and do not mind technical documentation, we recommend https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265, the Request for Comments of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) called “HTTP State Management Mechanism”.
The purpose ultimately depends on the respective cookie. You can find out more details below or from the software manufacturer that sets the cookie.
Cookies are little helpers for a wide variety of tasks. Unfortunately, it is not possible to tell which data is generally stored in cookies, but in the privacy policy below we will inform you on what data is processed or stored.
The storage period depends on the respective cookie and is further specified below. Some cookies are erased after less than an hour, while others can remain on a computer for several years.
You can also influence the storage duration yourself. You can manually erase all cookies at any time in your browser (also see “Right of objection” below). Furthermore, the latest instance cookies based on consent will be erased is after you withdraw your consent. The legality of storage will remain unaffected until then.
You can decide for yourself how and whether you want to use cookies. Regardless of which service or website the cookies originate from, you always have the option of erasing, deactivating or only partially accepting cookies. You can for example block third-party cookies but allow all other cookies.
If you want to find out which cookies have been stored in your browser, or if you want to change or erase cookie settings, you can find this option in your browser settings:
Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome
Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari
Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox
Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies
Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge
If you generally do not want cookies, you can set up your browser in a way to notify you whenever a cookie is about to be set. This gives you the opportunity to manually decide to either permit or deny the placement of every single cookie. This procedure varies depending on the browser. Therefore, it might be best for you to search for the instructions in Google. If you are using Chrome, you could for example put the search term “delete cookies Chrome” or “deactivate cookies Chrome” into Google.
The so-called “cookie directive” has existed since 2009. It states that the storage of cookies requires your consent (Article 6 Paragraph 1 lit. a GDPR). Within countries of the EU, however, the reactions to these guidelines still vary greatly. In Austria, however, this directive was implemented in Section 165 (3) of the Telecommunications Act (2021). In Germany, the cookie guidelines have not been implemented as national law. Instead, this guideline was largely implemented in Section 15 (3) of the Telemedia Act (TMG), which has been replaced by the Digital Services Act (DSA) since May 2024.
For absolutely necessary cookies, even if no consent has been given, there are legitimate interests (Article 6 (1) (f) GDPR), which in most cases are of an economic nature. We want to offer our visitors a pleasant user experience on our website. For this, certain cookies often are absolutely necessary.
This is exclusively done with your consent, unless absolutely necessary cookies are used. The legal basis for this is Article 6 (1) (a) of the GDPR.
In the following sections you will find more detail on the use of cookies, provided the used software does use cookies.
| Customer Data Overview 👥Affected parties: Customers or business and contractual partners 🤝 Purpose: Performance of a contract for the provision of agreed services or prior to entering into such a contract, including associated communications. 📓 Data processed: name, address, contact details, email address, telephone number, payment information (such as invoices and bank details), contract data (such as duration and subject matter of the contract), IP address, order data 📅 Storage period: the data will be erased as soon as they are no longer required for our business purposes and there is no legal obligation to process them. ⚖️ Legal bases: Legitimate interests (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f GDPR), Contract (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. b GDPR) |
In order to be able to offer our services and contractual services, we also process data from our customers and business partners. This data always includes personal data. Customer data is all information that is processed on the basis of contractual or pre-contractual agreements so that the offered services can be provided. Customer data is therefore all the information we collect and process about our customers.
There are many reasons why we collect and process customer data. The main reason is that we simply need specific data to provide our services. Sometimes for example your email address may be enough. But if you purchase a product or service, we may e. g. also need data such as your name, address, bank details or other contract data. This data will subsequently be used for marketing and sales optimisation so that we can improve our overall service for our customers and clients. Another important reason for data processing is our customer service, which is very important to us. We want you to have the opportunity to contact us at any time with questions about our offers. Thus, we may need certain data such as your email address at the very least.
Exactly which data is stored can only be shown by putting them in categories. All in all, it always depends on which of our services you receive. In some cases, you may only give us your email address so that we can e. g. contact you or answer your questions. In other instances, you may purchase one of our products or services. Then we may need significantly more information, such as your contact details, payment details and contract details.
Here is a list of potential data we may receive and process:
We erase corresponding customer data as soon as we no longer need it to fulfill our contractual obligations and purposes, and as soon as the data is also no longer necessary for possible warranty and liability obligations. This can for example be the case when a business contract ends. Thereafter, the limitation period is usually 3 years, although longer periods may be possible in individual cases. Of course, we also comply with the statutory retention requirements. Your customer data will certainly not be passed on to third parties unless you have given your explicit consent.
The legal basis for the processing of your data is Article 6 Paragraph 1 Letter a GDPR (consent), Article 6 Paragraph 1 Letter b GDPR (contract or pre-contractual measures), Article 6 Paragraph 1 Letter f GDPR (legitimate interests) and in special cases (e. g. medical services) Art. 9 (2) lit. GDPR (processing of special categories).
In the case of protecting vital interests, data processing is carried out in accordance with Article 9 Paragraph 2 Letter c. GDPR. For the purposes of health care, occupational medicine, medical diagnostics, care or treatment in the health or social sectors or for the administration of systems and services in health or social sectors, the processing of personal data takes place in accordance with Art. 9 Para. 2 lit. h. GDPR. If you voluntarily provide data of these special categories, the processing takes place on the basis of Article 9 Paragraph 2 lit. a GDPR.
| Web hosting Overview 👥 Affected parties: visitors to the website 📓 Purpose: professional hosting of the website and security of operations 🤝 Processed data: IP address, time of website visit, browser used and other data. You can find more details on this below or at the respective web hosting provider. 📅 Storage period: dependent on the respective provider, but usually 2 weeks ⚖️ Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
Every time you visit a website nowadays, certain information – including personal data – is automatically created and stored, including on this website. This data should be processed as sparingly as possible, and only with good reason. By website, we mean the entirety of all websites on your domain, i.e. everything from the homepage to the very last subpage (like this one here). By domain we mean example.uk or examplepage.com.
When you want to view a website on a screen, you use a program called a web browser. You probably know the names of some web browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari.
The web browser has to connect to another computer which stores the website’s code: the web server. Operating a web server is complicated and time-consuming, which is why this is usually done by professional providers. They offer web hosting and thus ensure the reliable and flawless storage of website data.
Whenever the browser on your computer establishes a connection (desktop, laptop, smartphone) and whenever data is being transferred to and from the web server, personal data may be processed. After all, your computer stores data, and the web server also has to retain the data for a period of time in order to ensure it can operate properly.
Illustration:
The purposes of data processing are:
Even while you are visiting our website, our web server, that is the computer on which this website is saved, usually automatically saves data such as
Generally, the data mentioned above are stored for two weeks and are then automatically deleted. We do not pass these data on to others, but we cannot rule out the possibility that this data may be viewed by the authorities in the event of illegal conduct.
In short: Your visit is logged by our provider (company that runs our website on special computers (servers)), but we do not pass on your data without your consent!
The lawfulness of processing personal data in the context of web hosting is justified in Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (safeguarding of legitimate interests), as the use of professional hosting with a provider is necessary to present the company in a safe and user-friendly manner on the internet, as well as to have the ability to track any attacks and claims, if necessary.
Contact data for our Webhosting:
Pinguin-Systeme.at KG
z.H. Hr. Wolfgang Leithner
Perfektastraße 61, Obj. 2, Top 2
1230 Wien
ÖSTERREICH / AUSTRIA
Email: office@pinguin-systeme.at
You can learn more about the data processing at this provider in their Privacy Policy.
| Website Builders Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: service optimisation 📓 Data processed: The data that is being processed includes but is not limited to technical usage information, browser activity, clickstream activity, session heat maps, contact details, IP addresses or geographic locations. You can find more details in the Privacy Policy below as well as in the providers’ Privacy Policies. 📅 Storage duration: depends on the provider ⚖️ Legal bases: Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests), Art. 6 (1) lit. a GDPR (consent) |
We use a modular website builder for our website. This is a special form of Content Management System (CMS). Website builders enable website operators to create websites very easily and without any programming knowledge. In many cases, web hosts also offer website builders. Your personal data may be collected, stored and processed if a website builder is being used. In this Privacy Policy, you will find general information about data that is processed by such modular website builder systems. You can find more information in the respective provider’s Privacy Policy.
The greatest advantage of modular website builders is their ease of use. We want to offer you a clear, simple and nicely designed website that we can easily operate and maintain by ourselves – without needing any external support. Nowadays website builders offer many helpful functions that we can use even without having any programming knowledge. This enables us to design our website according to our wishes and therefore, to give you an informative and pleasant experience on our website.
First of all, the exact data that is stored depends on the website builder that is being used. Each provider processes and collects different data from website visitors. However, technical usage information such as users’ operating system, browser, screen resolution, language and keyboard settings, hosting provider as well as the date of the website visit are usually collected. Moreover, tracking data (e. g. browser activity, clickstream activities, session heat maps, etc.) may also be processed. The same goes for personal data, since data such as contact information e. g. email address, telephone number (if you have provided it), IP address and geographic location data may also be processed and stored. In the respective provider’s Privacy Policy you can find out exactly which of your data is getting stored.
Provided that we have any further information on this, we will inform you below about the duration of the data processing associated with the website builder we use. You can find detailed information on this in the provider’s Privacy Policy. Generally, we only process personal data for as long as is absolutely necessary to provide our services and products. The provider may store your data according to their own specifications, over which we have no influence.
You always retain the right to information, rectification and erasure of your personal data. If you have any questions, you can also contact the responsible parties at the respective website builder system at any time. You can find the corresponding contact details either in our Privacy Policy or on the website of the respective provider.
What is more, in your browser you can clear, disable or manage cookies that providers use for their functions. Depending on the browser you use, this can be done in different ways. Please note, that this may lead to not all functions working as usual anymore.
We have a legitimate interest in using a website builder system to optimise our online service and present it in an efficient and user-friendly way. The corresponding legal basis for this is Article 6 (1) (f) GDPR (legitimate interests). However, we only use the website builder system if you have consented to it.
If the processing of data is not absolutely necessary for the operation of the website, your data will only be processed on the basis of your consent. This particularly applies to tracking activities. The legal basis for this is Article 6 (1) (a) GDPR.
With this Privacy Policy, we have made you more familiar with the most important general information on data processing. If you want to find out more about this, you will find further information – if available – in the following section or in the Privacy Policy of the provider.
We use the website builder system Elementor for our website. The service provider is the Israeli company Elementor Ltd., located at Rehov Tuval 40, 5252247 Ramat Gan, Israel.
Your data may be transferred to Israel. Israel is outside the scope of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, the European Commission has decided, based on Article 45(1) of the GDPR, that Israel provides a level of protection comparable to the GDPR standards. You can view the decision here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32011D0061
To learn more about the data processed through the use of Elementor, please refer to the privacy policy at https://elementor.com/about/privacy/.
| Web Analytics Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: visitors to the website 🤝 Purpose: Evaluation of visitor information to optimise the website. 📓 Processed data: Access statistics that contain data such as access location, device data, access duration and time, navigation behaviour, click behaviour and IP addresses. You can find more details on this from the respective web analytics tool directly. 📅 Storage period: depending on the respective web analytics tool used ⚖️ Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
We use software on our website, which is known as web analytics, in order to evaluate website visitor behaviour. Thus, data is collected, which the analytic tool provider (also called tracking tool) stores, manages and processes. Analyses of user behaviour on our website are created with this data, which we as the website operator receive. Most tools also offer various testing options. These enable us, to for example test which offers or content our visitors prefer. For this, we may show you two different offers for a limited period of time. After the test (a so-called A/B test) we know which product or content our website visitors find more interesting. For such testing as well as for various other analyses, user profiles are created and the respective data is stored in cookies.
