Data Protection & Privacy Information

General Information

This privacy policy explains the type, scope and purpose of the processing of personal data (hereinafter referred to as “data”) within our online offer and the associated websites, functions and content as well as external online presences, such as our social media profiles (hereinafter collectively referred to as “online offer”). With regard to the terms used, such as “processing” or “controller”, we refer to the definitions in Art. 4 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The protection of your privacy and your data is very important to us. When you use this website and the online store, your personal data is processed by us as the data controller and stored for the duration required to fulfill the specified purposes and legal obligations.

The processing of personal data, such as the name, address, e-mail address or telephone number of a data subject, is carried out in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and in accordance with the applicable country-specific data protection regulations. According to Art. 4 No. 1 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), personal data means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.

The following statement gives you an overview of what type of data is collected, how this data is used and passed on, what security measures we take to protect your data and how you can obtain information about the information provided to us and what rights you can assert.

All data transmitted by you personally is encrypted using the generally accepted and secure TLS (Transport Layer Security) standard. You can recognize a secure TLS connection by the s appended to the http (i.e. https://..) in the address bar of your browser or by the lock symbol at the bottom of your browser.

Responsible for data processing is

NIUB – Sustainability Consulting
Owner Dr. Kerstin Hermuth-Kleinschmidt
Am Neugraben 44
79112 Freiburg
Phone: +49 7664 40 53 160
email: info@niub-nachhaltigkeitsberatung.de

Relevant legal bases

In the following, we inform you of the legal basis of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), on the basis of which we process personal data. Please note that in addition to the provisions of the GDPR, the national data protection regulations in your or our country of residence and domicile may apply. Should more specific legal bases also apply in individual cases, we will inform you of these in the privacy policy.

Consent (Art. 6 para. 1 sentence 1 lit. a GDPR) – The data subject has given their consent to the processing of their personal data for a specific purpose or several specific purposes.

Performance of a contract and pre-contractual inquiries (Art. 6 para. 1 sentence 1 lit. b. GDPR) – Processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract.

Legal obligation (Art. 6 para. 1 sentence 1 lit. c. GDPR) – Processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject.

Legitimate interests (Art. 6 para. 1 sentence 1 lit. f. GDPR) – Processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by the controller or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data.

National data protection regulations in Germany: In addition to the data protection regulations of the General Data Protection Regulation, national data protection regulations apply in Germany. These include, in particular, the Act on the Protection against Misuse of Personal Data in Data Processing (Federal Data Protection Act – BDSG).

Transmission and disclosure of personal data

As part of our processing of personal data, data may be transferred to other bodies, companies, legally independent organizational units or persons or disclosed to them. The recipients of this data may include, for example, payment institutions in the context of payment transactions, service providers commissioned with IT tasks or providers of services and content that are integrated into a website. In such cases, we observe the legal requirements and, in particular, conclude corresponding contracts or agreements with the recipients of your data that serve to protect your data.

Data processing in third countries

If we process data in a third country (i.e. outside the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA)) or if the processing takes place in the context of the use of third-party services or the disclosure or transfer of data to other persons, bodies or companies, this will only take place in accordance with the legal requirements.

Subject to express consent or transfer required by contract or law, we only process or have the data processed in third countries with a recognized level of data protection, including US processors certified under the “Privacy Shield”, or on the basis of special guarantees, such as contractual obligations through so-called standard protection clauses of the EU Commission, the existence of certifications or binding internal data protection regulations (Art. 44 to 49 GDPR, information page of the EU Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/international-dimension-data-protection_de ).

Use of cookies

Cookies are text files that contain data from websites or domains visited and are stored by a browser on the user’s computer. A cookie is primarily used to store information about a user during or after their visit to an online service. The information stored may include, for example, the language settings on a website, the login status, a shopping cart or the location where a video was watched. The term “cookies” also includes other technologies that perform the same functions as cookies (e.g. when user information is stored using pseudonymous online identifiers, also known as “user IDs”)

A distinction is made between the following cookie types and functions

Temporary cookies (also: session or session cookies): Temporary cookies are deleted at the latest after a user has left an online offer and closed their browser.

Permanent cookies: Permanent cookies remain stored even after the browser is closed. For example, the login status can be saved or preferred content can be displayed directly when the user visits a website again. The interests of users that are used to measure reach or for marketing purposes can also be stored in such a cookie.

