4.2. Contact form

If you submit inquiries to us via our contact form, the information provided in the contact form as well as any contact information provided therein will be stored by us in order to handle your inquiry and in the event that we have further questions. We will not share this information without your consent.

The processing of these data is based on Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b GDPR, if your request is related to the execution of a contract or if it is necessary to carry out pre-contractual measures. In all other cases the processing is based on our legitimate interest in the effective processing of the requests addressed to us (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f GDPR) or on your agreement (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a GDPR) if this has been requested.

The information you have entered into the contact form shall remain with us until you ask us to eradicate the data, revoke your consent to the archiving of data or if the purpose for which the information is being archived no longer exists (e.g., after we have concluded our response to your inquiry). This shall be without prejudice to any mandatory legal provisions, in particular retention periods.

4.3. Request by e-mail, telephone, or fax

If you contact us by e-mail, telephone or fax, your request, including all resulting personal data (name, request) will be stored and processed by us for the purpose of processing your request. We do not pass these data on without your consent.

These data are processed on the basis of Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. b GDPR if your inquiry is related to the fulfillment of a contract or is required for the performance of pre-contractual measures. In all other cases, the data are processed on the basis of our legitimate interest in the effective handling of inquiries submitted to us (Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. f GDPR) or on the basis of your consent (Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. a GDPR) if it has been obtained.

The data sent by you to us via contact requests remain with us until you request us to delete, revoke your consent to the storage or the purpose for the data storage lapses (e.g. after completion of your request). Mandatory statutory provisions - in particular statutory retention periods - remain unaffected.

5. Analysis tools and advertising

Google Tag Manager

We use the Google Tag Manager. The provider is Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland

The Google Tag Manager is a tool that allows us to integrate tracking or statistical tools and other technologies on our website. The Google Tag Manager itself does not create any user profiles, does not store cookies, and does not carry out any independent analyses. It only manages and runs the tools integrated via it. However, the Google Tag Manager does collect your IP address, which may also be transferred to Google’s parent company in the United States.

The Google Tag Manager is used on the basis of Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. The website operator has a legitimate interest in the quick and uncomplicated integration and administration of various tools on his website. If the relevant consent has been requested, the processing is carried out exclusively on the basis of Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR; the consent can be revoked at any time.

Google Analytics

This website uses functions of the web analysis service Google Analytics. The provider of this service is Google Ireland Limited (“Google”), Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland.

Google Analytics enables the website operator to analyze the behavior patterns of website visitors. To that end, the website operator receives a variety of user data, such as pages accessed, time spent on the page, the utilized operating system and the user’s origin. Google may consolidate these data in a profile that is allocated to the respective user or the user’s device.

Google Analytics uses technologies that make the recognition of the user for the purpose of analyzing the user behavior patterns (e.g., cookies or device fingerprinting). The website use information recorded by Google is, as a rule transferred to a Google server in the United States, where it is stored.

This analysis tool is used on the basis of Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. f GDPR. The operator of this website has a legitimate interest in the analysis of user patterns to optimize both, the services offered online and the operator’s advertising activities. If a corresponding agreement has been requested (e.g., an agreement to the storage of cookies), the processing takes place exclusively on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR; the agreement can be revoked at any time.

Data transmission to the US is based on the Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) of the European Commission. Details can be found here: https://privacy.google.com/businesses/controllerterms/mccs/.

IP anonymization

On this website, we have activated the IP anonymization function. As a result, your IP address will be abbreviated by Google within the member states of the European Union or in other states that have ratified the Convention on the European Economic Area prior to its transmission to the United States. The full IP address will be transmitted to one of Google’s servers in the United States and abbreviated there only in exceptional cases. On behalf of the operator of this website, Google shall use this information to analyze your use of this website to generate reports on website activities and to render other services to the operator of this website that are related to the use of the website and the Internet. The IP address transmitted in conjunction with Google Analytics from your browser shall not be merged with other data in Google’s possession.

Browser plug-in

You can prevent the recording and processing of your data by Google by downloading and installing the browser plugin available under the following link: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.

For more information about the handling of user data by Google Analytics, please consult Google’s Data Privacy Declaration at: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en.

Contract data processing

We have executed a contract data processing agreement with Google and are implementing the stringent provisions of the German data protection agencies to the fullest when using Google Analytics.

Demographic parameters provided by Google Analytics

This website uses the “demographic characteristics” function of Google Analytics, to be able to display to the website visitor compatible ads within the Google advertising network. This allows reports to be created that contain information about the age, gender, and interests of the website visitors. The sources of this information are interest-related advertising by Google as well as visitor data obtained from third-party providers. This data cannot be allocated to a specific individual. You have the option to deactivate this function at any time by making pertinent settings changes for advertising in your Google account or you can generally prohibit the recording of your data by Google Analytics as explained in section “Objection to the recording of data”.

