Privacy Policy

Basics

We take your data protection very seriously and treat your personal data confidentially and in accordance with legal regulations. As new technologies and the constant further development of this website may result in changes to this data protection declaration, we recommend that you read the data protection declaration again at regular intervals.

Personal data (usually referred to just as „data“ below) will only be processed by us to the extent necessary and for the purpose of providing a functional and user-friendly website, including its contents, and the services offered there.

Per Art. 4 No. 1 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, i.e. the General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter referred to as the „GDPR“), „processing“ refers to any operation or set of operations such as collection, recording, organization, structuring, storage, adaptation, alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination, or otherwise making available, alignment, or combination, restriction, erasure, or destruction performed on personal data, whether by automated means or not.

The following privacy policy is intended to inform you in particular about the type, scope, purpose, duration, and legal basis for the processing of such data either under our own control or in conjunction with others. We also inform you below about the third-party components we use to optimize our website and improve the user experience which may result in said third parties also processing data they collect and control.

Our privacy policy is structured as follows:

I. Information about us as controllers of your data
II. The rights of users and data subjects
III. Information about the data processing

I. Information about us as controllers of your data

The party responsible for this website (the „controller“) for purposes of data protection law is:

Ludger Hellerhoff
Bergdriesch 22
52062 Aachen

Contact:

II. The rights of users and data subjects

With regard to the data processing to be described in more detail below, users and data subjects have the right

to confirmation of whether data concerning them is being processed, information about the data being processed, further information about the nature of the data processing, and copies of the data (cf. also Art. 15 GDPR);
to correct or complete incorrect or incomplete data (cf. also Art. 16 GDPR);
to the immediate deletion of data concerning them (cf. also Art. 17 DSGVO), or, alternatively, if further processing is necessary as stipulated in Art. 17 Para. 3 GDPR, to restrict said processing per Art. 18 GDPR;
to receive copies of the data concerning them and/or provided by them and to have the same transmitted to other providers/controllers (cf. also Art. 20 GDPR);
to file complaints with the supervisory authority if they believe that data concerning them is being processed by the controller in breach of data protection provisions (see also Art. 77 GDPR).

In addition, the controller is obliged to inform all recipients to whom it discloses data of any such corrections, deletions, or restrictions placed on processing the same per Art. 16, 17 Para. 1, 18 GDPR. However, this obligation does not apply if such notification is impossible or involves a disproportionate effort. Nevertheless, users have a right to information about these recipients.

Likewise, under Art. 21 GDPR, users and data subjects have the right to object to the controller’s future processing of their data pursuant to Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. In particular, an objection to data processing for the purpose of direct advertising is permissible.

III. Information about the data processing

Your data processed when using our website will be deleted or blocked as soon as the purpose for its storage ceases to apply, provided the deletion of the same is not in breach of any statutory storage obligations or unless otherwise stipulated below.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on our website, you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. This is a convenience feature so that you don’t have to re-enter all of this data when you write another comment. These cookies are stored for one year.

If you have an account and you log in to this site, the system will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, the system will set up some cookies to save your login information and viewing options. Login cookies expire after two days and display options cookies after one year. If you select “stay logged in” when registering, your registration will be maintained for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be deleted.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie contains no personal data and only refers to the post ID of the article you just edited. The cookie expires after one day.

Media

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

Contact

If you contact us via email or the contact form, the data you provide will be used for the purpose of processing your request. We must have this data in order to process and answer your inquiry; otherwise we will not be able to answer it in full or at all.

The legal basis for this data processing is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. b) GDPR.

Your data will be deleted once we have fully answered your inquiry and there is no further legal obligation to store your data, such as if an order or contract resulted therefrom.

Customer account/registration

You have the possibility to register on the website of the controller with the indication of personal data. Which personal data are transmitted to the controller is determined by the respective input mask used for the registration. The personal data entered by the data subject are collected and stored exclusively for internal use by the controller, and for his own purposes. The controller may request transfer to one or more processors (e.g. a parcel service) that also uses personal data for an internal purpose which is attributable to the controller.

By registering on the website of the controller, the IP address—assigned by the Internet service provider (ISP) and used by the data subject—date, and time of the registration are also stored. The storage of this data takes place against the background that this is the only way to prevent the misuse of our services, and, if necessary, to make it possible to investigate committed offenses. Insofar, the storage of this data is necessary to secure the controller. This data is not passed on to third parties unless there is a statutory obligation to pass on the data, or if the transfer serves the aim of criminal prosecution.

The registration of the data subject, with the voluntary indication of personal data, is intended to enable the controller to offer the data subject contents or services that may only be offered to registered users due to the nature of the matter in question. Registered persons are free to change the personal data specified during the registration at any time, or to have them completely deleted from the data stock of the controller (the user name cannot be changed).

The controller shall, at any time, provide information upon request to each data subject as to what personal data are stored about the data subject. In addition, the data controller shall correct or erase personal data at the request or indication of the data subject, insofar as there are no statutory storage obligations. The entirety of the controller’s team are available to the data subject in this respect as contact persons.

