1 What is this privacy policy about?
1.1 MY SERVICE GROUP GmbH (hereinafter also “we”, “us”) obtains and processes personal data concerning you or other persons (so-called “third parties”) in order to carry out the orders placed with us in a high quality and efficient manner. We use the term “data” here synonymously with “personal data” or “personal information”.
1.2 The term “MY GARDENER” refers to MY SERVICE GROUP GmbH.
1.3 “Personal data” refers to data relating to specific or identifiable persons, i.e. it is possible to draw conclusions about their identity on the basis of the data itself or with corresponding additional data. “Particularly sensitive personal data” is a category of personal data that enjoys special protection under applicable data protection law. Section 3 contains information on the data that we process within the scope of this privacy policy. “Processing” means any handling of personal data, e.g. obtaining, storing, using, adapting, disclosing and deleting.
1.4 In this Privacy Policy we describe how we will handle your data when you use www.my-gardener.ch (hereinafter “Website”), purchase our services or products, otherwise engage with us under a contract, communicate with us or otherwise deal with us. Where appropriate, we will provide you with timely written notice of any additional processing activities not mentioned in this Privacy Policy.
1.5 If you provide us with emergency data relating to family members, a partner or other third parties, you assume responsibility towards these persons that we may use this data in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
1.6 This Privacy Policy is designed to meet the requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the Swiss Data Protection Act (“DPA”) and the revised Swiss Data Protection Act (“revDSG”). However, whether and to what extent these laws are applicable depends on the individual case.
2 Who is responsible for processing your data?
MY SERVICE GROUP GmbH in Gossau ZH (“MY GARDENER”) is responsible under data protection law for the data processing described in our privacy policy.
You can contact us as follows for your data protection concerns and to exercise your rights in accordance with section 10:
MY SERVICE GROUP GmbH
Kirchstrasse 26
CH-8625 Gossau ZH
[email protected]
3 What data do we process?
We process various categories of data. The most important categories are as follows:
When you access our website or other electronic offers, we collect the IP address of your end device and other technical data (user accounts, registrations, accesses) in order to ensure their functionality and security. This data also includes logs in which the use of our systems is recorded. We generally store technical data for 6 months. In order to ensure the functionality of these offers, we can also assign you or your end device an individual code (e.g. in the form of a cookie, see section 11). The technical data itself does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about your identity.
The technical data includes, among other things, the IP address and information about the operating system of your end device, the date, region and time of use as well as the type of browser you use to access our electronic offers. This can help us to transmit the correct formatting of the website or, for example, to show you a website adapted to your region. Although we know from the IP address which provider you are using to access our offers (and therefore also the region), we cannot usually deduce who you are from this. This changes if you create a user account, for example, because personal data can then be linked to technical data (e.g. we can see which browser you are using to access an account via our website). Examples of technical data include logs that are generated in our systems (e.g. the log of user logins on our website).
Certain offers, e.g. services (e.g. login areas of our website, newsletter dispatch, etc.) can only be used with a user account or registration, which can be created directly with us or via our external login service providers. We collect data on the use of the offer or service. If you redeem a MY GARDENER voucher with us, we may request certain data from you when you redeem it. If we issue you with a voucher for one of our contractual partners, we may transmit or receive certain of your registration data to the respective contractual partner (see section 6). Registration data is required for access controls to certain areas of our website. As a rule, we retain registration data for 12 months after the end of the use of the service or the termination of the user account.
Registration data includes the information you provide when you create an account on our website (e.g. user name, password, name, e-mail address). However, registration data also includes the data that we may ask you to provide before you can make use of certain free services, such as our WLAN service, in this case: name, e-mail and telephone number; or the redemption of vouchers, in this case: name, address, contact details, time of redemption. You must register if you wish to subscribe to our newsletter. As part of access controls, we may register you with your data (access codes in badges, biometric data for identification)
If you contact us via the contact form, by e-mail, telephone, letter or other means of communication, we collect the data exchanged between you and us, including your contact details and traffic data.
Communication data includes your name and contact details, the manner, place and time of communication and, as a rule, its content (i.e. the content of e-mails, letters, chats, etc.). This data may also contain information about third parties. For the purpose of identification, we may also request your ID number or a password specified by you or your press card. For secure identification, the following mandatory information must be provided for media inquiries: Publisher, name of the publication, title, first name, surname, postal address, e-mail address and telephone number of the reporting person.