First-party cookies: First-party cookies are set by us.

Third-party cookies (also: third-party cookies): Third-party cookies are mainly used by advertisers (so-called third parties) to process user information.

Necessary (also: essential or absolutely necessary) cookies: Cookies may be absolutely necessary for the operation of a website (e.g. to save logins or other user input or for security reasons).

Statistical, marketing and personalization cookies: Cookies are also generally used to measure reach and when a user’s interests or behaviour (e.g. viewing certain content, using functions, etc.) on individual websites are stored in a user profile. Such profiles are used, for example, to show users content that corresponds to their potential interests. This process is also referred to as “tracking”, i.e. tracking the potential interests of users. If we use cookies or “tracking” technologies, we will inform you separately in our privacy policy or when obtaining consent.

General information on revocation and objection (opt-out): Depending on whether the processing is based on consent or legal permission, you have the option at any time to revoke any consent you have given or to object to the processing of your data by cookie technologies (collectively referred to as “opt-out”). You can initially declare your objection using your browser settings, e.g. by deactivating the use of cookies (although this may also restrict the functionality of our online offering). An objection to the use of cookies for online marketing purposes can also be declared using a variety of services, especially in the case of tracking, via the websites https://optout.aboutads.info and https://www.youronlinechoices.com/. In addition, you can obtain further information on how to object in the context of the information on the service providers and cookies used.

Processing of personal data and purposes of processing

Contractual and business services: We process data of our contractual and business partners, e.g. customers and interested parties (collectively referred to as “contractual partners”) in the context of contractual and comparable legal relationships and related measures and in the context of communication with the contractual partners (or pre-contractual), e.g. in order to answer inquiries.

We process this data to fulfil our contractual obligations, to safeguard our rights and for the purposes of the administrative tasks associated with this information as well as for business organization. We only pass on the data of the contractual partners to third parties within the framework of the applicable law insofar as this is necessary for the aforementioned purposes or to fulfill legal obligations or with the consent of the contractual partners (e.g. to participating telecommunications, transport and other auxiliary services as well as subcontractors, banks, tax and legal advisors, payment service providers or tax authorities). The contractual partners will be informed about other forms of processing, e.g. for marketing purposes, as part of this privacy policy.

We inform the contractual partners which data is required for the aforementioned purposes before or during data collection, e.g. in online forms, by means of special marking (e.g. colors) or symbols (e.g. asterisks or similar), or personally.

We delete the data after the expiry of statutory warranty and comparable obligations, i.e. generally after 4 years, unless the data is stored in a customer account, e.g. as long as it must be retained for legal archiving reasons (e.g. for tax purposes, generally 10 years). We delete data disclosed to us by the contractual partner as part of an order in accordance with the specifications of the order, generally after the end of the order.

Insofar as we use third-party providers or platforms to provide our services, the terms and conditions and data protection notices of the respective third-party providers or platforms apply in the relationship between the users and the providers.

Economic analyses and market research: For economic reasons and in order to be able to recognize market trends, wishes of contractual partners and users, we analyze the data available to us on business transactions, contracts, inquiries, etc., whereby the group of data subjects may include contractual partners, interested parties, customers, visitors and users of our online offer.

The analyses are carried out for the purpose of business evaluations, marketing and market research (e.g. to determine customer groups with different characteristics). If available, we can take into account the profiles of registered users, including their details, e.g. on services used. The analyses serve us alone and are not disclosed externally, unless they are anonymous analyses with summarized, i.e. anonymized values. Furthermore, we take the privacy of users into consideration and process the data for analysis purposes as pseudonymously as possible and, where feasible, anonymously (e.g. as summarized data).

Provision of the online offering and web hosting: In order to provide our online offering securely and efficiently, we use the services of one or more web hosting providers from whose servers (or servers managed by them) the online offering can be accessed. For these purposes, we may use infrastructure and platform services, computing capacity, storage space and database services as well as security services and technical maintenance services.

The data processed in the context of providing the hosting service may include all information relating to the users of our online service that is generated in the context of use and communication. This regularly includes the IP address, which is necessary in order to be able to deliver the content of online offers to browsers, and all entries made within our online offer or from websites.