We have a clear goal in mind when it comes to our website: we want to offer our industry’s best website on the market. Therefore, we want to give you both, the best and most interesting offer as well as comfort when you visit our website. With web analysis tools, we can observe the behaviour of our website visitors, and then improve our website accordingly for you and for us. For example, we can see the average age of our visitors, where they come from, the times our website gets visited the most, and which content or products are particularly popular. All this information helps us to optimise our website and adapt it to your needs, interests and wishes.
The exact data that is stored depends on the analysis tools that are being used. But generally, data such as the content you view on our website are stored, as well as e. g. which buttons or links you click, when you open a page, which browser you use, which device (PC, tablet, smartphone, etc.) you visit the website with, or which computer system you use. If you have agreed that location data may also be collected, this data may also be processed by the provider of the web analysis tool.
Moreover, your IP address is also stored. According to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), IP addresses are personal data. However, your IP address is usually stored in a pseudonymised form (i.e. in an unrecognisable and abbreviated form). No directly linkable data such as your name, age, address or email address are stored for testing purposes, web analyses and web optimisations. If this data is collected, it is retained in a pseudonymised form. Therefore, it cannot be used to identify you as a person.
The following example shows Google Analytics’ functionality as an example for client-based web tracking with JavaScript code.
The storage period of the respective data always depends on the provider. Some cookies only retain data for a few minutes or until you leave the website, while other cookies can store data for several years.
If we have any further information on the duration of data processing, you will find it below. We generally only process personal data for as long as is absolutely necessary to provide products and services. The storage period may be extended if it is required by law, such as for accounting purposes for example for accounting.
You also have the option and the right to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party providers at any time. This works either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. For example, you can also prevent data processing by cookies by managing, deactivating or erasing cookies in your browser.
The use of Web Analytics requires your consent, which we obtained with our cookie popup. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a of the GDPR (consent), this consent represents the legal basis for the processing of personal data, such as by collection through Web Analytics tools.
In addition to consent, we have a legitimate interest in analysing the behaviour of website visitors, which enables us to technically and economically improve our offer. With Web Analytics, we can recognise website errors, identify attacks and improve profitability. The legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f of the GDPR (legitimate interests). Nevertheless, we only use these tools if you have given your consent.
Since Web Analytics tools use cookies, we recommend you to read our privacy policy on cookies. If you want to find out which of your data are stored and processed, you should read the privacy policies of the respective tools.
If available, information on special Web Analytics tools can be found in the following sections.
| Google Analytics Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: Evaluation of visitor information to optimise the website. 📓 Processed data: Access statistics that contain data such as the location of access, device data, access duration and time, navigation behaviour and click behaviour. You can find more details on this in the privacy policy below. 📅 Storage period: Customizable, GA4 stores data for 14 months by default. ⚖️ Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
On our website, we use the analytics tracking tool Google Analytics in the Google Analytics 4 (GA4) version provided by the American company Google Inc. For the European region, Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services. Google Analytics collects data about your actions on our website. By combining various technologies such as cookies, device IDs, and login information, you can be identified as a user across different devices. This allows your actions to be analyzed across platforms as well.
For example, when you click on a link, this event is stored in a cookie and sent to Google Analytics. With the reports we receive from Google Analytics, we can better tailor our website and service to your needs. In the following, we will provide more information about the tracking tool and specifically inform you about the data processed and how you can prevent it.
Google Analytics is a tracking tool used for website traffic analysis. The basis for these measurements and analyses is a pseudonymous user identification number. This number does not include personally identifiable information such as name or address but is used to assign events to a device. GA4 utilizes an event-based model that captures detailed information about user interactions such as page views, clicks, scrolling, and conversion events. Additionally, GA4 incorporates various machine learning features to better understand user behavior and certain trends. GA4 employs modeling through machine learning capabilities, meaning that based on the collected data, missing data can be extrapolated to optimize the analysis and provide forecasts.
In order for Google Analytics to function properly, a tracking code is embedded in the code of our website. When you visit our website, this code records various events that you perform on our website. With GA4’s event-based data model, we, as website operators, can define and track specific events to obtain analyses of user interactions. This allows us to track not only general information such as clicks or page views but also specific events that are important for our business, such as submitting a contact form or making a purchase.
Once you leave our website, this data is sent to and stored on Google Analytics servers.
Google processes the data, and we receive reports on your user behavior. These reports can include, among others, the following:
In addition to the above-mentioned analysis reports, Google Analytics 4 also offers the following functions:
Our goal with this website is clear: we want to provide you with the best possible service. The statistics and data from Google Analytics help us achieve this goal.
The statistically evaluated data gives us a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of our website. On one hand, we can optimize our site to make it more easily found by interested people on Google. On the other hand, the data helps us better understand you as a visitor. We know exactly what we need to improve on our website in order to provide you with the best possible service. The data also helps us conduct our advertising and marketing activities in a more personalized and cost-effective manner. After all, it only makes sense to show our products and services to people who are interested in them.
With the help of a tracking code, Google Analytics creates a random, unique ID associated with your browser cookie. This way, Google Analytics recognizes you as a new user, and a user ID is assigned to you. When you visit our site again, you are recognized as a “returning” user. All collected data is stored together with this user ID, making it possible to evaluate pseudonymous user profiles.
To analyze our website with Google Analytics, a property ID must be inserted into the tracking code. The data is then stored in the corresponding property. For each newly created property, the default is Google Analytics 4 Property. The data storage duration varies depending on the property used.
Through identifiers such as cookies, app instance IDs, user IDs, or custom event parameters, your interactions, if you have consented, are measured across platforms. Interactions encompass all types of actions you perform on our website. If you also use other Google systems (such as a Google account), data generated through Google Analytics can be linked to third-party cookies. Google does not disclose Google Analytics data unless we, as website operators, authorize it, except when required by law.
According to Google, IP addresses are not logged or stored in Google Analytics 4. However, IP address data is used by Google for deriving location data and is immediately deleted thereafter. All IP addresses collected from users in the EU are deleted before the data is stored in a data center or on a server.
Since GA4 focuses on event-based data, the tool uses significantly fewer cookies compared to previous versions such as Google Universal Analytics. However, there are still some specific cookies used by GA4. These can include:
Name: _ga
Value: 2.1326744211.152122864558-5
Purpose: By default, analytics.js uses the _ga cookie to store the user ID. It is used to distinguish website visitors.
Expiration: After 2 years
Name: _gid
Value: 2.1687193234.152122864558-1
Purpose: This cookie is also used to distinguish website visitors.
Expiration: After 24 hours
Name: gat_gtag_UA Value: 1
Purpose: Used to reduce the request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named dc_gtm .
Expiration: After 1 minute
Note: This list cannot claim to be exhaustive, as Google may change their choice of cookies from time to time. GA4 aims to improve data privacy and offers several options for controlling data collection. For example, we can determine the storage duration ourselves and control data.
Here we provide an overview of the main types of data collected by Google Analytics:
Heatmaps: Google creates heatmaps to show the exact areas you click on. This provides us with information about your interactions on our site.
Session Duration: Google refers to session duration as the time you spend on our site without leaving. If you are inactive for 20 minutes, the session automatically ends.
Bounce Rate: Bounce rate refers to when you view only one page on our website and then leave.
Account Creation: If you create an account or place an order on our website, Google Analytics collects this data.
Location: IP addresses are not logged or stored in Google Analytics. However, location data is derived shortly before the IP address is deleted.
Technical Information: Technical information includes your browser type, internet service provider, and screen resolution, among others.
Source of Origin: Google Analytics is interested in the website or advertisement that brought you to our site.
Additional data may include contact information, reviews, media playback (e.g., if you play a video on our site), sharing of content via social media, or adding to favorites. This list is not exhaustive and serves only as a general guide to the data storage by Google Analytics.
Google has servers distributed worldwide. You can find precise information about the locations of Google data centers at: https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/?hl=en
Your data is distributed across multiple physical storage devices. This ensures faster access to data and better protection against manipulation. Each Google data center has emergency programs in place for your data. In the event of hardware failure or natural disasters, the risk of service interruption at Google remains low.
The retention period of data depends on the properties used. The storage duration is always set separately for each individual property. Google Analytics offers us four options for controlling the storage duration:
In addition, there is also the option for data to be deleted only if you do not visit our website within the selected time period. In this case, the retention period is reset every time you revisit our website within the defined time frame.
Once the defined period has expired, the data is deleted once a month. This retention period applies to data linked to cookies, user identification, and advertising IDs (e.g., cookies from the DoubleClick domain). Report results are based on aggregated data and are stored independently of user data. Aggregated data is a combination of individual data into larger units.
Under the data protection laws of the European Union, you have the right to access, update, delete, or restrict your data. By using the browser add-on to deactivate Google Analytics JavaScript (analytics.js, gtag.js), you can prevent Google Analytics 4 from using your data. You can download and install the browser add-on at: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en Please note that this add-on only disables data collection by Google Analytics.
If you want to disable, delete, or manage cookies in general, you can find the respective instructions for the most common browsers in the “Cookies” section.
Legal basis
The use of Google Analytics requires your consent, which we obtained through our cookie popup. According to Art. 6(1)(a) of the GDPR, this consent constitutes the legal basis for the processing of personal data that may occur during the collection by web analytics tools.
In addition to consent, we also have a legitimate interest in analyzing the behavior of website visitors to improve our offering technically and economically. By using Google Analytics, we can identify website errors, detect attacks, and improve efficiency. The legal basis for this is Art. 6(1)(f) of the GDPR (legitimate interests). However, we only use Google Analytics if you have given your consent.
Google processes data from you, among other things, in the USA. Google is an active participant in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data from EU citizens to the USA. More information can be found at https://commission.europa.eu/document/fa09cbad-dd7d-4684-ae60-be03fcb0fddf_en.
Additionally, Google uses so-called Standard Contractual Clauses (Article 46(2) and (3) GDPR). Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are template clauses provided by the EU Commission and are designed to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards, even when transferred and stored in third countries (such as the USA). Through the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the Standard Contractual Clauses, Google commits to maintaining the European data protection level when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed, and managed in the USA. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding Standard Contractual Clauses here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2847.
You can find the Google Ads Data Processing Terms, which refer to the Standard Contractual Clauses, at: https://business.safety.google/intl/en/adsprocessorterms/
We hope we have provided you with the most important information regarding the data processing by Google Analytics. If you want to learn more about the tracking service, we recommend the following links: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/en/ and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en
If you want to learn more about data processing, you can refer to the Google Privacy Policy at: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en.
In accordance with Article 28 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we have entered into a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) with Google Analytics. What exactly a DPA is and especially what must be included in a DPA, you can read in our general section “Data Processing Agreement (DPA)”.
This contract is required by law because Google Analytics processes personal data on our behalf. It clarifies that Google Analytics may only process data they receive from us according to our instructions and must comply with the GDPR. You can find the link to the Data Processing Terms under https://business.safety.google/intl/en/adsprocessorterms/.
We implemented Google Analytics’ IP address anonymisation to this website. Google developed this function, so this website can comply with the applicable privacy laws and the local data protection authorities’ recommendations, should they prohibit the retention of any full IP addresses.
The anonymisation or masking of IP addresses takes place, as soon as they reach Google Analytics’ data collection network, but before the data would be saved or processed.
