Data Protection Policy

When visiting the website

You may access our website without having to disclose any details of your identity. The browser installed on your terminal device automatically transmits information to the server of our website (e.g. browser type and version, date and time of access) to enable connection with the website, including the IP address of your requesting terminal device. This information is temporarily stored in a so-called log file and deleted after no more than 30 days.

Your IP address is processed for technical and administrative purposes regarding connection set-up and stability, to guarantee the security and functioning of our website and to be able to track any illegal attacks on the website, if required.

The legal basis for processing the IP address is Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR. Our legitimate interest ensues from said security interest and the necessity of the unobstructed availability of our website.

We cannot draw any direct conclusions about your identity from processing the IP address and other information in the log file.

Moreover, we use cookies when you visit our website. Further details can be found further below in this data protection information.

When registering for events or surveys

We regularly offer a variety of events through our website, for which you may register online. In addition, we conduct surveys and polls for which you can register as a participant. Depending on the purpose and orientation, personal data such as name, address, e-mail address, institution or payment data are collected and processed. Any additional mandatory data is marked as such (e.g. by *). In addition, further information can often be provided voluntarily.

In the data protection information for the respective event we will inform you of the categories of personal data to be processed, the legal basis for the processing, the storage period and any forwarding to service providers that process your data on our behalf.

The processing of the mandatory data takes place in order to be able to identify the interested parties as participants in the event, as well as to process the contract for participation and to provide the participants with information about the event before, during and after the event. The provision of the voluntary data enables us to plan and carry out the event according to the interests and ages of the participants.

The data processing is carried out at the request of the interested participants and is necessary according to Art. 6 para. 1 p. 1 lit. b GDPR for the stated purposes for the fulfillment of the participant contract and the pre-contractual measures.

In the context of event registration via our web forms, we cooperate with the service provider Mailingwork GmbH, Birkenweg 7, 09569 Oederan ("Mailingwork"). The purpose of the cooperation is the professional management of online registrations. For this purpose, the data entered is stored on Mailingwork's servers in Germany. For this purpose, we have concluded an order processing contract with Mailingwork. Through this contract, Mailingwork assures that they process the data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation and to uphold the rights of all data subjects.

Mailingwork has assured us that personal data are extensively protected from unauthorized access. Mailingwork is barred from using the data provided by our newsletter subscribers to contact the subscribers itself and is not authorized to transfer the subscriber data to third parties. As a reputable email sending service, Mailingwork is also certified by the Certified Senders Alliance.

When subscribing to a newsletter

Once you have given your explicit consent pursuant to Art. 6 (1) lit. a GDPR, we will use your email address to regularly send you selected information about the work in our Institute and/or on other facilities and/or events of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. The subjects and contents of the selected information are determined by the list you subscribed to.

To receive our newsletter, we ask you to provide us with the following mandatory data:

• Email address

Depending on the distribution list and the purpose of use, further mandatory information may be required, for example salutation or first and last name, in order to address you personally with our newsletter. Such additional mandatory information is marked as such (e.g. by *). In addition, further information can often be provided voluntarily. You may provide additional personal data voluntarily (e.g. name, address and telephone number). We use this data to contact you by telephone or post (e.g. for press invitations).

Once you have subscribed, you will receive a registration notification by email, which you need to confirm to receive the newsletter (so-called double opt-in). Your email response serves as confirmation that you are in fact the person who issued the subscription.

You may unsubscribe at any time, e.g. via a link at the end of each newsletter. Alternatively, you may also unsubscribe by email dtnschtzsfrnhfrd or by using the following link: https://www.fraunhofer.de/de/fraunhofer-newsletter-abmeldung.html. Once we have received your cancellation of the newsletter subscription, we will immediately delete your email address.

Our service provider, Mailingwork GmbH, Birkenweg 7, 09569 Oederan (Mailingwork) sends our newsletter to your email address on our behalf. Mailingwork stores the email addresses of our newsletter recipients on their servers in Germany on our behalf.

Mailingwork uses this information for the purpose of sending and evaluating newsletters on our behalf. For this purpose, we entered into a data processing agreement with Mailingwork. Through this contract, Mailingwork assures that they process the data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation and to uphold the rights of all data subjects.

Mailingwork has assured us that personal data are extensively protected from unauthorized access. Mailingwork is barred from using the data provided by our newsletter subscribers to contact the subscribers itself and is not authorized to transfer the subscriber data to third parties. As a reputable email sending service, Mailingwork is also certified by the Certified Senders Alliance.

When using a contact form

We offer the option to contact us via a contact form provided on the website. This involves the following mandatory information:

• Salutation
• First and last name
• Email address

We require your data to determine who sent the inquiry and to be able to answer and process it. This data processing in response to your inquiry is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests pursuant to Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR.

We will delete the personal data collected by us using the contact form after your inquiry has been processed, unless statutory retention periods prohibit the erasure of your data.