Master data refers to the basic data that we use – subject to your consent – in addition to the contract data (see below) for the processing of our contractual and other business relationships or for marketing and advertising purposes, such as name, contact details and information, e.g. about your role and function, customer history, powers of attorney, signature authorizations, etc. Subject to your consent, we process your master data if you are a customer or other business contact or if you work for such a customer (e.g. as a contact person of the business partner, e.g. in the context of marketing and advertising, with invitations to events, with vouchers, with newsletters, etc.). We receive master data from you (e.g. when you make a purchase or register) or from third parties such as our contractual partners, associations and address dealers and from publicly accessible sources such as public registers or the internet (websites, social media, etc.). As a rule, we store this data for 10 years from the last exchange with you, but at least from the end of the contract. This period may be longer if this is necessary for reasons of proof or to comply with legal or contractual requirements or for technical reasons. In the case of pure marketing and advertising contacts, the period is normally much shorter, usually no more than 2 years from the last contact.
The master data includes, for example, data such as name, address, e-mail address, telephone number and other contact details, gender, date of birth, nationality, details of associated persons, websites, photos and videos, copies of ID cards; furthermore, details of your relationship with us (customer, supplier, visitor, service recipient, etc.), details of your status with us, classifications and mailing lists, details of our interactions with you (if applicable, a history of these with corresponding entries), reports (e.g. from the media), information about your relationship with us (e.g. your name, address, e-mail address, telephone number and other contact details). We also collect information about your relationship with us (customer, supplier, visitor, service recipient, etc.), information about your status with us, assignments, classifications and distribution lists, information about our interactions with you (possibly a history of these with corresponding entries), reports (e.g. from the media) or official documents (e.g. extracts from the commercial register, authorizations, etc.). We collect payment details such as your bank details, account number and credit card details, whereby your payment details are deleted immediately. Consent or blocking notices are also part of the master data, as is information about third parties, e.g. contact persons, recipients of services, advertising recipients or representatives.
For contact persons and representatives of our customers, suppliers and partners, we process master data such as name and address, details of role and function in the company and, if applicable, details of superiors, employees and details of interactions with these persons.
Master data is not collected comprehensively for all contacts. Which data we collect in detail depends in particular on the purpose of the processing.
This is data that arises in connection with the conclusion or execution of a contract, e.g. information about contracts and the services to be provided or provided, as well as data from the run-up to the conclusion of a contract, the information required or used to process the contract and information about communications (e.g. complaints or information on satisfaction, etc.). As a rule, we collect this data from you, from contractual partners and from third parties involved in the execution of the contract and from publicly accessible sources. As a rule, we store this data for 10 years from the last contractual activity, but at least from the end of the contract. This period may be longer if this is necessary for reasons of proof or to comply with legal or contractual requirements or for technical reasons.
Contract data includes information about the conclusion of the contract, about contracts, e.g. type and date of conclusion of the contract, information from the application process (such as an application for our products or services) and information about the contract in question (e.g. its duration) and the processing and administration of the contracts (e.g. information in connection with invoicing, customer service, support with technical matters and the enforcement of contractual claims). Contract data also includes information on defects, complaints and adjustments to a contract, as well as information on customer satisfaction, which we can collect e.g. by means of surveys. Contract data also includes financial data such as information on creditworthiness (i.e. information that allows conclusions to be drawn about the likelihood of claims being settled), reminders and debt collection. We receive some of this data from you (e.g. when you make payments), but also from credit agencies and debt collection agencies and from publicly accessible sources (e.g. a commercial register).
Behavioral data is information about certain actions, e.g. about your reaction to electronic communications (e.g. whether and when you opened an email) or about your location as well as about your interaction with our social media profiles and about your participation in competitions, contests and similar events. For example, we may collect your location data when you use our website.
Preference data provides us with information about your needs, which products or services might be of interest to you or when and how you are likely to respond to messages from us. We obtain this information from the analysis of existing data, such as behavioral data, so that we can get to know you better, tailor our advice and offers more precisely to you and generally improve our offers. In order to improve the quality of our analyses, we can link this data with other data that we also obtain from third parties such as address dealers, government agencies and publicly accessible sources such as the Internet, e.g. with information about your purchasing behavior and anonymous information from statistical offices.
Behavioral and preference data can be evaluated on a personal basis (e.g. to show you personalized advertising), but also on a non-personal basis (e.g. for market research or product development). Behavioral and preference data can also be combined with other data (e.g. movement data can be used for contact tracing as part of a health protection concept).