You can find more information on IP anonymisation at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=en.
| Google Tag Manager Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: Organisation of individual tracking tools 📓 Processed data: Google Tag Manager itself does not store any data. The data record tags of the web analytics tools used. 📅 Storage period: depending on the web analytics tool used ⚖️ Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
We use Google Tag Manager by the company Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA) for our website.
This Tag Manager is one of Google’s many helpful marketing products. With it, we can centrally integrate and manage code sections of various tracking tools, that we use on our website.
In this privacy statement we will explain in more detail, what Google Tag Manager does, why we use it and to what extent your data is processed.
Google Tag Manager is an organising tool with which we can integrate and manage website tags centrally and via a user interface. Tags are little code sections which e.g. track your activities on our website. For this, segments of JavaScript code are integrated to our site’s source text. The tags often come from Google’s intern products, such as Google Ads or Google Analytics, but tags from other companies can also be integrated and managed via the manager. Since the tags have different tasks, they can collect browser data, feed marketing tools with data, embed buttons, set cookies and track users across several websites.
Everybody knows: Being organised is important! Of course, this also applies to maintenance of our website. In order to organise and design our website as well as possible for you and anyone who is interested in our products and services, we rely on various tracking tools, such as Google Analytics.
The collected data shows us what interests you most, which of our services we should improve, and which other persons we should also display our services to. Furthermore, for this tracking to work, we must implement relevant JavaScript Codes to our website. While we could theoretically integrate every code section of every tracking tool separately into our source text, this would take too much time and we would lose overview. This is the reason why we use Google Tag Manager. We can easily integrate the necessary scripts and manage them from one place. Additionally, Google Tag Manager’s user interface is easy to operate, and requires no programming skills. Therefore, we can easily keep order in our jungle of tags.
Tag Manager itself is a domain that neither uses cookies nor stores data. It merely functions as an “administrator“ of implemented tags. Data is collected by the individual tags of the different web analysis tools. Therefore, in Google Tag Manager the data is sent to the individual tracking tools and does not get saved.
However, with the integrated tags of different web analysis tools such as Google Analytics, this is quite different. Depending on the analysis tool used, various data on your internet behaviour is collected, stored and processed with the help of cookies. Please read our texts on data protection for more information on the articular analysis and tracking tools we use on our website.
We allowed Google via the account settings for the Tag Manager to receive anonymised data from us. However, this exclusively refers to the use of our Tag Manager and not to your data, which are saved via code sections. We allow Google and others, to receive selected data in anonymous form. Therefore, we agree to the anonymised transfer of our website data. However, even after extensive research we could not find out what summarised and anonymous data it is exactly that gets transmitted. What we do know is that Google deleted any info that could identify our website. Google combines the data with hundreds of other anonymous website data and creates user trends as part of benchmarking measures. Benchmarking is a process of comparing a company’s results with the ones of competitors. As a result, processes can be optimised based on the collected information.
When Google stores data, this is done on Google’s own servers. These servers are located all over the world, with most of them being in America. At https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/?hl=en you can read in detail where Google’s servers are.
In our individual data protection texts on the different tools you can find out how long the respective tracking tools store your data.
Google Tag Manager itself does not set any cookies but manages different tracking websites’ tags. In our data protection texts on the different tracking tools you can find detailed information on how you can delete or manage your data.
Please note that when using this tool, your data may also be stored and processed outside the EU. Most third countries (including the USA) are not considered secure under current European data protection law. Data must not be transferred, stored and processed to insecure third countries, unless there are suitable guarantees (such as EU standard contractual clauses) between us and the non-European service provider.
The use of the Google Tag Manager requires your consent, which we obtained via our cookie popup. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), this consent is the legal basis for personal data processing, such as when it is collected by web analytics tools.
In addition to consent, we have a legitimate interest in analysing the behaviour of website visitors and thus technically and economically improving our offer. With the help of Google Tag Managers we can also improve profitability. The legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests). We only use Google Tag Manager if you have given us your consent.
Google processes data from you, among other things, in the USA. Google is an active participant in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data from EU citizens to the USA. More information can be found at https://commission.europa.eu/document/fa09cbad-dd7d-4684-ae60-be03fcb0fddf_en.
Additionally, Google uses so-called Standard Contractual Clauses (Article 46(2) and (3) GDPR). Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are template clauses provided by the EU Commission and are designed to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards, even when transferred and stored in third countries (such as the USA). Through the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the Standard Contractual Clauses, Google commits to maintaining the European data protection level when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed, and managed in the USA. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding Standard Contractual Clauses here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2847.
You can find the Google Ads Data Processing Terms, which refer to the Standard Contractual Clauses, at: https://business.safety.google/intl/en/adsprocessorterms/
If you want to learn more about Google Tag Manager, we recommend their FAQs at https://support.google.com/tagmanager/?hl=en#topic=3441530.
We use Facebook’s Meta pixel on our website. For that, we have implemented a code on our website. The Meta pixel is a segment of a JavaScript code, which, in case you came to our website via Facebook ads, loads an array or functions that enable Facebook to track your user actions. For example, if you buy a product on our website, the Facebook pixel is triggered and stores your actions on our website in one or more cookies. These cookies enable Facebook to match your user data (customer data such as IP address, user ID) with the data of your Facebook account. After that, Facebook deletes your data again. The collected data is anonymous as well as inaccessible and can only be used for ad placement purposes. If you are a Facebook user and you are logged in, your visit to our website is automatically assigned to your Facebook user account.
We exclusively want to show our products or services to persons, who are interested in them. With the aid of the Meta pixel, our advertising measures can get better adjusted to your wishes and interests. Therefore, Facebook users get to see suitable advertisement (if they allowed personalised advertisement). Moreover, Facebook uses the collected data for analytical purposes and for its own advertisements.
In the following we will show you the cookies, which were set on a test page with the Meta pixel integrated to it. Please consider that these cookies are only examples. Depending on the interaction that is made on our website, different cookies are set.
Name: _fbp
Value: fb.1.1568287647279.257405483-6122864558-7
Purpose: Facebook uses this cookie to display advertising products.
Expiration date: after 3 months
Name: fr
Value: 0aPf312HOS5Pboo2r..Bdeiuf…1.0.Bdeiuf.
Purpose: This cookie is used for Meta pixels to function properly.
Expiration date: after 3 months
Name: comment_author_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062122864558-3
Value: Name of the author
Purpose: This cookie saves the text and name of a user who e.g. leaves a comment.
Expiration date: after 12 months
Name: comment_author_url_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062
Value: https%3A%2F%2Fwww.testseite…%2F (URL of the author)
Purpose: This cookie saved the URL of the website that the user types into a text box on our website.
Expiration date: after 12 months
Name: comment_author_email_50ae8267e2bdf1253ec1a5769f48e062
Value: email address of the author
Purpose: This cookie saves the email address of the user, if they provided it on the website.
Expiration date: after 12 months
Note: The above-mentioned cookies relate to an individual user behaviour. Moreover, especially concerning the usage of cookies, changes at Facebook can never be ruled out.
If you are registered on Facebook, you can change the settings for advertisements yourself at https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen. If you are not a Facebook user, you can manage your user based online advertising at https://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices. You have the option to activate or deactivate any providers there.
Facebook processes data from you, among other things, in the USA. Facebook respectively Meta Platforms is an active participant in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data from EU citizens to the USA. More information can be found at https://commission.europa.eu/document/fa09cbad-dd7d-4684-ae60-be03fcb0fddf_en.
Additionally, Facebook uses so-called Standard Contractual Clauses (Article 46(2) and (3) GDPR). Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are template clauses provided by the EU Commission and are designed to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards, even when transferred and stored in third countries (such as the USA). Through the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the Standard Contractual Clauses, Facebook commits to maintaining the European data protection level when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed, and managed in the USA. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding Standard Contractual Clauses here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2847.
The Facebook Data Processing Term, which references the Standard Contractual Clauses, can be found at https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms/dataprocessing.
If you want to learn more about Facebook’s data protection, we recommend you the view the company’s in-house data policies at https://www.facebook.com/policy.php.
Along with Facebook’s pixel function, we have also activated Automatic Advanced Matching. This function allows us to send hashed emails, names, genders, cities, states, postcodes and dates of birth or telephone numbers as additional information to Facebook, provided you have made them available to us. This activation gives us the opportunity to customise advertising campaigns even better to persons who are interested in our services or products.
| Social Media Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: Service presentation and optimisation, staying in contact with visitors, interested parties, etc. as well as advertising 📓 Processed data: data such as telephone numbers, email addresses, contact data, data on user behaviour, information about your device and your IP address. You can find more details on this directly at the respective social media tool used. 📅 Storage period: depending on the social media platforms used ⚖️ Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
In addition to our website, we are also active on various social media platforms. For us to be able to target interested users via social networks, user data may be processed. Additionally, elements of social media platforms may be embedded directly in our website. This is e.g. the case if you click a so-called social button on our website and are forwarded directly to our social media presence. So-called social media are websites and apps on which registered members can produce and exchange content with other members, be it openly or in certain groups and networks.
For years, social media platforms have been the place where people communicate and get into contact online. With our social media presence, we can familiarise interested people better with our products and services. The social media elements integrated on our website help you switch to our social media content quickly and hassle free.
The data that is retained and processed when you use a social media channel is primarily used to conduct web analyses. The aim of these analyses is to be able to develop more precise and personal marketing and advertising strategies. The evaluated data on your behaviour on any social media platform can help to draw appropriate conclusions about your interests. Moreover, so-called user profiles can be created. Thus, the platforms may also to present you with customised advertisements. For this, cookies are usually placed in your browser, which store data on your user behaviour.
We generally assume that we will continue to be responsible under Data Protection Law, even when using the services of a social media platform. However, the European Court of Justice has ruled that, within the meaning of Art. 26 GDPR, in certain cases the operator of the social media platform can be jointly responsible with us. Should this be the case, we will point it out separately and work on the basis of a related agreement. You will then find the essence of the agreement for the concerned platform below.
Please note that when you use social media platforms or our built-in elements, your data may also be processed outside the European Union, as many social media channels, such as Facebook or Twitter, are American companies. As a result, you may no longer be able to easily claim or enforce your rights regarding your personal data.
Exactly which data are stored and processed depends on the respective provider of the social media platform. But usually it is data such as telephone numbers, email addresses, data you enter in contact forms, user data such as which buttons you click, what you like or who you follow, when you visited which pages, as well as information about your device and IP address. Most of this data is stored in cookies. Should you have a profile on the social media channel you are visiting and are logged in, data may be linked to your profile.
All data that are collected via social media platforms are also stored on the providers’ servers. This means that only the providers have access to the data and can provide you with appropriate information or make changes for you.
If you want to know exactly which data is stored and processed by social media providers and how you can object to the data processing, we recommend you to carefully read the privacy policy of the respective company. We also recommend you to contact the provider directly if you have any questions about data storage and data processing or if you want to assert any corresponding rights.
Provided we have any further information on this, we will inform you about the duration of the data processing below. The social media platform Facebook example stores data until they are no longer needed for the company’s own purposes. However, customer data that is synchronised with your own user data is erased within two days. Generally, we only process personal data for as long as is absolutely necessary for the provision of our services and products. This storage period can also be exceeded however, if it is required by law, such as e.g. in the case of accounting.
You also retain the right and the option to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party providers such as embedded social media elements at any time. This can be done either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. You can e.g. also prevent data collection via cookies by managing, deactivating or erasing cookies in your browser.
Since cookies may be used with social media tools, we also recommend you to read our privacy policy on cookies. If you want to find out which of your data is stored and processed, we advise you to read the privacy policies of the respective tools.