If we forward personal data collected through websites to processors, we will notify you in this data protection information regarding the respective data processing operation, citing the specific recipient.

Aside from that, we will only forward your personal data if

• you have given consent pursuant to Art. 6 (1) lit. a GDPR,
• this is required pursuant to Article 6 (1) lit. b GDPR for the performance of a contract with you (for example forwarding to shipping companies for the purpose of delivering goods ordered by you, or forwarding payment information to payment service providers or credit institutions in order to process a payment transaction);
• there is a legal obligation for disclosure pursuant to Art. 6 (1) lit. c GDPR.

The recipients may use the transferred data for the above-mentioned purposes only.

Especially if you have registered for an event, it may be necessary within the scope of performance of the contract that your personal data needs to be transferred to an external organiser. In connection with an event registration, you will be informed about who the organiser is and whether it is an external organiser. This organiser will process personal data within the scope of the event and especially for the management of participants.

This website uses cookies. Cookies are small files that your browser automatically generates and stores on your device (laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc.) when you visit our site. Cookies do not harm your device nor do they contain viruses, Trojans or other malware.

Cookies store information associated with the specific device used. That does not mean that we can directly identify you.

We use cookies for the purpose of making the use of our offers more convenient and pleasant for you. For example, we use so-called session cookies to allow session controls or to save data entries in forms or shopping carts during the session. At the latest, session cookies are deleted when you close your browser.

We also use temporary cookies to optimize user-friendliness; these cookies are stored on your device for 30 days. When you visit our site again to use our services, these cookies will automatically detect that you have visited in the past and will reapply your previous entries and settings so that you do not have to enter them again.

On the other hand, we use cookies to statistically record the use of our website for the purpose of optimizing our offers for you (see below). When you visit our site again, these cookies make it possible for us to automatically recognize that you have already visited our site before. These cookies are deleted after 30 days.

The data processed by the cookies are necessary for the above-mentioned purposes to protect our legitimate interests and those of third parties pursuant to Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR.

Most browsers automatically accept cookies. However, you can configure your browser to not save any cookies on your computer or to display a notice before new cookies are saved. Completely disabling cookies may mean that you cannot fully use all functions of our website.

a) LeadLab (Wiredminds GmbH)

Our website uses the Leadlab service by Wiredminds GmbH and its tracking pixel technology to analyze user behavior and optimize our site accordingly. The service particularly allows us to identify which companies have visited our site. In so doing we do not obtain any information that may identify you directly.

The use of Leadlab involves cookies and tracking pixels which allow statistical analysis of the use of this website based on your visits. Information, including personal information, about your visiting behavior is stored in the cookie and sent to Wiredminds or is directly obtained by Wiredminds. Wiredminds uses a pseudonym to process the information in a usage profile for the purpose of analysis. The data are anonymized to the extent possible.

Without your specific permission, we neither use the data collected to identify you personally nor will we match the data with personal data pertaining to the pseudonym associated with you.

If IP addresses are collected, they are immediately anonymized after collection by deleting the last number block.

For more information about data protection at Wiredminds, please visit the company’s website.

We process statistical data based on our legitimate interest pursuant to Article 6 (1) lit. f GDPR for optimizing our online offering and our web presence. Wiredminds processes the data on our behalf based on a data processing agreement between us and Wiredminds. This agreement ensures that the data processing on our behalf is consistent with the General Data Protection Regulation and guarantees the protection of the data subjects’ rights.

If you do not want your usage behavior to be recorded and analyzed, you may object by means of an opt-out cookie. It will be set to prevent the future collection of your data when you visit this website. The opt-out cookie works only in this browser and only for our website. It is stored on your device. If you delete the cookies for this browser, you will have to set the opt-out cookie again.

We use so-called social media buttons (also called social media plug-ins) on our website. These are small icons which you can use to share the contents of our website in your profile on social networks.

If you activate such an icon, a connection is established between our website and the social network. In addition to the contents in question, the operator of the social network obtains further, partly personal information. For example, this includes the fact that you are currently visiting our site.

The social media buttons are integrated using the so-called Shariff solution. This solution prevents your device from establishing a link to the social network merely because you visit a website featuring a social plug-in button without clicking on it. This means that information is only transmitted to the social network when you activate the button.

We integrate the following social media plug-ins on our website:

Facebook Ireland Limited: Sharing on Facebook

Information is partly transmitted to the parent company Facebook Inc., headquartered in the USA. This company complies with the data protection regulations of the U.S. Privacy Shield and is registered with the U.S. Privacy Shield Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

For the purpose and scope of data collection, further processing and use of data by Facebook as well as your related rights and configuration options for protecting your privacy, please refer to Facebook’s privacy policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/ .