You provide us with much of the data mentioned in this section yourself (e.g. via forms, as part of communication with us, in connection with contracts or when using the website, etc.). You are not obliged to do so, subject to individual cases, e.g. in the context of compliance with legal obligations or compliance with protection concepts in the event of any infectious diseases, etc. If you wish to conclude contracts with us or make use of services, you must also provide us with data as part of your contractual obligation in accordance with the relevant contract, in particular master data, contract data and registration data. When using our website, the processing of technical data is unavoidable. If you wish to gain access to certain systems or buildings, you must provide us with registration data
We will only provide you with certain services if you provide us with your registration data because we or our contractual partners want to know who is using our services or has accepted an invitation to an event, because it is technically necessary or because we want to communicate with you. If you or a person you represent (e.g. your employer) wishes to conclude or fulfill a contract with us, we must collect corresponding master data, contract data and communication data from you, and we process technical data if you wish to use our website or other electronic offers for this purpose. Similarly, we can only send you a response to an inquiry from you if we process the relevant communication data and – if you communicate with us online – technical data where applicable. It is also not possible to use our website without providing us with technical data.
The categories of personal data that we receive about you from third parties include, in particular, information from public registers, information that we learn in connection with official and legal proceedings, information in connection with your professional functions and activities (so that we can, for example to conclude and process transactions with your employer with your help), information about you in correspondence and meetings with third parties, creditworthiness information (insofar as we process transactions with you personally), information about you that people from your environment (family, advisors, legal representatives, etc.) provide to us so that we can conclude or process contracts with you or with your involvement (e.g. references, your address for deliveries, etc.). e.g. references, your address for deliveries, powers of attorney, information on compliance with legal requirements and export restrictions, information from banks, insurance companies and sales and other contractual partners of ours on the use or provision of services by you (e.g. payments, purchases, etc.), information from the media and Internet about your person (insofar as this is appropriate in the specific case, e.g. in the context of an application, marketing, etc.). e.g. in the context of an application, marketing, sales, press review, etc.), your address and, if applicable, interests and other socio-demographic data (in particular for marketing and research) and data in connection with the use of third-party websites and online offers, where this use can be attributed to you.
4 For what purposes do we process your data?
We process your data for the purposes explained below. Further information for the online area can be found in section 11. You will find further information on the legal basis of our processing in section 5.
We process your data for purposes related to communication with you, in particular to respond to inquiries and to contact you in the event of queries. In particular, we use communication and master data and, in connection with offers and services used by you, registration data. We retain this data in order to document our communication with you, for training purposes, for quality assurance and for follow-up questions
This relates to all purposes in connection with which you and we communicate, whether in customer service or consulting, authentication in the event of use of the website or for training and quality assurance (e.g. in the area of customer service). We further process communication data so that we can communicate with you by e-mail and telephone, as well as messenger services, chat, social media, letter and fax. Communication with you usually takes place in connection with other processing purposes, e.g. so that we can provide services or respond to a request for information. Our data processing also serves as proof of communication and its content.
We conclude contracts of various kinds with our business and private customers, with suppliers, subcontractors or other contractual partners, such as partners in projects or with parties in legal disputes. In particular, we process master data, contract data and communication data and, depending on the circumstances, registration data of the customer or the persons to whom the customer provides a service. This includes, for example, the recipients of our products or services who receive vouchers and invitations from our customers and who may become our customers when they redeem them. In this case, we process data to process the contract with these recipients, but also with the contractual partners who have invited them.
As part of the business initiation process, personal data – in particular master data, contract data and communication data – is collected from potential customers or other contractual partners (e.g. in an order form or contract) or results from communication. We also process data in connection with the conclusion of a contract to check creditworthiness and to open a customer relationship. In some cases, this information is checked for compliance with legal requirements.
As part of the processing of contractual relationships, we process data for the administration of the customer relationship, for the provision and collection of contractual services (which also includes the involvement of third parties, such as logistics companies, advertising service providers, banks, insurance companies or credit agencies, which may in turn provide us with data), for consulting and for customer support. The enforcement of legal claims arising from contracts is also part of processing, as are accounting, termination of contracts and public communication.
Subject to your consent, we process data for marketing purposes and to maintain relationships, e.g. to send our customers and other contractual partners personalized advertising about our products and services and those of third parties (e.g. advertising contractual partners). This may take place, for example, in the form of newsletters and other regular contacts (electronically, by post or by telephone), via channels for which we have contact information from you, but also as part of individual marketing campaigns (e.g. events, competitions, etc.). You can refuse such contacts at any time or refuse or revoke your consent to be contacted for advertising purposes. With your consent, we can target our online advertising on the Internet more specifically to you (see section 11).