If you have consented to the processing and storage of your data by integrated social media elements, this consent serves as the legal basis for data processing (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR). Generally, provided you have given your consent, your data will also be stored and processed on the basis of our legitimate interest (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR) in maintaining fast and good communication with you and other customers and business partners. Nevertheless, we only use the tools if you have consented. Most social media platforms also set cookies on your browser to store data. We therefore recommend you to read our privacy policy on cookies carefully and to take a look at the privacy policy or cookie policy of the respective service provider.
in the following section you can find information on special social media platforms – provided this information is available.
| LinkedIn Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: optimisation of our service 📓 Processed data: includes data on user behaviour, information about your device and IP address. More details can be found in the privacy policy below. 📅 Storage period: the data is generally deleted within 30 days ⚖️ Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
On our website we use social plugins from the social media network LinkedIn, of the LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Social plugins can be feeds, content sharing or a link to our LinkedIn page. Social plugins are clearly marked with the well-known LinkedIn logo and for example allow sharing interesting content directly via our website. Moreover, LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company Wilton Place in Dublin is responsible for data processing in the European Economic Area and Switzerland.
By embedding these plugins, data can be sent to, as well as stored and processed by LinkedIn. In this privacy policy we want to inform you what data this is, how the network uses this data and how you can manage or prevent data retention.
LinkedIn is the largest social network for business contacts. In contrast to e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn focuses exclusively on establishing business connections. Therefore, companies can present services and products on the platform and establish business relationships. Many people also use LinkedIn to find a job or to find suitable employees for their own company. In Germany alone, the network has over 11 million members. In Austria there are about 1.3 million.
We know how busy you are. You just cannot keep up with following every single social media channel. Even if it would really be worth it, as it is with our channels, since we keep posting interesting news and articles worth spreading. Therefore, on our website we have created the opportunity to share interesting content directly on LinkedIn, or to refer directly to our LinkedIn page. We consider built-in social plugins as an extended service on our website. The data LinkedIn collects also help us to display potential advertising measures only to people who are interested in our offer.
LinkedIn stores no personal data due to the mere integration of social plugins. LinkedIn calls the data generated by plugins passive impressions. However, if you click on a social plugin to e.g. share our content, the platform stores personal data as so-called “active impressions”. This happens regardless of whether you have a LinkedIn account or not. If you are logged in, the collected data will be assigned to your account.
When you interact with our plugins, your browser establishes a direct connection to LinkedIn’s servers. Through that, the company logs various usage data. These may include your IP address, login data, device information or information about your internet or cellular provider. If you use LinkedIn services via your smartphone, your location may also be identified (after you have given permission). Moreover, LinkedIn can share these data with third-party advertisers in “hashed” form. Hashing means that a data set is transformed into a character string. This allows data to be encrypted, which prevents persons from getting identified.
Most data on of your user behaviour is stored in cookies. These are small text files that usually get placed in your browser. Furthermore, LinkedIn can also use web beacons, pixel tags, display tags and other device recognitions.
Various tests also show which cookies are set when a user interacts with a social plug-in. We do not claim for the information we found to be exhaustive, as it only serves as an example. The following cookies were set without being logged in to LinkedIn:
Name: bcookie
Value: =2&34aab2aa-2ae1-4d2a-8baf-c2e2d7235c16122864558-
Purpose: This cookie is a so-called “browser ID cookie” and stores your identification number (ID).
Expiry date: after 2 years
Name: lang
Value: v=2&lang=en-gb
Purpose:This cookie saves your default or preferred language.
Expiry date: after end of session
Name: lidc
Value: 1818367:t=1571904767:s=AQF6KNnJ0G122864558…
Purpose:This cookie is used for routing. Routing records how you found your way to LinkedIn and how you navigate through the website.
Expiry date: after 24 hours
Name: rtc
Value: kt0lrv3NF3x3t6xvDgGrZGDKkX
Purpose:No further information could be found about this cookie.
Expiry date: after 2 minutes
Name: JSESSIONID
Value: ajax:1228645582900777718326218137
Purpose: This is a session cookie that LinkedIn uses to maintain anonymous user sessions through the server.
Expiry date: after end of session
Name: bscookie
Value: “v=1&201910230812…
Purpose: This cookie is a security cookie. LinkedIn describes it as a secure browser ID cookie.
Expiry date: after 2 years
Name: fid
Value: AQHj7Ii23ZBcqAAAA…
Purpose: We could not find any further information about this cookie.
Expiry date: after 7 days
Note: LinkedIn also works with third parties. That is why we identified the Google Analytics cookies _ga and _gat in our test.
In general, LinkedIn retains your personal data for as long as the company considers it necessary for providing its services. However, LinkedIn deletes your personal data when you delete your account. In some exceptional cases, LinkedIn keeps some summarised and anonymised data, even account deletions. As soon as you delete your account, it may take up to a day until other people can no longer see your data. LinkedIn generally deletes the data within 30 days. However, LinkedIn retains data if it is necessary for legal reasons. Also, data that can no longer be assigned to any person remains stored even after the account is closed. The data are stored on various servers in America and presumably also in Europe.
You have the right to access and delete your personal data at any time. In your LinkedIn account you can manage, change and delete your data. Moreover, you can request a copy of your personal data from LinkedIn.
How to access account data in your LinkedIn profile:
In LinkedIn, click on your profile icon and select the “Settings & Privacy” section. Now click on “Privacy” and then on the section “How LinkedIn uses your data on”. Then, click “Change” in the row with “Manage your data and activity”. There you can instantly view selected data on your web activity and your account history.
In your browser you also have the option of preventing data processing by LinkedIn. As mentioned above, LinkedIn stores most data via cookies that are placed in your browser. You can manage, deactivate or delete these cookies. Depending on which browser you have, these settings work a little different. You can find the instructions for the most common browsers here:
Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome
Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari
Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox
Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies
Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge
You can generally set your browser to always notify you when a cookie is about to be set. Then you can always decide individually whether you want to allow the cookie or not.
If you have consented to the processing and storage of your data by integrated social media elements, your consent is the legal basis for data processing (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR). Generally, your data is also stored and processed on the basis of our legitimate interest (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR) to maintain fast and good communication with you or other customers and business partners. We only use the integrated social media elements if you have given your consent. Most social media platforms also place cookies in your browser to store data. We therefore recommend you to read our privacy policy about cookies carefully and take a look at the privacy policy or the cookie policy of the respective service provider.
LinkedIn processes data from you, among other things, in the USA. LinkedIn is an active participant in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data from EU citizens to the USA. More information can be found at https://commission.europa.eu/document/fa09cbad-dd7d-4684-ae60-be03fcb0fddf_en.
Additionally, LinkedIn uses so-called Standard Contractual Clauses (Article 46(2) and (3) GDPR). Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are template clauses provided by the EU Commission and are designed to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards, even when transferred and stored in third countries (such as the USA). Through the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the Standard Contractual Clauses, LinkedIn commits to maintaining the European data protection level when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed, and managed in the USA. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding Standard Contractual Clauses here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2847.
You can find more information about the standard contractual clauses at LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/l/customer-sccs.
You can find out more about the data that is processed by LinkedIn in their Privacy Policy at https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy.
In accordance with Article 28 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we have entered into a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) with LinkedIn. What exactly a DPA is and especially what must be included in a DPA, you can read in our general section “Data Processing Agreement (DPA)”.
This contract is required by law because LinkedIn processes personal data on our behalf. It clarifies that LinkedIn may only process data they receive from us according to our instructions and must comply with the GDPR. You can find the link to the Data Processing Agreement (DPA) under https://www.linkedin.com/legal/l/dpa?.
| Online Marketing Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: visitors to the website 🤝 Purpose: Evaluation of visitor information for website optimisation 📓 Processed data: Access statistics containing data such as access location, device data, access duration and time, navigation behaviour, click behaviour and IP addresses. Personal data such as name or email address may also be processed. You can find more details on this from the respective Online Marketing tool. 📅 Storage period: depending on the Online Marketing tools used ⚖️ Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
Online Marketing refers to all measures that are carried out online to achieve marketing goals, such as increasing brand awareness or doing business transactions. Furthermore, our Online Marketing measures aim to draw people’s attention to our website. In order to be able to show our offer to many interested people, we do Online Marketing. It mostly is about online advertising, content marketing or search engine optimisation. For this, personal data is also stored and processed, to enable us to use Online Marketing efficiently and targeted. On the one hand, the data help us to only show our content to people who are interested in it. On the other hand, it helps us to measure the advertising success of our Online Marketing measures.
We want to show our website to everyone who is interested in our offer. We are aware that this is not possible without conscious measures being taken. That is why we do Online Marketing. There are various tools that make working on our Online Marketing measures easier for us. These also provide suggestions for improvement via data. Thus, we can target our campaigns more precisely to our target group. The ultimate purpose of these Online Marketing tools is to optimise our offer.
For our Online Marketing to work and to measure its success, user profiles are created and data are e.g. stored in cookies (small text files). With the help of this data, we can not only advertise in the traditional way, but also present our content directly on our website in the way you prefer. There are various third-party tools that offer these functions and thus collect and store your data accordingly. The aforementioned cookies e.g. store the pages you visit on our website, how long you view these pages, which links or buttons you click or which website you came from. What is more, technical information may also be stored. This may include e.g. your IP address, the browser and device you use to visit our website or the time you accessed our website as well as the time you left. If you have agreed for us to determine your location, we can also store and process it.
Your IP address is stored in pseudonymised form (i.e. shortened). What is more, distinct data that directly identify you as a person, such as your name, address or email address, are only stored in pseudonymised for advertising and Online Marketing purposes. With this data we cannot identify you as a person and only retain the pseudonymised information that is stored in your user profile.
Under certain circumstances, cookies may also be utilised, analysed and used for advertising purposes on other websites that use the same advertising tools. Thus, your data may then also be stored on the servers of the respective provider of the advertising tool.
In rare exceptions, unique data (name, email address, etc.) may also be stored in the user profiles. This can happen, if you are for example a member of a social media channel that we use for our Online Marketing measures and if the network connects previously received data with the user profile.
We only ever receive summarised information from the advertising tools we use that do store data on their servers. We never receive data that can be used to identify you as an individual. What is more, the data only shows how well-placed advertising measures have worked. For example, we can see what measures have caused you or other users to visit our website and purchase a service or product. Based on these analyses we can improve our advertising offer in the future and adapt it more precisely to the needs and wishes of people who are interested.
Below we will inform you on the duration of data processing, provided we have this information. In general, we only process personal data for as long as is absolutely necessary to provide our services and products. Data stored in cookies are retained for different lengths of time. Some cookies are deleted after you leave a website, while others may be stored in your browser for a number of years. However, in the respective privacy policies of the respective provider, you will usually find detailed information on the individual cookies this provider uses.
You also retain the right and the option to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party providers at any time. This can be done either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. You can for example also prevent data collection by cookies if you manage, deactivate or erase cookies in your browser. The legality of the processing remains unaffected to the point of revocation.
Since Online Marketing tools usually use cookies, we also recommend you to read our privacy policy on cookies. If you want to find out which of your data is stored and processed, you should read the privacy policies of the respective tools.
If you have consented to the use of third-party providers, then this consent is the legal basis for the corresponding data processing. According to Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent) , this consent is the legal basis for personal data processing, as may be done when data is collected by online marketing tools.
Moreover, we have a legitimate interest in measuring our online marketing activities in anonymised form, in order to use this data for optimising our offer and our Marketing. The corresponding legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) . Nevertheless, we only use these tools if you have given your consent.
Information on special online marketing tools can be found in the following sections, provided this information is available.