Services used and service providers:

STATO AG: Web hosting; Service provider: STATO AG, Pascalstraße 10, 10587 Berlin, Germany; Website: https://www.strato.de; Privacy Policy: https://www.strato.de/datenschutz/

Collection of access data and log files: We ourselves (or our web hosting provider) collect data on every access to the server (so-called server log files). The server log files may include the address and name of the web pages and files accessed, date and time of access, data volumes transferred, notification of successful access, browser type and version, the user’s operating system, referrer URL (the previously visited page) and, as a rule, IP addresses and the requesting provider.

The server log files can be used for security purposes, e.g. to avoid overloading the servers (especially in the event of abusive attacks, so-called DDoS attacks) and to ensure the utilization of the servers and their stability.

Contacting us: When contacting us (e.g. by contact form, email, telephone or via social media), the data of the inquiring persons are processed insofar as this is necessary to answer the contact requests and any requested measures.

The response to contact requests in the context of contractual or pre-contractual relationships is carried out to fulfill our contractual obligations or to respond to (pre)contractual inquiries and otherwise on the basis of the legitimate interests in responding to the inquiries.

Presence in social networks

We maintain online presences within social networks and process user data in this context in order to communicate with the users active there or to offer information about us.

We would like to point out that user data may be processed outside the European Union. This may result in risks for users because, for example, it could make it more difficult to enforce users’ rights. With regard to US providers that are certified under the Privacy Shield or offer comparable guarantees of a secure level of data protection, we would like to point out that they thereby undertake to comply with the data protection standards of the EU.

Furthermore, user data is generally processed within social networks for market research and advertising purposes. For example, user profiles can be created based on user behavior and the resulting interests of users. The user profiles can in turn be used, for example, to place advertisements within and outside the networks that presumably correspond to the interests of the users. For these purposes, cookies are generally stored on the user’s computer, in which the user’s usage behavior and interests are stored. Furthermore, data can also be stored in the user profiles independently of the devices used by the users (especially if the users are members of the respective platforms and are logged in to them).

For a detailed description of the respective forms of processing and the opt-out options, please refer to the data protection declarations and information provided by the operators of the respective networks.

In the case of requests for information and the assertion of data subject rights, we would also like to point out that these can be asserted most effectively with the providers. Only the providers have access to the users’ data and can take appropriate measures and provide information directly. If you still need help, you can contact us.

Services used and service providers:

LinkedIn; service provider: LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company, Wilton Place, Dublin 2, Ireland

Possibility of objection (opt-out): https://www.linkedin.com/psettings/guest-controls/retargeting-opt-out

Xing; service provider: XING SE, Dammtorstrasse 30, 20354 Hamburg, Germany

Deletion of data

The data processed by us will be deleted in accordance with the legal requirements as soon as the consent given for processing is revoked or other permissions no longer apply (e.g. if the purpose for processing this data no longer applies or it is not required for the purpose).

If the data is not deleted because it is required for other and legally permissible purposes, its processing will be restricted to these purposes. This means that the data is blocked and not processed for other purposes. This applies, for example, to data that must be retained for commercial or tax law reasons or whose storage is necessary for the assertion, exercise or defense of legal claims or to protect the rights of another natural or legal person.

Further information on the deletion of personal data can also be found in the individual data protection notices of this privacy policy.

Links to other websites

Our website contains links to content from other providers. These are recognizable by the indication of explicit links, by means of corresponding references in the text or the marking with the arrow symbol. In addition, external links are opened in a separate browser window. The use of this external content may be subject to different regulations than those presented here.

Contact form data

If you would like to use the contact form provided on the website to get in touch with us, we need the data requested in the form to answer your query.

Some data is only collected on a voluntary basis. We use this data exclusively for processing your inquiry and do not pass it on to third parties.

The data entered in the contact form is processed exclusively on the basis of your consent (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR).

You can revoke your consent to the storage of data at any time. The legality of the data processing operations that have already taken place remains unaffected by the revocation.

We will store the data you have provided to us for the purpose of contacting us until you request us to delete it or until legal deadlines permit or require us to delete it.

CentralStationCRM

This website uses CRM software (https://centralstationcrm.de/was-ist-centralstationcrm) to store and process your contact details.

The provider is 42he GmbH, Herderstraße 70, 50931 Cologne, Germany.

CentralStationCRM is a service with which, among other things, customers can be organized and supported. The data you enter for the purpose of contacting us will be stored on CentralStationCRM’s servers in Germany.

If you do not want any further processing by CentralStationCRM, you must inform the operator of this website after you have contacted us.