For example, with your consent, we will send you information, advertising and product offers from us and from third parties within and outside the Group (e.g. advertising contract partners), as printed matter, electronically or by telephone. For this purpose, we mainly process communication and registration data. Like most companies, we personalize communications so that we can provide you with individual information and offers that meet your needs and interests. To do this, we combine data that we process about you and determine preference data and use this data as the basis for personalization (see section 3). We also process data in connection with competitions, prize draws and similar events.
Relationship management also includes addressing existing customers and their contacts on a personalized basis, if necessary based on behavioral and preference data. As part of relationship management, we may also operate a customer relationship management system (“CRM”) in which we store the data on customers, suppliers and other business partners necessary for the relationship management, e.g. about contact persons, relationship history (e.g. about products and services purchased or supplied, interactions, etc.), interests, wishes, marketing measures (newsletters, invitations to events, etc.) and other information.
All of this processing is important for us not only to promote our offers as effectively as possible, but also to make our relationships with customers and other third parties more personal and positive, to focus on the most important relationships and to use our resources as efficiently as possible.
We strive to continuously improve our products and services (including our website) in order to be able to react quickly to changing needs. We therefore analyze, for example, how you navigate through our website or which products are used by which groups of people and in what way, and how new products and services can be designed (for further details, see section 11). This gives us an indication of the market acceptance of existing products and services and the market potential of new products and services. In particular, we process master data, behavioral data and preference data, as well as communication data and information from customer surveys. We use pseudonymized or anonymized data for these purposes.
With your consent, we use non-anonymized location data to inform you of interesting offers and products in the vicinity based on your position, to infer your interests from the location data (dwell time) and to inform you which products and services other contractual partners with similar interests have used
We continuously review and improve the appropriate security of our IT and other infrastructure (e.g. buildings). Like all companies, we cannot rule out data security breaches with absolute certainty, but we do what we can to reduce the risks. We therefore process data, for example, for monitoring, checking, analyzing and testing our networks and IT infrastructures, for system and error checks, for documentation purposes and as part of backup copies. Access controls include controlling access to electronic systems (e.g. logging in to user accounts) as well as physical access control (e.g. access to buildings). For security purposes (preventive and to investigate incidents), we also keep access logs and visitor lists and use surveillance systems (e.g. security cameras). We will inform you of surveillance systems at the relevant locations by means of appropriate signs.
We process personal data to comply with laws, instructions and recommendations from authorities and internal regulations (“compliance”).
This includes, for example, the implementation of health and safety concepts or the legally regulated fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. In certain cases, we may be obliged to make certain inquiries about customers (“Know Your Customer”) or to submit reports to the authorities. The fulfillment of disclosure, information or reporting obligations, e.g. in connection with supervisory and tax obligations, also requires or entails data processing, e.g. the fulfillment of archiving obligations and other legal violations. This also includes the receipt and processing of complaints and other reports, the monitoring of communication, internal investigations or the disclosure of documents to an authority if we have sufficient reason to do so or are legally obliged to do so. Your personal data may also be processed in the event of external investigations, e.g. by a law enforcement or supervisory authority or a commissioned private body. We also process data to support our shareholders and to fulfill our obligations in this regard. For all these purposes, we process in particular your master data, your contract data and communication data and data from the category of other data. The legal obligations may relate to Swiss law, but also to foreign regulations to which we are subject, as well as self-regulation, industry standards, our own corporate governance and official instructions and requests.
For these purposes, we process master data, contract data, registration data and technical data in particular, but also behavioral and communication data. For example, as part of our financial management, we must pay attention to our debtors and creditors, and we must avoid becoming victims of abusive behavior or crimes, which may require the evaluation of data for corresponding patterns. As part of the planning of our resources and organization of our operations, we must evaluate and process data on the use of our services and other offerings or exchange information with others (e.g. outsourcing partners). The same applies to services provided to us by third parties. As part of our corporate development, we may sell or acquire businesses, parts of businesses or companies to or from others or enter into partnerships, which may also lead to the exchange and processing of data (including from you, e.g. as a customer, supplier or supplier representative).
We may process your data for other purposes, e.g. as part of our internal processes and administration.