We also use the advertising service by LinkedIn Ads. The provider of this service is the American company LinkedIn Corporation, 1000 W Maude Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94085, USA.
LinkedIn processes data from you, among other things, in the USA. LinkedIn is an active participant in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data from EU citizens to the USA. More information can be found at https://commission.europa.eu/document/fa09cbad-dd7d-4684-ae60-be03fcb0fddf_en.
Additionally, LinkedIn uses so-called Standard Contractual Clauses (Article 46(2) and (3) GDPR). Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are template clauses provided by the EU Commission and are designed to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards, even when transferred and stored in third countries (such as the USA). Through the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the Standard Contractual Clauses, LinkedIn commits to maintaining the European data protection level when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed, and managed in the USA. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding Standard Contractual Clauses here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2847.
You can find more information about the standard contractual clauses at LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/l/customer-sccs.
You can find out more about the data that is processed by LinkedIn in their Privacy Policy at https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy.
| LinkedIn Insight-Tag Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: Evaluation of visitor information to optimise the website. 📓 Processed data: Access statistics that contain data such as access location, device data, access duration and time, navigation behaviour, click behaviour and IP addresses. More details can be found below and in LinkedIn’ privacy policy. 📅 Storage period: Direct identifiers through the LinkedIn Insight Tag are removed within seven days. ⚖️ Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
We use the conversion tracking tool LinkedIn Insight-Tag on our website. The service provider is the American company LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. For data protection matters in the European Economic Area (EEA), the EU, and Switzerland, the company responsible is LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited (Wilton Place, Dublin 2, Ireland).
By embedding the tracking tool, data can be sent to LinkedIn, stored, and processed there. In this privacy policy, we want to inform you about the data involved, how the network uses this data, and how you can manage or prevent data storage.
LinkedIn is the largest social network for professional contacts, focusing exclusively on building business connections. Companies can showcase services and products, and individuals often use LinkedIn for job searches or to find suitable employees for their own companies. In Germany alone, the network has over 11 million members, and in Austria, there are approximately 1.3 million.
The LinkedIn Insight-Tag, a small JavaScript code embedded on our website, helps us tailor our advertising to your interests and needs. In the following article, we will delve into why we use LinkedIn Insight-Tag, what data is stored, and how you can prevent this data storage.
We use LinkedIn Insight-Tag to draw attention to our offerings. The goal is for our advertising campaigns to reach only those individuals genuinely interested in our offers. With LinkedIn Insight-Tag, we can collect detailed information about your website behavior if you are a LinkedIn member. This allows us to see which keywords, ads, ad groups, and campaigns on LinkedIn lead to desired customer actions. We can observe how many customers interact with our ads on a device and then perform a conversion. With this data, we calculate our cost-benefit ratio, measure the success of individual advertising measures, and consequently optimize our online marketing efforts. Furthermore, we can make our website more interesting for you and tailor our advertising offerings even more individually to your needs.
As mentioned above, we have embedded a conversion tracking tag or code snippet on our website to better analyze certain user actions. When you click on one of our LinkedIn ads, a cookie can be stored on your computer (usually in the browser) or mobile device. LinkedIn generally processes data using a combination of cookies and server-side functions.
Once you complete an action on the website, LinkedIn recognizes the cookie and stores your action as a so-called conversion. As long as you browse our website, we and LinkedIn recognize that you found us through our LinkedIn ad. The cookie is read and sent back to LinkedIn with the conversion data. It is also possible that additional cookies are used to measure conversions.
In addition to your IP address, URL, referrer URL, device and browser properties, and timestamp are also stored. The IP address is considered personal data and is truncated or hashed by LinkedIn.
You might wonder what conversions are. A conversion occurs when a purely interested website visitor becomes an acting visitor. This happens whenever you click on our ad and then perform another action, such as visiting our website or purchasing a product. With the LinkedIn Insight-Tag conversion tracking tool, we capture what happens after a user clicks on our LinkedIn ad. For example, we can see if products are purchased, services are utilized, or if you have, for instance, signed up for our newsletter.
Additionally, demographic data you have provided in your LinkedIn profile, such as information about your profession, geographical location, industry, or company, may also be processed.
We receive a report with statistical evaluations from LinkedIn. This provides us with information about the total number of users who clicked on our ad and shows which advertising measures were successful.
In general, LinkedIn retains your personal data for as long as the company deems necessary to provide its services. However, LinkedIn deletes your personal data when you delete your account. In some exceptional cases, LinkedIn may retain some data in aggregated and anonymized form even after you delete your account.
Direct identifiers from LinkedIn Insight-Tag are removed within seven days to pseudonymize the data. The resulting pseudonymized data is deleted within 180 days.
The data is stored on various servers in America and likely also in Europe.
You have the right to access and delete your personal data at any time.
You have the option not to participate in LinkedIn’s conversion tracking. If you disable the Google Conversion Tracking cookie via your browser or do not consent to data processing through the consent manager (popup), you block conversion tracking. In this case, you will not be included in the statistics of the tracking tool. You can change the cookie settings in your browser at any time. This works slightly differently for each browser. Under the “Cookies” section, you will find the relevant links to the instructions for the most popular browsers.
In your LinkedIn account, you can also manage, change, and delete your data. Additionally, you can request a copy of your personal data from LinkedIn.
To access the account data in your LinkedIn profile:
Click on your profile icon on LinkedIn and select the “Settings & Privacy” section.
Click on “Privacy” and then in the “How LinkedIn uses your data” section, click on “Change.” In a short time, you can download selected data about your web activity and account history.
If you have consented to the use of LinkedIn Insight-Tag, the legal basis for the corresponding data processing is this consent. According to Article 6(1)(a) GDPR (Consent), this consent is the legal basis for the processing of personal data, as can occur during the collection by the LinkedIn Insight-Tag.
From our side, there is also a legitimate interest in using LinkedIn Insight-Tag to optimize our online service and marketing measures. The corresponding legal basis for this is Article 6(1)(f) GDPR (Legitimate Interests). However, we use the LinkedIn Insight-Tag only to the extent that you have given consent.
LinkedIn processes data from you, among other things, in the USA. We note that, according to the opinion of the European Court of Justice, there is currently no adequate level of protection for data transfers to the USA. This can be associated with various risks for the legality and security of data processing.
As the basis for data processing by recipients based in third countries (outside the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, especially in the USA) or data transfer to these, LinkedIn uses the so-called standard contractual clauses (= Article 46, paragraphs 2 and 3 GDPR). Standard contractual clauses (Standard Contractual Clauses – SCC) are template contracts provided by the EU Commission and are intended to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards even when transferred and stored in third countries (such as the USA). Through these clauses, LinkedIn commits to adhering to the European data protection level when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed, and managed in the USA. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding standard contractual clauses, among other things, here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2847.
You can find more information about the standard contractual clauses at LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/legal/l/dpa? or https://www.linkedin.com/legal/l/eu-sccs
You can find out more about LinkedIn Insight Tag at https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a427660. You can also find out more about the data that is processed through the use of the LinkedIn Insight Tag in their Privacy Policy at https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy.
We also use the marketing tool LinkedIn Website Retargeting. The provider of this service is the American company LinkedIn Corporation, 1000 W Maude Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94085, USA.
LinkedIn processes data from you, among other things, in the USA. LinkedIn is an active participant in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data from EU citizens to the USA. More information can be found at https://commission.europa.eu/document/fa09cbad-dd7d-4684-ae60-be03fcb0fddf_en.
Additionally, LinkedIn uses so-called Standard Contractual Clauses (Article 46(2) and (3) GDPR). Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are template clauses provided by the EU Commission and are designed to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards, even when transferred and stored in third countries (such as the USA). Through the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the Standard Contractual Clauses, LinkedIn commits to maintaining the European data protection level when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed, and managed in the USA. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding Standard Contractual Clauses here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2847.
You can find more information about the standard contractual clauses at LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/l/customer-sccs.
You can find out more about the data that is processed by LinkedIn in their Privacy Policy at https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy.
| Cookie Consent Management Platform Overview 👥 Affected parties: Website visitors 🤝 Purpose: Obtaining and managing consent to certain cookies and thus the use of certain tools 📓 Processed data: data for managing cookie settings such as IP address, time of consent, type of consent and individual consent. You can find more details on this directly with the tool that is being used. 📅 Storage period: depends on the tool used, periods of several years can be assumed ⚖️ Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
We use a Consent Management Platform (CMP) software on our website that makes it easier for us and you to handle the scripts and cookies used correctly and securely. The software automatically creates a cookie pop-up, scans and controls all scripts and cookies, provides you with the cookie consent required under data protection law and helps you and us to keep track of all cookies. Most cookie consent management tools identify and categorize all existing cookies. As a website visitor, you then decide for yourself whether and which scripts and cookies you allow or not. The following graphic shows the relationship between browser, web server and CMP.
Our goal is to offer you the best possible transparency in the area of data protection. We are also legally obliged to do so. We want to inform you as well as possible about all tools and all cookies that can save and process your data. It is also your right to decide for yourself which cookies you accept and which you do not. In order to grant you this right, we first need to know exactly which cookies actually landed on our website. Thanks to a cookie management tool, which regularly scans the website for all cookies present, we know about all cookies and can provide you with GDPR-compliant information. You can then use the consent system to accept or reject cookies.
As part of our cookie management tool, you can manage each individual cookie yourself and have complete control over the storage and processing of your data. The declaration of your consent is stored so that we do not have to ask you every time you visit our website and we can also prove your consent if required by law. This is saved either in an opt-in cookie or on a server. The storage time of your cookie consent varies depending on the provider of the cookie management tool. Usually this data (e.g. pseudonymous user ID, time of consent, detailed information on the cookie categories or tools, browser, device information) is stored for up to two years.
We will inform you below about the duration of the data processing if we have further information. In general, we only process personal data for as long as is absolutely necessary for the provision of our services and products. Data stored in cookies are stored for different lengths of time. Some cookies are deleted after you leave the website, others may be stored in your browser for a few years. The exact duration of the data processing depends on the tool used, in most cases you should be prepared for a storage period of several years. In the respective data protection declarations of the individual providers, you will usually receive precise information about the duration of the data processing.
You also have the right and the option to revoke your consent to the use of cookies at any time. This works either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. For example, you can also prevent data collection by cookies by managing, deactivating or deleting cookies in your browser.
Information on special cookie management tools can be found – if available – in the following sections.
If you agree to cookies, your personal data will be processed and stored via these cookies. If we are allowed to use cookies with your consent (Article 6 paragraph 1 lit. a GDPR), this consent is also the legal basis for the use of cookies and the processing of your data. In order to be able to manage the consent to cookies and to enable you to give your consent, a cookie consent management platform software is used. The use of this software enables us to operate the website in an efficient and legally compliant manner, which is a legitimate interest (Article 6 paragraph 1 lit. f GDPR).
On our website we use BorlabsCookie, which is one of the tools that store your consent to cookies. The provider of this service is the German company Borlabs – Benjamin A. Bornschein, Rübenkamp 32, 22305 Hamburg, Germany. You can find out more about the data that is processed by the use of BorlabsCookie in their Privacy Policy at https://borlabs.io/privacy/.
| Security & Anti-Spam Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: for cyber security 📓 Processed data: Data such as your IP address, name or technical data such as browser version More details can be found below and in the individual privacy policies. 📅 Duration of storage: In most cases, data is stored until it is no longer required in order to provide the service ⚖️ Legal bases: Article 6 paragraph 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Article 6 paragraph 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
So-called security & Anti-spam software can protect you and us from various spam or phishing emails and other potential cyber-attacks. Spam includes advertising emails from mass mailings that you did not sign up for yourself. Such emails are also called data garbage and can also cause costs. Other spam such as phishing emails, on the other hand, are messages that aim to gain trust via fake messages or websites in order to obtain personal information. Anti-spam software usually protects against unwanted spam messages or malicious emails that could inject viruses into our system. We also use general firewall and security systems that protect our devices from unwanted network attacks.