If you register for our free newsletter, the data requested from you for this purpose, i.e. your email address and, optionally, your name and address, will be sent to us. We also store the IP address of your computer and the date and time of your registration. During the registration process, we will obtain your consent to receive this newsletter and the type of content it will offer, with reference made to this privacy policy. The data collected will be used exclusively to send the newsletter and will not be passed on to third parties.

The legal basis for this is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a) GDPR.

You may revoke your prior consent to receive this newsletter under Art. 7 Para. 3 GDPR with future effect. All you have to do is inform us that you are revoking your consent or click on the unsubscribe link contained in each newsletter.

User posts, comments, profiles and ratings

We offer you the opportunity to post questions, answers, opinions, and ratings on our website, hereinafter referred to jointly as „posts.“ If you make use of this opportunity, we will process and publish your post, the date and time you submitted it, and any pseudonym you may have used.

The legal basis for this is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a) GDPR. You may revoke your prior consent under Art. 7 Para. 3 GDPR with future effect. All you have to do is inform us that you are revoking your consent.

In addition, we will also process your IP address and email address. The IP address is processed because we might have a legitimate interest in taking or supporting further action if your post infringes the rights of third parties and/or is otherwise unlawful.

In this case, the legal basis is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in any legal defense we may have to mount.

When you write a comment, it is saved indefinitely, including metadata. This way, we can automatically recognize and share follow-up comments instead of keeping them in a moderation queue.

Follow-up comments

If you make posts on our website, we also offer you the opportunity to subscribe to any subsequent follow-up comments made by third parties. In order to be able to inform you about these follow-up comments, we will need to process your email address.

The legal basis for this is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a) GDPR. You may revoke your prior consent to this subscription under Art. 7 Para. 3 GDPR with future effect. All you have to do is inform us that you are revoking your consent or click on the unsubscribe link contained in each email.

SSL or TLS Encryption

For security reasons and to protect the transmission of confidential content, such as orders or inquiries you send to us as the site operator, this page uses SSL or TLS encryption. You can recognize an encrypted connection by the change in the address line of your browser from “http://” to “https://” and by the padlock icon in your browser bar.

When SSL or TLS encryption is activated, the data you transmit to us cannot be read by third parties.

Server data

For technical reasons, the following data sent by your internet browser to us or to our server provider will be collected, especially to ensure a secure and stable website: These server log files record the type and version of your browser, operating system, the website from which you came (referrer URL), the webpages on our site visited, the date and time of your visit, as well as the IP address from which you visited our site.

The data thus collected will be temporarily stored, but not in association with any other of your data.

The basis for this storage is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in the improvement, stability, functionality, and security of our website.

The data will be deleted within no more than seven days, unless continued storage is required for evidentiary purposes. In which case, all or part of the data will be excluded from deletion until the investigation of the relevant incident is finally resolved.

General linking to third-party profiles

The provider includes a link on the website to the social media listed below.

The legal basis for this is Article 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR. The legitimate interest of the provider is to improve the quality of use of the website.

The plugins are integrated via a linked graphic. The user is only forwarded to the service of the respective social media by clicking on the corresponding graphic.

After the customer has been forwarded, information about the user is recorded by the respective social media. This is initially data such as IP address, date, time and page visited. If the user is logged into his/her user account of the respective social media at the same time, the social media operator can, if required, assign the information collected from the user’s specific visit to the user’s personal account. If the user interacts via a “Share” button of the respective social media, this information can be stored in the user’s personal user account and, if required, be published. If the user wants to prevent the collected information from being directly assigned to his/her user account, the user must log out before clicking on the graphic. It is also possible to configure the respective user account accordingly.

The following social media are linked by the provider:

Instagram

Facebook Ireland Limited, 4 Grand Canal Square, Dublin 2, Ireland, a subsidiary of Facebook Inc., 1601 S. California Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA.

LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company, Wilton Plaza, Wilton Place, Dublin 2, Irland, a subsidiary of LinkedIn Corporation, 1000 W. Maude Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94085 USA.

YouTube

Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Irland, a subsidiary of Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA.

GitHub

GitHub, Inc., 88 Colin P Kelly Jr St, San Francisco, CA 94107, United States of America.

X (formerly known as Twitter)

We maintain an online presence on X to present our company and our services and to communicate with customers/prospects. X is a service provided by X Corp., 1355 Market Street, Suite 900, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA.

We would like to point out that this might cause user data to be processed outside the European Union, particularly in the United States. This may increase risks for users that, for example, may make subsequent access to the user data more difficult. We also do not have access to this user data. Access is only available to X.

The privacy policy of X can be found at

https://twitter.com/en/privacy

Google Fonts (Local Hosting)

This website uses Google Fonts for the consistent display of fonts, which are provided by Google. The Google Fonts are locally installed, and no connection to Google’s servers takes place.

For more information about Google Fonts, you can visit https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq and refer to Google’s privacy policy at: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en

Sources

This data policy contains passages and excerpts from:

1.) Model Data Protection Statement for Anwaltskanzlei Weiß & Partner

2.) German Association for Data Protection: Developed by the specialists for LegalTech at Willing & Able that also developed the system for data protection training. The legal texts contained in our privacy policy generator have been provided and published by Prof. Dr. h.c. Heiko Jonny Maniero from the German Association for Data Protection and Christian Solmecke from WBS law.

3.) https://www.e-recht24.de