Archiving period

Data on the user or incident level stored by Google linked to cookies, user IDs or advertising IDs (e.g., DoubleClick cookies, Android advertising ID) will be anonymized or deleted after 26 month. For details, please click the following link: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/7667196?hl=en

Matomo (formerly called Piwik)

This website uses the open-source web analysis service Matomo. Matomo uses technologies that make it possible to recognize the user across multiple pages with the aim of analyzing the user patterns (e.g. cookies or device fingerprinting). The information recorded by Matomo about the use of this website will be stored on our server. Prior to archiving, the IP address will first be anonymized.

Through Matomo, we are able to collect and analyze data on the use of our website-by-website visitors. This enables us to find out, for instance, when which page views occurred and from which region they came. In addition, we collect various log files (e.g. IP address, referrer, browser, and operating system used) and can measure whether our website visitors perform certain actions (e.g. clicks, purchases, etc.).

The use of this analysis tool is based on Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. f GDPR. The website operator has a legitimate interest in the analysis of user patterns, in order to optimize the operator’s web offerings and advertising. If a corresponding agreement has been requested (e.g. an agreement to the storage of cookies), the processing takes place exclusively on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR; the agreement can be revoked at any time.

IP anonymisierung

For analysis with Matomo we use IP anonymization. Your IP address is shortened before the analysis, so that it is no longer clearly assignable to you.

Hosting

We host Matomo with the following third-party provider:

Weber eBusiness Service GmbH
Bahnhofstr. 16
72336 Balingen

Leadinfo
We use the lead generation service of Leadinfo B.V., Rotterdam, Netherlands. This recognizes visits by companies to our website on the basis of IP addresses and shows us publicly available information for this purpose, such as company names or addresses. In addition, Leadinfo sets two first-party cookies to evaluate user behavior on our website and processes domains from form entries (e.g. "leadinfo.com") to correlate IP addresses with companies and improve the services. For more information, please visit www.leadinfo.com. On this page: www.leadinfo.com/en/opt-out you have an opt-out option. If you opt-out, your information will no longer be collected by Leadinfo.

Google Conversion-Tracking

This website uses Google Conversion Tracking. The provider of this service is Google Ireland Limited (“Google”), Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland.

With the assistance of Google Conversion Tracking, we are in a position to recognize whether the user has completed certain actions. For instance, we can analyze the how frequently which buttons on our website have been clicked and which products are reviewed or purchased with particular frequency. The purpose of this information is to compile conversion statistics. We learn how many users have clicked on our ads and which actions they have completed. We do not receive any information that would allow us to personally identify the users. Google as such uses cookies or comparable recognition technologies for identification purposes.

We use Google Conversion Tracking on the basis of Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. et seq. GDPR. The operator of the website has a legitimate interest in the analysis of the user patterns with the aim of optimizing both, the operator’s web presentation and advertising. If a respective declaration of consent was requested (e.g., concerning the storage of cookies), processing shall occur exclusively on the basis of Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. a GDPR; the given consent may be revoked at any time.

For more information about Google Conversion Tracking, please review Google’s data protection policy at: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en

6. Newsletter

Newsletter data

If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter offered on this website, we will need from you an e-mail address as well as information that allow us to verify that you are the owner of the e-mail address provided, and consent to the receipt of the newsletter. No further data shall be collected or shall be collected only on a voluntary basis. We shall use such data only for the sending of the requested information and shall not share such data with any third parties.

The processing of the information entered into the newsletter subscription form shall occur exclusively on the basis of your consent (Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. a GDPR). You may revoke the consent you have given to the archiving of data, the e-mail address and the use of this information for the sending of the newsletter at any time, for instance by clicking on the “Unsubscribe” link in the newsletter. This shall be without prejudice to the lawfulness of any data processing transactions that have taken place to date.

The data deposited with us for the purpose of subscribing to the newsletter will be stored by us until you unsubscribe from the newsletter or the newsletter service provider and deleted from the newsletter distribution list after you unsubscribe from the newsletter or after the purpose has ceased to apply. We reserve the right to delete or block e-mail addresses from our newsletter distribution list at our own discretion within the scope of our legitimate interest in accordance with Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR.