We put great importance on our website’s security. After all, this is not just about our safety, but also about your safety. Unfortunately, cyber threats are now part of everyday life in the world of IT and the internet. Hackers e. g. often try to steal personal data from IT systems with the help of cyber attacks. And therefore a good defence system is absolutely necessary. A security system monitors all incoming and outgoing connections to our network or computer. In order to achieve even greater security against cyber attacks, we also use other external security services on our devices in addition to standardised security systems. Unauthorised data transmissions are thus better prevented and this is how we protect ourselves from cybercrime.
The data that is collected and stored of course depends on the respective service. However, we always try to only use programs that collect data very sparingly or only store data that is necessary for the fulfilment of the offered service. In general, the service may store data such as name, address, IP address, email address and technical data such as browser type or browser version. Any performance and log data may also be collected in order to identify possible incoming threats in good time. This data will be processed as part of the provided services and in compliance with applicable laws. This also includes the GDPR for US providers (via the Standard Contractual Clauses). In some cases, security services also work with third parties who may store and/or process data under instructions and in accordance with privacy policies and other security measures. Data is usually stored using cookies.
We will inform you below about the duration of data processing, provided we have further information on this. For example, security programs store data until you or we revoke data storage. In general, personal data is only stored for as long as is absolutely necessary for the provision of the services. Unfortunately, in many cases, we do not have precise information from the providers about their data storage periods.
You also have the right and the option to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party security software at any time. This can be done either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. For example, you can also prevent data collection through cookies by managing, deactivating or erasing the cookies in your browser.
Since cookies may also be used with security services, we recommend you read our privacy policy on cookies. To find out exactly which of your data is stored and processed, you should read the privacy policies of the respective tools.
We use security services mainly on the basis of our legitimate interests (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f GDPR) in a good security system and protection against various cyber attacks.
Certain data processing requires your consent – in particular, the use of cookies and security functions. If you have agreed to the processing and storage of your data by integrated security services, your consent is the legal basis for data processing (Article 6 (1) (a) GDPR). Most of the services we use set cookies on your browser to store data. We, therefore, recommend you read our privacy policy on cookies carefully and consult the privacy policy or cookie policy of the relevant service provider.
Information on special tools – if available – can be found in the following sections.
| Google reCAPTCHA Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: Service optimisation and protection against cyber attacks 📓 Processed data: data such as IP address, browser information, operating system, limited location and usage data You can find more details on this in the Privacy Policy below. 📅 Storage duration: depending on the retained data ⚖️ Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
Our primary goal is to provide you an experience on our website that is as secure and protected as possible. To do this, we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheater Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA). With reCAPTCHA we can determine whether you are a real person from flesh and bones, and not a robot or a spam software. By spam we mean any electronically undesirable information we receive involuntarily. Classic CAPTCHAS usually needed you to solve text or picture puzzles to check. But thanks to Google’s reCAPTCHA you usually do have to do such puzzles. Most of the times it is enough to simply tick a box and confirm you are not a bot. With the new Invisible reCAPTCHA version you don’t even have to tick a box. In this privacy policy you will find out how exactly this works, and what data is used for it.
reCAPTCHA is a free captcha service from Google that protects websites from spam software and misuse by non-human visitors. This service is used the most when you fill out forms on the Internet. A captcha service is a type of automatic Turing-test that is designed to ensure specific actions on the Internet are done by human beings and not bots. During the classic Turing-test (named after computer scientist Alan Turing), a person differentiates between bot and human. With Captchas, a computer or software program does the same. Classic captchas function with small tasks that are easy to solve for humans but provide considerable difficulties to machines. With reCAPTCHA, you no longer must actively solve puzzles. The tool uses modern risk techniques to distinguish people from bots. The only thing you must do there, is to tick the text field “I am not a robot”. However, with Invisible reCAPTCHA even that is no longer necessary. reCAPTCHA, integrates a JavaScript element into the source text, after which the tool then runs in the background and analyses your user behaviour. The software calculates a so-called captcha score from your user actions. Google uses this score to calculate the likelihood of you being a human, before entering the captcha. reCAPTCHA and Captchas in general are used every time bots could manipulate or misuse certain actions (such as registrations, surveys, etc.).
We only want to welcome people from flesh and bones on our side and want bots or spam software of all kinds to stay away. Therefore, we are doing everything we can to stay protected and to offer you the highest possible user friendliness. For this reason, we use Google reCAPTCHA from Google. Thus, we can be pretty sure that we will remain a “bot-free” website. Using reCAPTCHA, data is transmitted to Google to determine whether you genuinely are human. reCAPTCHA thus ensures our website’s and subsequently your security. Without reCAPTCHA it could e.g. happen that a bot would register as many email addresses as possible when registering, in order to subsequently “spam” forums or blogs with unwanted advertising content. With reCAPTCHA we can avoid such bot attacks.
reCAPTCHA collects personal user data to determine whether the actions on our website are made by people. Thus, IP addresses and other data Google needs for its reCAPTCHA service, may be sent to Google. Within member states of the European Economic Area, IP addresses are almost always compressed before the data makes its way to a server in the USA. Moreover, your IP address will not be combined with any other of Google’s data, unless you are logged into your Google account while using reCAPTCHA. Firstly, the reCAPTCHA algorithm checks whether Google cookies from other Google services (YouTube, Gmail, etc.) have already been placed in your browser. Then reCAPTCHA sets an additional cookie in your browser and takes a snapshot of your browser window.
The following list of collected browser and user data is not exhaustive. Rather, it provides examples of data, which to our knowledge, is processed by Google.
Google may use and analyse this data even before you click on the “I am not a robot” checkmark. In the Invisible reCAPTCHA version, there is no need to even tick at all, as the entire recognition process runs in the background. Moreover, Google have not given details on what information and how much data they retain.
The following cookies are used by reCAPTCHA: With the following list we are referring to Google’s reCAPTCHA demo version at https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/demo.
For tracking purposes, all these cookies require a unique identifier. Here is a list of cookies that Google reCAPTCHA has set in the demo version:
Name: IDE
Value: WqTUmlnmv_qXyi_DGNPLESKnRNrpgXoy1K-pAZtAkMbHI-122864558-8
Purpose: This cookie is set by DoubleClick (which is owned by Google) to register and report a user’s interactions with advertisements. With it, ad effectiveness can be measured, and appropriate optimisation measures can be taken. IDE is stored in browsers under the domain doubleclick.net.
Expiry date: after one year
Name: 1P_JAR
Value: 2019-5-14-12
Purpose: This cookie collects website usage statistics and measures conversions. A conversion e.g. takes place, when a user becomes a buyer. The cookie is also used to display relevant adverts to users. Furthermore, the cookie can prevent a user from seeing the same ad more than once.
Expiry date: after one month
Name: ANID
Value: U7j1v3dZa1228645580xgZFmiqWppRWKOr
Purpose: We could not find out much about this cookie. In Google’s privacy statement, the cookie is mentioned in connection with “advertising cookies” such as “DSID”, “FLC”, “AID” and “TAID”. ANID is stored under the domain google.com.
Expiry date: after 9 months
Name: CONSENT
Value: YES+AT.de+20150628-20-0
Purpose: This cookie stores the status of a user’s consent to the use of various Google services. CONSENT also serves to prevent fraudulent logins and to protect user data from unauthorised attacks.
Expiry date: after 19 years
Name: NID
Value: 0WmuWqy122864558zILzqV_nmt3sDXwPeM5Q
Purpose: Google uses NID to customise advertisements to your Google searches. With the help of cookies, Google “remembers” your most frequently entered search queries or your previous ad interactions. Thus, you always receive advertisements tailored to you. The cookie contains a unique ID to collect users’ personal settings for advertising purposes.
Expiry date: after 6 months
Name: DV
Value: gEAABBCjJMXcI0dSAAAANbqc122864558-4
Purpose: This cookie is set when you tick the “I am not a robot” checkmark. Google Analytics uses the cookie personalised advertising. DV collects anonymous information and is also used to distinct between users.
Expiry date: after 10 minutes
Note: We do not claim for this list to be extensive, as Google often change the choice of their cookies.
Due to the integration of reCAPTCHA, your data will be transferred to the Google server. Google have not disclosed where exactly this data is stored, despite repeated inquiries. But even without confirmation from Google, it can be assumed that data such as mouse interaction, length of stay on a website or language settings are stored on the European or American Google servers. The IP address that your browser transmits to Google does generally not get merged with other Google data from the company’s other services.
However, the data will be merged if you are logged in to your Google account while using the reCAPTCHA plug-in. Google’s diverging privacy policy applies for this.
If you want to prevent any data about you and your behaviour to be transmitted to Google, you must fully log out of Google and delete all Google cookies before visiting our website or use the reCAPTCHA software. Generally, the data is automatically sent to Google as soon as you visit our website. To delete this data, you must contact Google Support at https://support.google.com/?hl=en-GB&tid=122864558.
If you use our website, you agree that Google LLC and its representatives automatically collect, edit and use data.
Please note that when using this tool, your data can also be stored and processed outside the EU. Most third countries (including the USA) are not considered secure under current European data protection law. Data to insecure third countries must not simply be transferred to, stored and processed there unless there are suitable guarantees (such as EU’s Standard Contractual Clauses) between us and the non-European service provider.
If you have consented to the use of Google reCAPTCHA, your consent is the legal basis for the corresponding data processing. According to Art. 6 Paragraph 1 lit. a GDPR (consent) your consent is the legal basis for the processing of personal data, as can occur when processed by Google reCAPTCHA.
We also have a legitimate interest in using Google reCAPTCHA to optimise our online service and make it more secure. The corresponding legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests). Nevertheless, we only use Google reCAPTCHA if you have given your consent to it.
Google processes data from you, among other things, in the USA. Google is an active participant in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data from EU citizens to the USA. More information can be found at https://commission.europa.eu/document/fa09cbad-dd7d-4684-ae60-be03fcb0fddf_en.
Additionally, Google uses so-called Standard Contractual Clauses (Article 46(2) and (3) GDPR). Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are template clauses provided by the EU Commission and are designed to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards, even when transferred and stored in third countries (such as the USA). Through the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the Standard Contractual Clauses, Google commits to maintaining the European data protection level when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed, and managed in the USA. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding Standard Contractual Clauses here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2847.
You can find the Google Ads Data Processing Terms, which refer to the Standard Contractual Clauses, at: https://business.safety.google/intl/en/adsprocessorterms/
You can find out a little more about reCAPTCHA on Google’s web developer page at https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/. Google goes into the technical development of the reCAPTCHA in more detail here, but you will look in vain for detailed information about data storage and data protection issues. A good overview of the basic use of data by Google can be found in the in-house data protection declaration at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-GB.
We use UpdraftPlus, a security management tool, for our website. The service provider is the British company Updraft WP Software Ltd. 11 Barringer Way, St. Neots, PE19 1LW, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.