Data analysis by CentralStationCRM

With the help of CentralStationCRM, we are able to better organize inquiries via our website and respond to them more quickly. CentralStationCRM also enables us to better group our customers and contacts. This allows us to work in a more targeted manner in sales and marketing.

Legal basis

Data processing is based on your consent (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR). You can withdraw this consent at any time. The legality of the data processing operations that have already taken place remains unaffected by the revocation.

Storage period

The data you provide us with for the purpose of contacting us will be stored by us until it is deleted by us.

For more information, please refer to the data protection provisions of CentralStationCRM at: https://centralstationcrm.net/www/privacy

Conclusion of a contract for commissioned data processing

We have concluded a contract with CentralStationCRM in which we oblige CentralStationCRM to protect our customers’ data and not to pass it on to third parties. This contract can be viewed at the following link: https://centralstationcrm.de/avv

Analysis tools and advertising

Google reCAPTCHA

We use “Google reCAPTCHA” (hereinafter referred to as “reCAPTCHA”) on our websites. The provider is Google Inc, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA (“Google”).

The purpose of reCAPTCHA is to check whether the data input on our websites (e.g. in a contact form) is made by a human or by an automated program. For this purpose, reCAPTCHA analyzes the behavior of the website visitor based on various characteristics. This analysis begins automatically as soon as the website visitor enters the website. For the analysis, reCAPTCHA evaluates various information (e.g. IP address, time spent on the website by the website visitor or mouse movements made by the user). The data collected during the analysis is forwarded to Google.

The reCAPTCHA analyses run completely in the background. Website visitors are not informed that an analysis is taking place.

Data processing is carried out on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR. The website operator has a legitimate interest in protecting its website from abusive automated spying and SPAM.

Further information on Google reCAPTCHA and Google’s privacy policy can be found at the following links

https://www.google.com/intl/de/policies/privacy/

https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/android.html

Rights of the data subject

You have the right:

1) in accordance with Art. 7 para. 3 GDPR, to withdraw your consent once given to us at any time. As a result, we may no longer continue the data processing that was based on this consent in the future;

2) to request information about your personal data processed by us in accordance with Art. 15 GDPR. In particular, you can request information about the purposes of processing, the category of personal data, the categories of recipients to whom your data has been or will be disclosed, the planned storage period, the existence of a right to rectification, erasure, restriction of processing or objection, the existence of a right to lodge a complaint, the origin of your data if it was not collected by us, and the existence of automated decision-making including profiling and, if applicable, meaningful information about its details;

3) in accordance with Art. 16 GDPR, to immediately request the correction of incorrect or incomplete personal data stored by us

4) in accordance with Art. 17 GDPR, to request the erasure of your personal data stored by us, unless the processing is necessary for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information, for compliance with a legal obligation, for reasons of public interest or for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims

5) in accordance with Art. 18 GDPR, to demand the restriction of the processing of your personal data if the accuracy of the data is disputed by you, the processing is unlawful, but you refuse to delete it and we no longer need the data, but you need it to assert, exercise or defend legal claims or you have lodged an objection to the processing in accordance with Art. 21 GDPR;

6) in accordance with Art. 20 GDPR, to receive your personal data that you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format or to request that it be transmitted to another controller

7) pursuant to Art. 21 GDPR, the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, at any time to processing of personal data concerning you which is based on Article 6(1)(e) GDPR (data processing in the public interest) and Article 6(1)(f) GDPR (data processing on the basis of a balancing of interests); this also applies to profiling based on this provision of Article 4(4) GDPR. If you object, we will no longer process your personal data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing serves the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.

If you object to the processing of data for the purpose of direct marketing, we will cease processing immediately. In this case, it is not necessary to specify a particular situation. This also applies to profiling insofar as it is associated with such direct advertising. If you wish to exercise your right to object, simply send an email to info@niub-nachhaltigkeitsberatung.de;

8) to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority in accordance with Art. 77 GDPR. As a rule, you can contact the supervisory authority of your usual place of residence or workplace or our company headquarters.

Changing and updating the privacy policy

We ask you to inform yourself regularly about the content of our privacy policy. We will amend the privacy policy as soon as changes to the data processing carried out by us make this necessary. We will inform you as soon as the changes require an act of cooperation on your part (e.g. consent) or other individual notification.

If we provide addresses and contact information of companies and organizations in this privacy policy, please note that the addresses may change over time and please check the information before contacting us.