General Information

The responsible entity within the meaning of Article 4, Sentence 7 of the GDPR is the operator of this website as specified in the imprint.

The following information provides a simple overview of what happens to your personal data when you visit our website.

Terminology

Personal Data

Personal data includes all information that relates to an identified or identifiable natural person (hereinafter referred to as the "data subject"); an identifiable natural person is one who can be directly or indirectly identified. It is sufficient to link to an identifier such as a name or pseudonym, an identification number, location data, or an online identifier. Special characteristics for identification, such as the expression of physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural, or social identity, are also sufficient.

This includes, for example, name, address, telephone number, email address, but also the IP address, even if it can only be indirectly or temporarily assigned to a specific person.

A distinction is also made between personal data that is necessary for the establishment and content-related design or modification of the legal relationship (inventory data) and personal data about the use of websites (usage data).

Hyperlinks and External References

Hyperlinks, colloquially referred to as links or references, represent cross-references within a document and are essentially equivalent to citations in a printed document. However, unlike in a book, you can access these cross-references by clicking on the link. Such references are typical in a web document like this one. The references can link multiple documents and web pages from various providers. In their entirety, these references reflect the World Wide Web (WWW). A distinction is made between internal references and external references. Internal references link multiple text passages or documents under one domain, while external references lead to domains, websites, and servers of other providers.

Different privacy regulations may apply on other web servers. You can recognize whether a reference to an external website exists by taking a closer look at the link. You can view the destination of the reference through your browser. Please refer to your browser's instructions for this; in many web browsers, you can simply hover your mouse over the link without clicking on it to see the target.

Embedding External Content

Sometimes it may be convenient to embed content from other websites into our design. You will then see different content within our design. Technically, this is done through an IFrame/Inlineframe. This displays other web content as independent documents in a defined area of the browser, with the browser address bar showing only the address of the surrounding page. Our website is displayed as a technical frame, but the content comes from another server. This is useful, for example, when retrieving videos hosted by other providers such as Youtube or Vimeo.

Technically, this transfers usage data to the third-party provider. You can find out what data they use for other purposes in the privacy policy of the respective provider.

Data Processing

Usage Data

When you first access our website, your web browser automatically transfers usage data to our web server. This is necessary for our web server to display the webpage on your web browser. These usage data are present in the HTTP/S header, are automatically sent by you, and are used during the duration of your visit to the page. They include, among other things:

• The name of the accessed webpage or file
• The date and time of the access
• The time zone difference to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT),
• The amount of data transmitted,
• A message about the successful retrieval (access status/HTTP status code)
• The browser type, including version and language, and the operating system
• The referrer URL (previously visited page),
• The IP address and the requesting provider

Further information about the HTTP header can be found in Wikipedia as well as in the RFC 2616 specification, specifically in Chapter 14. The aforementioned data serve the following purposes:

• Technical connection establishment of the website
• Evaluation of system security and stability
• Administrative purposes

The legal basis for this data processing is Article 6, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1, lit. f) of the GDPR. Our legitimate interest arises from the purposes of data collection listed above. We do not use the collected data to draw conclusions about your person.

Data Collection When Contacting Us

You can contact us via our website's contact form, as well as by phone, fax, email, and other communication methods. Your information is voluntary. With your voluntary information, we also process the time of the request and, for technical reasons, your usage data sent in connection with the communication method, such as phone number or email address.

The data collected are used for individual communication with you, for contract initiation or execution. The personal data collected for the use of the contact form will be deleted after processing your request, but no later than the expiry of the statutory retention periods.

The data collected are used for individual communication with you, for contract initiation or execution. The personal data collected for the use of the contact form will be deleted after processing your request, but no later than the expiry of the statutory retention periods.

Please note in connection with emails: Despite our comprehensive technical and organizational measures to protect your data, email communication has security vulnerabilities. If you want to transmit confidential information, we recommend using an encrypted transmission method, such as PGP or S/MIME.

Storage of Cookies

A cookie is a small data file that contains a string and is generated and stored on your end device (e.g., desktop PC, smartphone, or tablet) during your visit to our website. A cookie can only contain the information that we send to your client; it cannot read further data from your device. These cookies allow your end device to be recognized – but not the user directly.

So-called session cookies contain a randomly generated, unique identification number. With this, our server can recognize which pages of the website the user has already visited during the respective "session." They are usually automatically deleted after the session ends. Alternatively, the session ID can be stored on the server or transferred in the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). Unlike session cookies, temporary cookies are stored on the client for a specific period of time. A previous visit to the website is recognized based on the temporary cookie, and previous settings are retained.

Cookies serve the purpose of customizing the use of the website and the user profile. This means that settings that have already been made do not need to be entered again during a subsequent visit. However, they can also be used to statistically record the use of the website and evaluate it for optimization purposes. The number of visitors to our website and the frequency of access to individual pages provide information about whether there may be future interest in similar content.