With the UK leaving the European Union, the GDPR is no longer applicable to data transfer there. However, on the basis of Art. 45 GDPR, the European Commission has decided that the UK offers an appropriate level of protection that can be compared to the GDPR. Data transfer there is therefore permitted. You can view the decision here (download): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021D1772
You can find out more about the data processed using UpdraftPlus in the privacy policy at https://updraftplus.com/data-protection-and-privacy-centre/.
| Audio & Video Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: service optimisation 📓 Processed data: Data such as contact details, user behaviour, device information and IP addresses can be stored. You can find more details in the Privacy Policy below. 📅 Storage period: data are retained for as long as necessary for the provision of the service ⚖️ Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
We have integrated audio and video elements to our website. Therefore, you can watch videos or listen to music/podcasts directly via our website. This content is delivered by service providers and is obtained from the respective providers’ servers.
Audio and video elements are integrated functional elements of platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo or Spotify. It is usually free of charge to use these portals, but they can also contain paid content. With the integrated elements, you can listen to or view any of their content on our website.
If you use audio or video elements on our website, your personal data may get transmitted to as well as processed and retained by service providers.
We of course want to provide you with the best offer on our website. And we are aware that content is no longer just conveyed in text and static images. Instead of just giving you a link to a video, we offer you audio and video formats directly on our website. These are entertaining or informative, but ideally they are both. Our service therefore gets expanded and it gets easier for you to access interesting content. In addition to our texts and images, we thus also offer video and/or audio content.
When you visit a page on our website with e.g. an embedded video, your server connects to the service provider’s server. Thus, your data will also be transferred to the third-party provider, where it will be stored. Certain data is collected and stored regardless of whether you have an account with the third party provider or not. This usually includes your IP address, browser type, operating system and other general information about your device. Most providers also collect information on your web activity. This e.g. includes the session duration, bounce rate, the buttons you clicked or information about the website you are using the service on. This data is mostly stored via cookies or pixel tags (also known as web beacons). Any data that is pseudonymised usually gets stored in your browser via cookies. In the respective provider’s Privacy Policy, you can always find more information on the data that is stored and processed.
You can find out exactly how long the data is stored on the third-party provider’s servers either in a lower point of the respective tool’s Privacy Policy or in the provider’s Privacy Policy. Generally, personal data is only processed for as long as is absolutely necessary for the provision of our services or products. This usually also applies to third-party providers. In most cases, you can assume that certain data will be stored on third-party providers’ servers for several years. Data can be retained for different amounts of time, especially when stored in cookies. Some cookies are deleted after you leave a website, while others may be stored in your browser for a few years.
You also retain the right and the option to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party providers at any time. This can be done either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. You can e.g. also prevent data retention via cookies by managing, deactivating or erasing cookies in your browser. The legality of the processing up to the point of revocation remains unaffected.
Since the integrated audio and video functions on our site usually also use cookies, we recommend you to also read our general Privacy Policy on cookies. You can find out more about the handling and storage of your data in the Privacy Policies of the respective third party providers.
If you have consented to the processing and storage of your data by integrated audio and video elements, your consent is considered the legal basis for data processing (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a GDPR). Generally, your data is also stored and processed on the basis of our legitimate interest (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f GDPR) in maintaining fast and good communication with you or other customers and business partners. We only use the integrated audio and video elements if you have consented to it.
| YouTube Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: optimising our service 📓 Processed data: Data such as contact details, data on user behaviour, information about your device and IP address may be stored. You can find more details on this in the privacy policy below. 📅 Storage period: data are generally stored for as long as is necessary for the purpose of the service ⚖️ Legal bases: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
We have integrated YouTube videos to our website. Therefore, we can show you interesting videos directly on our site. YouTube is a video portal, which has been a subsidiary company of Google LLC since 2006. The video portal is operated by YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. When you visit a page on our website that contains an embedded YouTube video, your browser automatically connects to the servers of YouTube or Google. Thereby, certain data are transferred (depending on the settings). Google is responsible for YouTube’s data processing and therefore Google’s data protection applies.
In the following we will explain in more detail which data is processed, why we have integrated YouTube videos and how you can manage or clear your data.
On YouTube, users can watch, rate, comment or upload videos for free. Over the past few years, YouTube has become one of the most important social media channels worldwide. For us to be able to display videos on our website, YouTube provides a code snippet that we have integrated to our website.
YouTube is the video platform with the most visitors and best content. We strive to offer you the best possible user experience on our website, which of course includes interesting videos. With the help of our embedded videos, we can provide you other helpful content in addition to our texts and images. Additionally, embedded videos make it easier for our website to be found on the Google search engine. Moreover, if we place ads via Google Ads, Google only shows these ads to people who are interested in our offers, thanks to the collected data.
As soon as you visit one of our pages with an integrated YouTube, YouTube places at least one cookie that stores your IP address and our URL. If you are logged into your YouTube account, by using cookies YouTube can usually associate your interactions on our website with your profile. This includes data such as session duration, bounce rate, approximate location, technical information such as browser type, screen resolution or your Internet provider. Additional data can include contact details, potential ratings, shared content via social media or YouTube videos you added to your favourites.
If you are not logged in to a Google or YouTube account, Google stores data with a unique identifier linked to your device, browser or app. Thereby, e.g. your preferred language setting is maintained. However, many interaction data cannot be saved since less cookies are set.
In the following list we show you cookies that were placed in the browser during a test. On the one hand, we show cookies that were set without being logged into a YouTube account. On the other hand, we show you what cookies were placed while being logged in. We do not claim for this list to be exhaustive, as user data always depend on how you interact with YouTube.
Name: YSC
Value: b9-CV6ojI5Y122864558-1
Purpose: This cookie registers a unique ID to store statistics of the video that was viewed.
Expiry date: after end of session
Name: PREF
Value: f1=50000000
Purpose: This cookie also registers your unique ID. Google receives statistics via PREF on how you use YouTube videos on our website.
Expiry date: after 8 months
Name: GPS
Value: 1
Purpose: This cookie registers your unique ID on mobile devices to track GPS locations.
Expiry date: after 30 minutes
Name: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE
Value: 95Chz8bagyU
Purpose: This cookie tries to estimate the user’s internet bandwith on our sites (that have built-in YouTube videos).
Expiry date: after 8 months
Further cookies that are placed when you are logged into your YouTube account:
Name: APISID
Value: zILlvClZSkqGsSwI/AU1aZI6HY7122864558-
Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile on your interests. This data is then used for personalised advertisements.
Expiry date: after 2 years
Name: CONSENT
Value: YES+AT.de+20150628-20-0
Purpose: The cookie stores the status of a user’s consent to the use of various Google services. CONSENT also provides safety measures to protect users from unauthorised attacks.
Expiry date: after 19 years
Name: HSID
Value: AcRwpgUik9Dveht0I
Purpose: This cookie is used to create a profile on your interests. This data helps to display customised ads.
Expiry date: after 2 years
Name: LOGIN_INFO
Value: AFmmF2swRQIhALl6aL…
Purpose: This cookie stores information on your login data.
Expiry date: after 2 years
Name: SAPISID
Value: 7oaPxoG-pZsJuuF5/AnUdDUIsJ9iJz2vdM
Purpose: This cookie identifies your browser and device. It is used to create a profile on your interests.
Expiry date: after 2 years
Name: SID
Value: oQfNKjAsI122864558-
Purpose: This cookie stores your Google Account ID and your last login time, in a digitally signed and encrypted form.
Expiry date: after 2 years
Name: SIDCC
Value: AN0-TYuqub2JOcDTyL
Purpose: This cookie stores information on how you use the website and on what advertisements you may have seen before visiting our website.
Expiry date: after 3 months
The data YouTube receive and process on you are stored on Google’s servers. Most of these servers are in America. At https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/?hl=en you can see where Google’s data centres are located. Your data is distributed across the servers. Therefore, the data can be retrieved quicker and is better protected against manipulation.
Google stores collected data for different periods of time. You can delete some data anytime, while other data are automatically deleted after a certain time, and still other data are stored by Google for a long time. Some data (such as elements on “My activity”, photos, documents or products) that are saved in your Google account are stored until you delete them. Moreover, you can delete some data associated with your device, browser, or app, even if you are not signed into a Google Account.
Generally, you can delete data manually in your Google account. Furthermore, in 2019 an automatic deletion of location and activity data was introduced. Depending on what you decide on, it deletes stored information either after 3 or 18 months.
Regardless of whether you have a Google account or not, you can set your browser to delete or deactivate cookies placed by Google. These settings vary depending on the browser you use. The following instructions will show how to manage cookies in your browser:
Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome
Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari
Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox
Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies
Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge
If you generally do not want to allow any cookies, you can set your browser to always notify you when a cookie is about to be set. This will enable you to decide to either allow or permit each individual cookie.
If you have consented processing and storage of your data by integrated YouTube elements, this consent is the legal basis for data processing (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR). Generally, your data is also stored and processed on the basis of our legitimate interest (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR) to maintain fast and good communication with you or other customers and business partners. Nevertheless, we only use integrated YouTube elements if you have given your consent. YouTube also sets cookies in your browser to store data. We therefore recommend you to read our privacy policy on cookies carefully and to take a look at the privacy policy or the cookie policy of the respective service provider.
Google processes data from you, among other things, in the USA. Google is an active participant in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, which regulates the correct and secure transfer of personal data from EU citizens to the USA. More information can be found at https://commission.europa.eu/document/fa09cbad-dd7d-4684-ae60-be03fcb0fddf_en.
Additionally, Google uses so-called Standard Contractual Clauses (Article 46(2) and (3) GDPR). Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) are template clauses provided by the EU Commission and are designed to ensure that your data complies with European data protection standards, even when transferred and stored in third countries (such as the USA). Through the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the Standard Contractual Clauses, Google commits to maintaining the European data protection level when processing your relevant data, even if the data is stored, processed, and managed in the USA. These clauses are based on an implementing decision of the EU Commission. You can find the decision and the corresponding Standard Contractual Clauses here: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_2847.
You can find the Google Ads Data Processing Terms, which refer to the Standard Contractual Clauses, at: https://business.safety.google/intl/en/adsprocessorterms/
Since YouTube is a subsidiary company of Google, Google’s privacy statement applies to both. If you want to learn more about how your data is handled, we recommend the privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en.
| Web Design Privacy Policy Overview 👥 Affected parties: website visitors 🤝 Purpose: improvement of user experience 📓 Processed data: depends heavily on the services used. Usually, data such as IP address, technical data, language settings, browser version, screen resolution and browser name are processed. You can find more details directly with the respective web design tools. 📅 Storage duration: depends on the tools used ⚖️ Legal bases: Article 6 paragraph 1 lit. a GDPR (consent), Article 6 paragraph 1 lit. f GDPR (legitimate interests) |
We use various tools on our website for the purpose of our web design. Contrary to common belief, web design is not just about making our website look nice, but rather also about functionality and performance. But of course, a good-looking website is also a major goal of professional web design. Web design is a part of media design and deals with the visual as well as the structural and functional design of a website. Our aim with our web design is to improve your experience on our site. In web design jargon, this is called User Experience (UX) and usability. User Experience entails all impressions and experiences that website visitors come across on a website. What is more, usability is part of the User Experience, as it determines how user-friendly a website is. This includes the clear structuring of content, subpages or products, along with how quickly and easily the website enables you to find what you are looking for. In order to offer you the best possible experience on our website, we also use so-called third-party web design tools. Therefore, all tools and services that help improve our website’s design are classified under the category “web design”. This may, for example, include fonts, various plugins or other integrated web design functions.
The way you absorb information on a website depends very much on its structure, functionality and visual perception. Therefore, good and professional web design has become increasingly important for us. We are constantly working on improving our site as a way of further extending our services for you as a website visitor. Furthermore, a beautiful and functioning website also has economic advantages for us. Needless to say, you will only visit it and take advantage of our offers if you feel completely at ease.