These other purposes include, for example, training and educational purposes, administrative purposes (such as the management of master data, accounting and data archiving and the testing, management and ongoing improvement of IT infrastructure), the protection of our rights (e.g. to enforce claims in court, in or out of court and before authorities in Switzerland and abroad or to defend ourselves against claims, for example by preserving evidence, legal clarifications and participation in court or official proceedings) and the evaluation and improvement of internal processes. We may use recordings of (video) conferences for training and quality assurance purposes. The protection of other legitimate interests is also one of the other purposes, which cannot be listed exhaustively
5 On what basis do we process your data?
If we ask for your consent for certain processing (e.g. for marketing mailings or for advertising control and analysis on the website), we will inform you separately about the corresponding purposes of processing and evaluating your data. You can withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by sending us written notification (by post) or, unless otherwise stated or agreed, by email; our contact details can be found in section 2. For the withdrawal of your consent in the case of online tracking, see section 11. If you have a user account, you can also withdraw your consent or contact us via the relevant website or other service. Once we have received notification of the withdrawal of your consent, we will no longer process your data for the purposes to which you originally consented, unless we have another legal basis for doing so. The withdrawal of your consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
6. to whom do we disclose your data?
In connection with the conclusion of our contracts and the provision of our services and products and the other purposes listed in section 4, we also transfer your data to third parties, in particular to the following categories of recipients:
We work with suppliers and service providers in Switzerland and abroad who process data about you on our behalf or under joint responsibility with us or who receive data about you from us under their own responsibility.
To enable us to provide our products and services efficiently and focus on our core competencies, we procure services from third parties in numerous areas. These services include, for example, IT services, the dispatch of information, marketing, sales, communication or printing services, the organization and execution of events and receptions, debt collection, credit agencies, address verifiers (e.g. to update address databases when moving) and services from consulting firms, lawyers, banks, insurers and telecommunications companies. We provide these suppliers and service providers with the data required for their services, which may also concern you. In addition, we conclude contracts with these service providers that provide for data protection provisions, unless such protection is required by law. Our service providers may also process data on how their services are used and other data that arises in the course of using their services as independent controllers for their own legitimate interests (e.g. for statistical analysis or billing). The service providers provide information about their independent data processing in their own data protection declarations. Contractual partners including customers: This initially refers to customers (e.g. service recipients) and other contractual partners of ours, because this data transfer arises from these contracts. For example, you receive registration data for vouchers issued and redeemed, invitations, etc. If you work for such a contractual partner yourself, we may also transmit data about you to them in this context. Recipients include other contractual partners with whom we cooperate and thus transmit your data for analysis and marketing purposes (these may in turn be service recipients, but also sponsors and providers of online advertising, for example). We require these partners to only send you advertising or display it based on your data if you have expressly consented to this in advance (for the online area, see section 11). We will be happy to inform you of all our central cooperation partners on request. Our online advertising contract partners are listed in section 11
If you act as an employee for a company with which we have concluded a contract, the processing of this contract may result in us informing the company, for example, how you have used our service. Cooperation and advertising contract partners receive selected master, contract, behavioral and preference data from us so that they can carry out non-personal evaluations in their area (e.g. about the number of our customers who have viewed their advertising) and can also use data for advertising purposes (including targeting you). For example, advertising contract partners should be able to communicate with suitable other customers of ours and send you advertising.
We may pass on personal data to offices and other authorities in Switzerland and abroad in order to enforce and perform the contractually agreed services, provided that you have expressly consented to this disclosure in advance.
Use cases relate to statutory information and cooperation obligations. Data may also be disclosed if we wish to obtain information from public authorities, e.g. to justify an interest in obtaining information or because we need to explain why we require information (e.g. from a register).
This refers to other cases in which the inclusion of third parties arises from the purposes set out in section 4.
Other recipients are, for example, delivery addressees specified by you or third-party payment recipients as well as other third parties, including in the context of agency relationships (e.g. if we send your data to your lawyer or your bank). Subject to your express, prior consent, we will mention your data in our publications or in our cooperation with the media. As part of our corporate development, we may sell or acquire businesses, parts of businesses, assets or companies or enter into partnerships, which may also result in the disclosure of data (including from you, e.g. as a customer or supplier or as a supplier representative) to the persons involved in these transactions. In the course of communication with our competitors, industry organizations, associations and other bodies, data may also be exchanged that also concerns you.
All these categories of recipients may in turn involve third parties, so that your data may also become accessible to them. We can restrict the processing by certain third parties (e.g. IT providers), but not by other third parties (e.g. authorities, banks, etc.).