The legal basis is Article 6, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1, lit. f) of the GDPR. The data processed by cookies are required for the user-specific design of the website and for its optimization. Overriding interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of third parties are not apparent. The use of cookies can be restricted and prevented entirely in the security settings of your browser (such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari). Cookies can be deleted at any time. Information on this can be found in the user guides of your browser. Some cookies are only stored with your explicit consent; in these cases, the legal basis is Article 6, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1, lit. a) of the GDPR.

Data Transmission to Third Parties

We process and transmit your personal data to third parties only under the following conditions:

• You have given your consent, Article 6, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1, lit. a) of the GDPR.
• The transmission is necessary for the performance of a contract or for contract initiation, Article 6, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1, lit. b) of the GDPR.
• There is a legal obligation to which we are subject, Article 6, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1, lit. c) of the GDPR.

We process and transmit your personal data to third parties only under the following conditions:

The processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller, if such authority has been conferred, Article 6, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1, lit. e) of the GDPR.

Google Web Fonts

To achieve a uniform representation of fonts, we use so-called web fonts provided by Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA. When you visit a page, your browser loads the web fonts into your browser cache to display texts and fonts correctly. For this purpose, the browser you use establishes a connection to Google's servers, which allows Google to receive usage data. The legal basis is Article 6, Paragraph 1, lit. f GDPR.

If your browser does not support web fonts, a default font will be used on your computer.

You can find more information about Google Web Fonts at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq and in Google's privacy policy: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/

Google Maps

This site uses the Google Maps map service, a service provided by Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA.

For technical reasons, usage data, including your IP address, is transferred to a Google server in the USA when using the map service. We have no influence on this data transfer.

The use of Google Maps serves the purpose, and thus our legitimate interest, of providing you with a simple map representation to describe the way to us. For this purpose, we have integrated the map service.

The legal basis for this legitimate interest in data processing is Article 6, Paragraph 1, lit. f) of the GDPR.

You can find more information about how Google handles user data in Google's privacy policy: https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy/

Rights as a Data Subject

Data Subjects have the right to:

• Request information about the personal data we process, Article 15 of the GDPR. This includes information about the purposes of processing, the categories of personal data, the categories of recipients to whom data has been or will be disclosed, the planned storage duration, the existence of a right to rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, or objection, the existence of a right to lodge a complaint, the source of the data if it was not collected from the data subject, and, if applicable, information about the existence of automated decision-making, including profiling, and meaningful information about its details;
• Promptly request the correction of incorrect or incomplete personal data stored by us, Article 16 of the GDPR;
• Request the deletion of personal data stored by us, unless processing is necessary for the exercise of the right to freedom of expression and information, for the performance of a legal obligation, for reasons of public interest, or for the assertion, exercise, or defense of legal claims, Article 17 of the GDPR;
• Request the restriction of processing of personal data if the accuracy of the data is contested, the processing is unlawful, the data subject opposes their erasure, and we no longer need the data, but the data subject requires them for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims, or if the data subject has objected to processing pursuant to Article 21 of the GDPR, Article 18 of the GDPR;
• Receive the personal data provided by the data subject to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format or to request their transmission to another controller, Article 20 of the GDPR;
• Withdraw consent given at any time. This shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal, Article 7, Paragraph 3 of the GDPR; and
• Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, Article 77 of the GDPR. Generally, data subjects can contact the supervisory authority of their habitual residence or place of work or our place of business. The competent supervisory authority is the State Commissioner for Data Protection of the federal state in which we are based. You can find their contact details at the following external link: https://www.bfdi.bund.de/DE/Infothek/Anschriften_Links/anschriften_links-node.html

In the case of processing personal data based on legitimate interests according to Article 6, Paragraph 1, Sentence 1, lit. f) of the GDPR, data subjects have the right to object. They can object to the processing of their personal data. There must be reasons arising from their particular situation or the objection must be directed against direct marketing, Article 21 of the GDPR. In the latter case, data subjects have a general right to object that is implemented without specifying a particular situation.

Technical Measures

Data Retrieval Security

For data transmission security, we use a protocol known as TLS/SSL encryption. TLS stands for Transport Layer Security; it is also known by the abbreviation SSL for Secure Sockets Layer. You can access the website securely by adding the abbreviation https:// before the domain, such as https://. In most browsers, you can recognize the encryption by a symbolized padlock in the browser bar. Please refer to your web browser's documentation for more information.

Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (https) is a technical communication protocol on the Internet for the secure transmission of data. It stands for "Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol" in English. It is used for retrieving electronic hypertext documents, commonly known as web pages, on the World Wide Web (www) or simply the web.