When you visit our website, any web design elements integrated into our pages may process your data. The exact data that is processed depends on the tools used. Below you can see exactly which tools we use for our website. For more information about data processing, we recommend you also read the respective privacy policy of the respective tools. There you can usually find out which data is processed, whether cookies are used and how long the data is stored. Moreover, fonts such as Google Fonts, for example, also automatically transmit information such as your language settings, IP address, browser version, browser screen resolution and browser name to Google’s servers.
Data processing times are very individual and depend on the web design elements used. For example, when cookies are used, the retention period can be as little as a minute, but it may also be a few years. Please make yourself familiar with this topic. You may for example read our general section on cookies as well as the Privacy Policies of the tools used. There you can likely find out exactly which cookies are used and what information is stored there. For example, Google Font files are stored for one year, in order to improve the loading speed of a website. In principle, data is only kept for as long as is necessary to provide the service. But legal requirements may require data to be stored for longer.
You also retain the right and the option to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party providers at any time. You can do this either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. You can also prevent cookies from collecting your data by managing, deactivating or deleting the cookies in your browser. However, among web design elements (typically fonts) there is also data that cannot be erased easily. This is the case whenever data is automatically collected as soon as a page is accessed and then directly transmitted to a third party (e.g. Google). In these cases, please contact the support of the respective provider. In the case of Google, you can reach support at https://support.google.com/?hl=de.
If you have consented to the use of web design tools, this consent serves as the legal basis for the relevant data processing. According to Article 6 (1) (a) GDPR (consent), your consent represents the legal basis for the processing of personal data, as it may occur when it is collected by web design tools. We also have a legitimate interest in web design to improve on our website. After all, only then can we provide you with a beautiful and professional web offer. The corresponding legal basis for this is Article 6 (1) (f) GDPR (legitimate interests). However, we strongly want to emphasise once more that we only use web design tools if you have given your consent.
You can find information on different web design tools – if available – in the following sections.
On our website we use Google Fonts, by the company Google Inc. The responsible entity for the European area is Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street Dublin 4, Ireland). We have integrated Google fonts locally, i.e. on our web server and not on Google’s servers. This means that no connection to Google’s servers and therefore no data transfer or retention take place.
Google Fonts was previously called Google Web Fonts. It is an interactive list with over 800 fonts which Google offer for free use. With the use of Google Fonts, it is possible to utilise fonts without uploading them to your own server. In order to prevent any transfer of information to Google’s servers, we downloaded the fonts to our own server. This way we can comply with data privacy and do not transmit any data to Google Fonts.
We always strive to make our privacy policy as clear and comprehensible as possible. However, this is not always easy, especially when it comes to technical and legal matters. It is often sensible to use legal terms (such as ‘personal data)’ or certain technical terms (such as ‘cookies’ or ‘IP address’). But we don’t want to use such terms without any explanation. This is why you will find an alphabetical list of important terms used below. These are terms we may not yet have sufficiently explained in the privacy policy. In case we have adopted any of these terms from the GDPR which are definitions, we will also list the GDPR texts here and add our own further explanations if necessary.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“supervisory authority” means an independent public authority which is established by a Member State pursuant to Article 51;
Explanation: “Supervisory authorities” are always independent government institutions that are also authorised to give instructions in certain cases. They serve to carry out the so-called state supervision and are located in ministries, special departments or other authorities. For data protection in Austria, there is an Austrian Data Protection Authority. For Germany, there is a separate supervisory authority for each federal state.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“processor” means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which processes personal data on behalf of the controller;
Explanation: As a company and a website owner, we are responsible for all your data we process (i. e. the ‘controller’). In addition to the controller, there may also be so-called processors. This includes any company or person who processes personal data on our behalf. In addition to service providers such as tax consultants, processors can also be hosting or cloud providers, payment or newsletter providers or large companies such as Google or Microsoft.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“supervisory authority concerned” means a supervisory authority which is concerned by the processing of personal data because:
a)
the controller or processor is established on the territory of the Member State of that supervisory authority;
b)
data subjects residing in the Member State of that supervisory authority are substantially affected or likely to be substantially affected by the processing; or
c)
a complaint has been lodged with that supervisory authority;
Explanation: In Germany, each federal state has its own supervisory authority for data protection. If your company headquarters (head office) is in Germany, your point of contact is the respective supervisory authority of the respective federal state. In Austria there is only one Data Protection Authority for the whole country.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“biometric data” means personal data resulting from specific technical processing relating to the physical, physiological or behavioural characteristics of a natural person, which allow or confirm the unique identification of that natural person, such as facial images or dactyloscopic data;
Explanation: They are biological markers that are classified by biometric data and thus hold personal data which can be obtained with the help of technical processes. These include DNA, fingerprints, the geometry of different body parts, body size, but also handwriting or the sound of a voice.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“filing system” means any structured set of personal data which are accessible according to specific criteria, whether centralised, decentralised or dispersed on a functional or geographical basis;
Explanation: Any organised storage of data on a computer’s disk is referred to as a “filing system”. For example, if we store your name and email address on a server for our newsletter, this data would be located in a so-called “filing system”. One of the most important tasks of a “filing system” is to quickly be able to search and find specific data and, of course, to store the data securely.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“information society service” means a service as defined in point (b) of Article 1(1) of Directive (EU) 2015/1535 of the European Parliament and of the Council (19);
Explanation: Basically, the term “information society” refers to a society based on information and communication technologies. As a website visitor, in particular, you are familiar with all kinds of online services. Most online services are classified as “information society services”. A classic example of this is an online transaction, such as buying goods over the Internet.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“third party” means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or body other than the data subject, controller, processor and persons who, under the direct authority of the controller or processor, are authorised to process personal data;
Explanation: The GDPR basically only explains what a “third party” is not. In practice, any “third party” who also has an interest in personal data, but not the persons mentioned above, are authorities or institutions. For example, a parent company can act as a “third party”. In this case, the subsidiary company is the controller and the parent company is the “third party”. However, this does not mean that the parent company may automatically view, collect or store personal data of the subsidiary.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“restriction of processing” means the marking of stored personal data with the aim of limiting their processing in the future;
Explanation: It is part of your rights that you can ask processors at any time to restrict your personal data for further processing operations. For this purpose, certain personal data such as your name, your date of birth or your address are marked in a way to limit further processing. For example, you could restrict processing to prevent your data from being used for personalised advertising.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“consent” of the data subject means any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her;
Explanation: With websites, such consent is usually given via a cookie consent tool. You’ve most certainly come across these. Whenever you visit a website for the first time, you will usually be asked via a banner whether you agree or consent to the data processing. You can usually also make individual settings and thus decide for yourself which level of data processing you want to allow. If you do not give your consent, no personal data may be processed. Consent can of course also be given in writing, i.e. not via a tool.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“recipient” means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or another body, to which the personal data are disclosed, whether a third party or not. However, public authorities which may receive personal data in the framework of a particular inquiry in accordance with Union or Member State law shall not be regarded as recipients; the processing of those data by those public authorities shall be in compliance with the applicable data protection rules according to the purposes of the processing;
Explanation: Any person or establishment that receives personal data is considered a recipient. We and our processors are therefore also so-called recipients. Only authorities that have an investigation mandate are not considered recipients.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“Data concerning health” means personal data related to the physical or mental health of a natural person, including the provision of health care services, which reveal information about his or her health status;
Explanation: Health data includes all stored information relating to your own health. It is often data that is also noted in patient files. This includes, for example, which medication you are using, X-rays, your entire medical history or your vaccination statuses.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“Cross-border processing” either
a)
processing of personal data which takes place in the context of the activities of establishments in more than one Member State of a controller or processor in the Union where the controller or processor is established in more than one Member State; or
b)
processing of personal data which takes place in the context of the activities of a single establishment of a controller or processor in the Union but which substantially affects or is likely to substantially affect data subjects in more than one Member State.
Explanation: If a company or other organisation e. g. has branches in Spain and Croatia where personal data is processed in connection with the branches’ activities, this constitutes “cross-border processing” of personal data. Even if the data is only processed in one country (as in this example in Spain) but the effects for the data subject are also recognisable in another country, it is also considered “cross-border processing”.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“international organisation” means an organisation and its subordinate bodies governed by public international law, or any other body which is set up by, or on the basis of, an agreement between two or more countries.
Explanation: The best-known examples of international organisations are probably the European Union and the United Nations. In the GDPR, there is a distinction between third countries and international organisations in relation to data transfer. Within the EU, data traffic of personal data does not pose a problem as all EU countries are bound by the provisions of the GDPR. On the other hand, data transfer to third countries or international organisations is subject to certain requirements.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“personenal 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;
Explanation: Personal data is all data that can identify you as a person. This is usually data such as:
According to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), your IP address is also personal data. IT experts can use your IP address to determine at least the approximate location of your device and subsequently your location as the connection owner. Therefore, storing an IP address also requires a legal basis within the scope of the GDPR. There are also so-called “special categories” of personal data, which are particularly worthy of protection. These include:
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“Profiling” means any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyse or predict aspects concerning that natural person’s performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behaviour, location or movements;
Explanation: Profiling collects various personal data about an individual in order to learn more about that individual. On the internet, profiling is often used for advertising purposes or for credit checks. Web and advertising analysis programs e. g. collect data about your behaviour and interests on a website. This results in a special user profile that can be used to target advertising to specific target groups.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“Enterprise” means a natural or legal person engaged in an economic activity, irrespective of its legal form, including partnerships or associations regularly engaged in an economic activity;
Explanation: For example, we are an enterprise and also carry out an economic activity through our website by offering and selling services and/or products. As a formal characteristic, every enterprise has a legal entity such as a GmbH or an AG.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“controller” means the natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data; where the purposes and means of such processing are determined by Union or Member State law, the controller or the specific criteria for its nomination may be provided for by Union or Member State law;
Explanation: In our example, we are responsible for the processing of your personal data and are therefore the “controller”. If we pass on collected data to other service providers for processing, they are considered “contract processors”. For this, a “Data Processing Agreement (DPA)” must be concluded.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“processing” 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, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction;
Note: When we talk about processing in our Privacy Policy, we talk about any type of data processing. As mentioned above in the original GDPR declaration, this includes not only the collection but also the storage and processing of data.
Definition according to Article 4 of the GDPR
For the purposes of this Regulation, the term means:
“representative” means a natural or legal person established in the Union who, designated by the controller or processor in writing pursuant to Article 27, represents the controller or processor with regard to their respective obligations under this Regulation;
Explanation: A “representative” can therefore be any person who has been appointed in writing by us (controller) or one of our service providers (processors). Non-EU companies that process EU citizens’ data must designate a representative within the EU. For example, if a web analytics provider has its headquarters in the United States, it must appoint a “representative” within the European Union to represent its data processing obligations.
Congratulations! If you are reading these lines, you have most likely familiarised yourself with our entire Privacy Policy – or at least scrolled down here. As you can see from the scope of our Privacy Policy, we do not take the protection of your personal data lightly.
We find it important to inform you about the processing of your personal data to the best of our abilities. In doing so, we not only want to tell you which data is processed but also explain to you why we use various software programs. In general, Privacy Policies have very technical and legal jargon. However, since most of you are not web developers or solicitors, we wanted to take a different approach and explain the facts in simple and clear language. Of course, this is not always possible due to the subject matter. Therefore, you can also find a more detailed explanation of the most important terms at the end of the Privacy Policy.
If you have any questions about data protection on our website, please do not hesitate to contact us or the responsible body. We wish you all the best and hope to soon welcome you to our website again.
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