Subject to your consent, we also allow selected third parties to collect personal data from you on our website and at our events (e.g. media photographers, providers of tools that we have integrated on our website, etc.). If we are involved in this data collection, these third parties are solely responsible for it. If you have any concerns and wish to assert your data protection rights, please contact these third parties directly (see section 11 for the website).
7. will your personal data also be sent abroad?
As explained in section 6, we also disclose data to other bodies. These are not only located in Switzerland. Your data may therefore also be transferred abroad.
If a recipient is located in a country without adequate statutory data protection, we contractually oblige the recipient to comply with the applicable data protection (we use the revised standard contractual clauses of the European Commission, which are available here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?), unless the recipient is already subject to a legally recognized set of rules to ensure data protection and we cannot rely on an exemption clause.
Many countries outside Switzerland, the EU and the EEA do not currently have laws that guarantee an adequate level of data protection from the perspective of the FADP or the GDPR. The contractual precautions mentioned above can partially compensate for this weaker or missing legal protection. However, contractual precautions cannot eliminate all risks (in particular from state access abroad). You should be aware of these residual risks, even if the risk may be low in individual cases and we take further measures (e.g. pseudonymization or anonymization) to minimize it.
Please also note that data exchanged via the Internet is often routed via third countries. Your data may therefore be sent abroad even if the sender and recipient are located in the same country.
8 How long do we process your data?
We process your data for as long as required by our processing purposes, the statutory retention periods and our legitimate interests in processing for documentation purposes or for as long as storage is technically necessary. Further information on the respective storage and processing periods can be found in the individual data categories in section 3 or in the cookie categories in section 11. If there are no legal or contractual obligations to the contrary, we will delete or anonymize your data after the storage or processing period has expired as part of our normal processes.
Documentation and evidence purposes include our interest in documenting processes, interactions and other facts in the event of legal claims, discrepancies, IT and infrastructure security purposes and proof of good corporate governance and compliance. Retention may be required for technical reasons if certain data cannot be separated from other data and we therefore need to retain it with this data (e.g. in the case of backups or document management systems).
9. how do we protect your data?
We take appropriate security measures to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your personal data, to protect it against unauthorized or unlawful processing and to counteract the risks of loss, unintentional alteration, unwanted disclosure or unauthorized access.
Security measures of a technical and organizational nature may include measures such as the encryption of data, logging, access restrictions, the storage of backup copies, instructions to our employees, confidentiality agreements and controls. We protect your data transmitted via our website in transit using suitable encryption mechanisms. However, we can only secure areas that we control. We also oblige our contract processors to take appropriate security measures. However, security risks cannot be completely ruled out, so residual risks are unavoidable
10 What rights do you have?
Under certain circumstances, the applicable data protection law grants you the right to object to the processing of your data.
To make it easier for you to control the processing of your personal data, you also have the following rights in connection with our data processing, depending on the applicable data protection law:
If you wish to exercise your above-mentioned rights with us (or with one of our group companies), please contact us in writing, at our offices or by e-mail; you will find our contact details in section 2. In order for us to rule out misuse, we must identify you (e.g. with a copy of your ID, if this is not otherwise possible).
Please note that these rights are subject to conditions, exceptions or restrictions under the applicable data protection law (e.g. to protect third parties or business secrets). We will inform you accordingly if necessary.
If you do not agree with our handling of your rights or data protection, please let our data controller know. In particular, if you are located in Switzerland, the EEA or the United Kingdom, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the data protection supervisory authority in your country.
11. do we use online tracking and online advertising techniques?
We use various technologies on our website with which we and third parties engaged by us can recognize you when you use our website and, under certain circumstances, track you over several visits. We will inform you about this in this section.
In essence, we want to be able to distinguish between access by you (via your system) and access by other users so that we can ensure the functionality of the website and carry out evaluations and personalization. We do not want to draw conclusions about your identity, even if we can, insofar as we or third parties engaged by us can identify you by combining this with registration data. Even without registration data, however, the technologies used are designed in such a way that you are recognized as an individual visitor each time you visit the site, for example by our server (or the servers of third parties) assigning you or your browser a specific identification number (so-called “cookie”).
Cookies are individual codes (e.g. a serial number) that our server or a server of our service provider or advertising contract partner transmits to your system when you connect to our website and that your system (browser, mobile) receives and stores until the programmed expiry date. Each time you access our website again, your system transmits these codes to our server or the server of the third party. This allows you to be recognized, even if your identity is unknown.