After you unsubscribe from the newsletter distribution list, your e-mail address may be stored by us or the newsletter service provider in a blacklist to prevent future mailings. The data from the blacklist is used only for this purpose and not merged with other data. This serves both your interest and our interest in complying with the legal requirements when sending newsletters (legitimate interest within the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR). The storage in the blacklist is indefinite. You may object to the storage if your interests outweigh our legitimate interest.

CleverReach

This website uses CleverReach for the sending of newsletters. The provider is the CleverReach GmbH & Co. KG, Schafjückenweg 2, 26180 Rastede, Germany (hereinafter “CleverReach”). CleverReach is a service that can be used to organize and analyze the sending of newsletters. The data you have entered for the purpose of subscribing to our newsletter (e.g., e-mail address) are stored on servers of CleverReach in Germany or in Ireland.

Newsletters we send out via CleverReach allow us to analyze the user patterns of our newsletter recipients. Among other things, in conjunction with this, it is possible how many recipients actually opened the newsletter e-mail and how often which link inside the newsletter has been clicked. With the assistance of a tool called Conversion Tracking, we can also determine whether an action that has been predefined in the newsletter actually occurred after the link was clicked (e.g., purchase of a product on this website). For more information on the data analysis services by CleverReach newsletters, please go to: https://www.cleverreach.com/en/features/reporting-tracking/.

The data is processed based on your consent (Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. a GDPR).  You may revoke any consent you have given at any time by unsubscribing from the newsletter. This shall be without prejudice to the lawfulness of any data processing transactions that have taken place prior to your revocation.

If you do not want to permit an analysis by CleverReach, you must unsubscribe from the newsletter. We provide a link for you to do this in every newsletter message.

The data deposited with us for the purpose of subscribing to the newsletter will be stored by us until you unsubscribe from the newsletter or the newsletter service provider and deleted from the newsletter distribution list after you unsubscribe from the newsletter. Data stored for other purposes with us remain unaffected.

After you unsubscribe from the newsletter distribution list, your e-mail address may be stored by us or the newsletter service provider in a blacklist to prevent future mailings. The data from the blacklist is used only for this purpose and not merged with other data. This serves both your interest and our interest in complying with the legal requirements when sending newsletters (legitimate interest within the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR). The storage in the blacklist is indefinite. You may object to the storage if your interests outweigh our legitimate interest.

For more details, please consult the Data Protection Provisions of CleverReach at: https://www.cleverreach.com/en/privacy-policy/.

7. Plug-ins and Tools

YouTube with expanded data protection integration

Our website embeds videos of the website YouTube. The website operator is Google Ireland Limited (“Google”), Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland.

We use YouTube in the expanded data protection mode. According to YouTube, this mode ensures that YouTube does not store any information about visitors to this website before they watch the video. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that the sharing of data with YouTube partners can be ruled out as a result of the expanded data protection mode. For instance, regardless of whether you are watching a video, YouTube will always establish a connection with the Google DoubleClick network.

As soon as you start to play a YouTube video on this website, a connection to YouTube’s servers will be established. As a result, the YouTube server will be notified, which of our pages you have visited. If you are logged into your YouTube account while you visit our site, you enable YouTube to directly allocate your browsing patterns to your personal profile. You have the option to prevent this by logging out of your YouTube account.

Furthermore, after you have started to play a video, YouTube will be able to place various cookies on your device or comparable technologies for recognition (e.g. device fingerprinting). In this way YouTube will be able to obtain information about this website’s visitors. Among other things, this information will be used to generate video statistics with the aim of improving the user friendliness of the site and to prevent attempts to commit fraud.

Under certain circumstances, additional data processing transactions may be triggered after you have started to play a YouTube video, which are beyond our control.

The use of YouTube is based on our interest in presenting our online content in an appealing manner. Pursuant to Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. f GDPR, this is a legitimate interest. If a corresponding agreement has been requested, the processing takes place exclusively on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR; the agreement can be revoked at any time.

For more information on how YouTube handles user data, please consult the YouTube Data Privacy Policy under: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en.

Google Web Fonts (local embedding)

This website uses so-called Web Fonts provided by Google to ensure the uniform use of fonts on this site. These Google fonts are locally installed so that a connection to Google’s servers will not be established in conjunction with this application.

For more information on Google Web Fonts, please follow this link: https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq and consult Google’s Data Privacy Declaration under: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en.

8. eCommerce and payment service providers

Processing of data (customer and contract data)

We collect, process, and use personal data only to the extent necessary for the establishment, content organization or change of the legal relationship (data inventory). These actions are taken on the basis of Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. b GDPR, which permits the processing of data for the fulfilment of a contract or pre-contractual actions. We collect, process, and use personal data concerning the use of this website (usage data) only to the extent that this is necessary to make it possible for users to utilize the services and to bill for them.