Twitter International Company: Sharing on Twitter

Information is partly transmitted to the parent company Twitter Inc., headquartered in the USA. This company complies with the data protection regulations of the U.S. Privacy Shield and is registered with the U.S. Privacy Shield Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Further information on data protection on Twitter can be found in Twitter’s privacy policy at https://twitter.com/privacy .

Facebook Ireland Limited: Sharing on Instagram 

Information is partly transmitted to the parent company Facebook Inc., headquartered in the USA. This company complies with the data protection regulations of the U.S. Privacy Shield and is registered with the U.S. Privacy Shield Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

For the purpose and scope of data collection, further processing and use of data by Facebook as well as your related rights and configuration options for protecting your privacy, please refer to Instagram’s privacy policy at https://help.instagram.com/519522125107875.

XING SE: Sharing on XING 

Further information on data protection on XING can be found in XING’s privacy policy at https://www.xing.com/privacy .

LinkedIn Corporation: Sharing on LinkedIn 

Information is partly transmitted to the parent company LinkedIn Corporation, headquartered in the USA. This company complies with the data protection regulations of the U.S. Privacy Shield and is registered with the U.S. Privacy Shield Program of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Further information on data protection on LinkedIn can be found in the company’s privacy policy at https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy.

Pinterest Europe Ltd.: Sharing on Pinterest 

Further information on data protection on Pinterest can be found in Pinterest’s privacy policy at https://policy.pinterest.com/de/privacy-policy .

We integrate components (videos) of YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., 94066 San Bruno, CA, USA (hereinafter “YouTube”), a company of Google Inc., Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View CA 94043, USA, (hereinafter “Google”) in our websites. The implementation is based on Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR; our legitimate interest in that case is the smooth integration of the videos and the attractive design of our website.

Our websites use a solution that prevents the establishment of a connection to Google simply because you visit a site with an integrated video, without activating the video. This means that information is transmitted to YouTube only if you actually click to view the video.

Google complies with the Data Protection Regulations of the U.S. Privacy Shield and is registered with the U.S. Privacy Shield Program of the U.S. Department of Trade.

Further information on data protection in connection with YouTube can be found in Google’s privacy policy at https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy/.

You have the following rights:

• pursuant to Art. 7 (3) GDPR, to withdraw your consent at any time. This means that we may not continue the data processing based on this consent in the future;
• pursuant to Art. 15 GDPR, to obtain access to your personal data processed by us. In particular, you may request information about the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned, the categories of recipients to whom the personal data have been or will be disclosed, and the envisaged period for which the data will be stored. Moreover, you have the right to request rectification, erasure, or restriction of processing, to object to processing, the right to lodge a complaint, and to obtain information about the source of your data if they were not collected by us, as well as about the existence of automated decision-making, including profiling, and, if applicable, meaningful information about the logic involved;
• pursuant to Art. 16 GDPR, to obtain the rectification of inaccurate data or the completion of your personal data without undue delay;
• pursuant to Art. 17 GDPR, to obtain the erasure of personal data saved by us unless processing is necessary to exercise the right of freedom of expression and information, to comply with a legal obligation, for reasons of public interest, or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims;
• pursuant to Art. 18 GDPR, to obtain restriction of processing of your personal data if you contest the accuracy of the data, the processing is unlawful but you oppose the erasure of the personal data, or if we no longer need the personal data while you still require it for establishing, exercising or defending legal claims, or if you have filed an objection to the processing pursuant to Art. 21 GDPR;
• pursuant to 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 transmit those data to another controller and
• pursuant to Art. 77 GDPR, the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. Generally, you may contact the supervisory authority of your habitual residence, place of work or the registered offices of our organization.

You have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, at any time to processing of your personal data pursuant to Art. 6 (1) lit. e GDPR (data processing carried out in the public interest) and Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR (data processing for purposes of legitimate interests).

If you file an objection, we will no longer process your personal data unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or unless the processing serves the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.

If your objection is directed against the processing of data for the purpose of direct marketing, we will stop the processing immediately. In this case, citing a special situation is not necessary. This includes profiling to the extent that it is related to such direct marketing.

If you would like to assert your right to object, please send an email to datenschutzkoordination@zv.fraunhofer.de .

All your personal data are transmitted in encrypted format, using the widely used and secure TLS (Transport Layer Security) standard. TLS is a secure and proven standard that is also used, for instance, in online banking. You will recognize a secure TLS connection by the additional s after http (i.e., https://..) in the address bar of your browser or by the lock icon in the lower part of your browser.

In all other regards, we use suitable technical and organizational security measures to protect your data against accidental or intentional manipulations, partial or complete loss, destruction, or the unauthorized access of third parties. We continuously improve our security measures in accordance with the state of the art.

This data protection information as amended in August 2022 is currently applicable.

The further development of our website and the products and services offered or changed due to statutory or regulatory requirements, respectively, may make it necessary to amend this data protection information. You may access and print out the latest data protection information at any time from our website.