Other techniques can also be used to recognize you with a greater or lesser degree of probability (i.e. to distinguish you from other users), e.g. “fingerprinting”. Fingerprinting combines your IP address, the browser you are using, the screen resolution, language selection and other information that your system communicates to each server, resulting in a more or less unique fingerprint. In this way, cookies can be dispensed with.
Whenever you access a server (e.g. when using a website or an app or because an image is visibly or invisibly integrated in an email), your visits can therefore be “tracked”. If we integrate offers from a contractual advertising partner or provider of an analysis tool on our website, this partner can track you in the same way, even if you cannot be identified in individual cases.
We use such technologies on our website and allow certain third parties to do the same. Depending on the purpose of these techniques, we may ask for your consent in advance. You can access your current settings. You can program your browser to block certain cookies or alternative techniques or to delete existing cookies. You can also add software to your browser that blocks tracking by certain third parties. You can find more information about this on the help pages of your browser (usually under the keyword “data protection”) or on the websites of the third parties listed below.
We use the following cookies (technologies):
Some cookies are necessary for the functioning of the website as such or for certain functions. They ensure, for example, that you can switch between pages without losing information entered in a form. They also ensure that you remain logged in. These cookies are only temporary (“session cookies”). If you block them, the website may not work. Other cookies are necessary so that the server can save decisions or entries made by you beyond a session (i.e. a visit to the website) if you use this function (e.g. selected language, consent given, the function for automatic log-in, etc.). These cookies have an expiry date of up to 24 months. Details can be found on the websites of the third-party providers.
We use cookies to optimize our website and corresponding offers and to better tailor them to the needs of users. We do this through the use of third-party providers. We have listed these below. Before we use such cookies, we ask for your prior consent. Performance cookies also have an expiry date of up to 24 months. Details can be found on the websites of the third-party providers.
We and our advertising contract partners have an interest in targeting advertising precisely, i.e. only displaying it to those we want to address. We have listed our advertising contract partners below. For this purpose, we and our advertising contract partners – if you consent – also use cookies with which the content accessed or contracts concluded can be recorded. Depending on the situation, these cookies expire after a few days or up to 12 months. If you consent to the use of these cookies, you will be shown appropriate advertising. If you do not consent to these cookies, you will not see less advertising, but simply any other advertising.
In addition to marketing cookies, we use other techniques to control online advertising on other websites and thereby reduce wastage. For example, we may transmit the email addresses of our users, customers and other persons to whom we wish to display advertising to operators of advertising platforms (e.g. social media). If these people are registered there with the same email address (which the advertising platforms determine by means of a comparison), the operators will display the advertising we have placed to these people in a targeted manner. The operators do not receive personal email addresses of people who are not already known. In the case of known e-mail addresses, however, they learn that these people are in contact with us and what content they have accessed.
We may also integrate other third-party offers on our website, in particular from social media providers. These offers are deactivated by default. As soon as you activate them (e.g. by clicking a button), the relevant providers can determine that you are on our website. If you have an account with the social media provider, they can assign this information to you and thus track your use of online services. These social media providers process such data on their own responsibility.
We currently use offers from the following service providers and advertising contract partners (insofar as they use data from you or cookies set by you for advertising control):
Google Ireland (based in Ireland) is the provider of the “Google Analytics” service and acts as our Google Ireland relies on Google LLC (based in the USA) as its agent (both “Google”). Google uses performance cookies (see above) to track the behavior of visitors to our website (duration, frequency of pages accessed, geographical origin of access, etc.) and compiles reports for us on the use of our website on this basis. We have configured the service so that the IP addresses of visitors are truncated by Google in Europe before being forwarded to the USA and therefore cannot be traced. We have switched off the “Data sharing” and “Signals” settings. Although we can assume that the information we share with Google is not personal data for Google, it is possible that Google can use this data for its own purposes to draw conclusions about the identity of visitors, create personal profiles and link this data to the Google accounts of these persons. If you agree to the use of Google Analytics, you explicitly consent to such processing, which also includes the transfer of personal data (in particular usage data for the website and app, device information and individual IDs) to the USA and other countries. You can find information on data protection from Google Analytics here https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245 and if you have a Google account, you can find further information on processing by Google here https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites?hl=de
Google Tag Manager ist eine Lösung, mit der wir sog. Website-Tags über eine Oberfläche verwalten können und so z.B. Google Analytics und andere Google-Marketing-Dienste in unser Onlineangebot einbinden können. Der Tag Manager selbst, welcher die Tags implementiert, verarbeitet keine personenbezogenen Daten der Nutzer. Im Hinblick auf die Verarbeitung der personenbezogenen Daten der Nutzer wird auf die folgenden Nutzungsrichtlinien der Google-Dienste verwiesen: https://www.google.com/intl/de/tagmanager/use-policy.html