The collected customer data shall be eradicated upon completion of the order or the termination of the business relationship. This shall be without prejudice to any statutory retention mandates.

9. Online-based Audio and Video Conferences (Conference tools)

Data processing

We use online conference tools, among other things, for communication with our customers. The tools we use are listed in detail below. If you communicate with us by video or audio conference using the Internet, your personal data will be collected and processed by the provider of the respective conference tool and by us. The conferencing tools collect all information that you provide/access to use the tools (email address and/or your phone number). Furthermore, the conference tools process the duration of the conference, start and end (time) of participation in the conference, number of participants and other “context information” related to the communication process (metadata).

Furthermore, the provider of the tool processes all the technical data required for the processing of the online communication. This includes, in particular, IP addresses, MAC addresses, device IDs, device type, operating system type and version, client version, camera type, microphone or loudspeaker and the type of connection.

Should content be exchanged, uploaded, or otherwise made available within the tool, it is also stored on the servers of the tool provider. Such content includes, but is not limited to, cloud recordings, chat/ instant messages, voicemail uploaded photos and videos, files, whiteboards, and other information shared while using the service.

Please note that we do not have complete influence on the data processing procedures of the tools used. Our possibilities are largely determined by the corporate policy of the respective provider. Further information on data processing by the conference tools can be found in the data protection declarations of the tools used, and which we have listed below this text.

Purpose and legal bases

The conference tools are used to communicate with prospective or existing contractual partners or to offer certain services to our customers (Art. 6 para. 1 sentence 1 lit. b GDPR). Furthermore, the use of the tools serves to generally simplify and accelerate communication with us or our company (legitimate interest in the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR). Insofar as consent has been requested, the tools in question will be used on the basis of this consent; the consent may be revoked at any time with effect from that date.

Duration of storage

Data collected directly by us via the video and conference tools will be deleted from our systems immediately after you request us to delete it, revoke your consent to storage, or the reason for storing the data no longer applies. Stored cookies remain on your end device until you delete them. Mandatory legal retention periods remain unaffected.

We have no influence on the duration of storage of your data that is stored by the operators of the conference tools for their own purposes. For details, please directly contact the operators of the conference tools.

Conference tools used

We employ the following conference tools:

TeamViewer

We use TeamViewer. The provider is TeamViewer Germany GmbH, Jahnstr. 30, 73037 Göppingen. Details about data processing can be found in the TeamViewer privacy policy: https://www.teamviewer.com/en/privacy-policy/.

Microsoft Teams

We use Microsoft Teams. The provider is Microsoft Corporation, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399, USA. For details on data processing, please refer to the Microsoft Teams privacy policy: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement.

10. Custom Services

Job Applications

We offer website visitors the opportunity to submit job applications to us (e.g., via e-mail, via postal services on by submitting the online job application form). Below, we will brief you on the scope, purpose and use of the personal data collected from you in conjunction with the application process. We assure you that the collection, processing and use of your data will occur in compliance with the applicable data privacy rights and all other statutory provisions and that your data will always be treated as strictly confidential.

Scope and purpose of the collection of data

If you submit a job application to us, we will process any affiliated personal data (e.g., contact and communications data, application documents, notes taken during job interviews, etc.), if they are required to make a decision concerning the establishment or an employment relationship. The legal grounds for the aforementioned are § 26 New GDPR according to German Law (Negotiation of an Employment Relationship), Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. b GDPR (General Contract Negotiations) and – provided you have given us your consent – Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. a GDPR. You may revoke any consent given at any time. Within our company, your personal data will only be shared with individuals who are involved in the processing of your job application.

If your job application should result in your recruitment, the data you have submitted will be archived on the grounds of § 26 New GDPR and Art. 6 Sect. 1 lit. b GDPR for the purpose of implementing the employment relationship in our data processing system.

Data Archiving Period

If we are unable to make you a job offer or you reject a job offer or withdraw your application, we reserve the right to retain the data you have submitted on the basis of our legitimate interests (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR) for up to 6 months from the end of the application procedure (rejection or withdrawal of the application). Afterwards the data will be deleted, and the physical application documents will be destroyed. The storage serves in particular as evidence in the event of a legal dispute. If it is evident that the data will be required after the expiry of the 6-month period (e.g., due to an impending or pending legal dispute), deletion will only take place when the purpose for further storage no longer applies.

Longer storage may also take place if you have given your agreement (Article 6 (1) (a) GDPR) or if statutory data retention requirements preclude the deletion.