12 What data do we process on our pages in social networks?
We may operate pages and other online presences (“fan pages”, “channels”, “profiles”, etc.) on social networks and other platforms operated by third parties. We receive this data from you and the platforms when you contact us via our online presence (e.g. when you communicate with us, comment on our content or visit our presences). At the same time, the platforms evaluate your use of our online presence and link this data with other data about you known to the platforms (e.g. about your behavior and preferences). They also process this data for their own purposes under their own responsibility, in particular for marketing and market research purposes (e.g. to personalize advertising) and to control their platforms (e.g. which content they display to you).
We receive data about you when you communicate with us via online presences or view our content on the relevant platforms, visit our online presences or are active on them (e.g. publish content or make comments). These platforms also collect technical data, registration data, communication data, behavioral data and preference data from you or about you (for the terms, see section 3). These platforms regularly statistically evaluate the way in which you interact with us, how you use our online presences, our content or other parts of the platform (what you view, comment on, “like”, share, etc.) and link this data with other information about you (e.g. information on age and gender and other demographic information). In this way, they also create profiles about you and statistics on the use of our online presences. They use this data and profiles to show you our or other advertising and other content on the platform in a personalized way and to control the behavior of the platform, but also for market and user research and to provide us and other parties with information about you and the use of our online presence. We can partially control the evaluations that these platforms create regarding the use of our online presence.
We process this data for the purposes described in section 4, in particular for communication, for marketing purposes (including advertising on these platforms, see section 11) and for market research. You will find information on the relevant legal bases in section 5. We or the operators of the platforms may also delete or restrict content from or about you in accordance with the usage guidelines (e.g. inappropriate comments).
For further information on the processing carried out by the platform operators, please refer to the platforms’ data protection notices. There you can also find out in which countries they process your data, which rights to information, deletion and other rights of data subjects you have and how you can exercise these or obtain further information. We currently use the following platforms:
The controller for the operation of the platform for users from Europe is Facebook Ireland Ltd, Dublin, Ireland. Their privacy policy is available at www.facebook.com/policy. Some of your data will be transferred to the USA. You can opt out of advertising: www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads. We are jointly responsible with Facebook Ireland Ltd, Dublin, Ireland, for the data that is collected and processed when you visit our site for the creation of “Page Insights”. As part of Page Insights, statistics are compiled about what visitors do on our page (comment on posts, forward content, etc.). This is described at www.facebook.com/legal/terms/information_about_page_insights_data. It helps us to understand how our site is used and how we can improve it. We only receive anonymous and aggregated data. We have regulated our responsibilities regarding data protection in accordance with the information on www.facebook.com/legal/terms/page_controller_addendum.
Functions of the Instagram service are integrated on our pages. These functions are offered by Instagram Inc, 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, USA. If you are logged into your Instagram account, you can link the content of our pages to your Instagram profile by clicking on the Instagram button. This allows Instagram to associate your visit to our pages with your user account. We would like to point out that, as the provider of the pages, we have no knowledge of the content of the transmitted data or its use by Instagram. You can find more information on this in Instagram’s privacy policy: http://instagram.com/about/legal/privacy/
This website uses functions of the LinkedIn network. The provider is LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Each time one of our pages containing LinkedIn functions is accessed, a connection to LinkedIn servers is established. LinkedIn is informed that you have visited our website with your IP address. If you click on the LinkedIn “Recommend” button and are logged into your LinkedIn account, LinkedIn is able to associate your visit to our website with you and your user account. We would like to point out that, as the provider of the pages, we have no knowledge of the content of the transmitted data or its use by LinkedIn. Further information on this can be found in LinkedIn’s privacy policy at: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy
This website uses Google Maps API to display geographical information visually. When Google Maps is used, Google also collects, processes and uses data about the use of the map functions by visitors. You can find more information about data processing by Google in the Google privacy policy. You can also change your personal data protection settings there in the data protection center.
13. can this privacy policy be amended?
This privacy policy is not part of any contract with you. We may amend this privacy policy at any time. The version published on this website is the current version
Last update: January 12, 2024
