Data Protection Policy

When using this website, your personal data will be processed by us as the data controller and stored for as long as is necessary for the fulfilment of the purposes specified and statutory requirements. Below, we will provide information about which data this involves, how it will be processed and to which rights you are entitled to in this regard.

Personal data, as defined by Article 4(1) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) includes any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.

1. Name and contact data of the data controller and of the corporate Data Protection Officer

2. Processing personal data and purposes of processing

3. Transfer of personal data to third parties

4. Web analysis through Leadlab

5. Social plug-ins

6. YouTube

7. Rights of the data subject

8. Information on your right to object pursuant to Article 21 GDPR

9. Data security

10. Timeliness and Amendments to this Data Protection Information

1. Name and contact data of the data controller and of the corporate Data Protection Officer

This data protection information is applicable to data processing on the www.fraunhofer.de website by the controller:

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V.
Hansastraße 27c, 80686 München, Germany
Telephone +49 89 1205-0
Fax +49 89 1205-7531
info@zv.fraunhofer.de
www.fraunhofer.de

(hereinafter referred to as “Fraunhofer”)

The Data Protection Officer at Fraunhofer may be reached at the above-mentioned address, attention of Data Protection Officer or at datenschutz@zv.fraunhofer.de.

In case you have any questions about data protection law or your rights as the data subject, you may directly contact our Data Protection Officer.

2. Processing personal data and purposes of processing

a) When visiting the website

You may access the website www.fraunhofer.dewithout having to disclose any details of your identity. What the browser on your terminal device does automatically is only to send information to the server of our website (e.g. browser type and version, date and time of access) so as to allow a connection with the website. This also includes the IP address of your requesting terminal device. It is temporarily stored in a so-called log file and automatically deleted after 4 days.

The 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 the first sentence of point (f) of Article 6(1) 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 tracking pixel and analytics services when you visit our website. For more information on this, please refer to clauses 4 of this Data Protection Information.

b) When registering for events

We offer a variety of events through our website on a regular basis, for which you may register online. When registering for an event, you need to enter the following mandatory data. These include:

Salutation
First name and surname
Address
Email address

Any other mandatory data are marked as such (e.g. with *). Besides, other data may often be entered voluntarily.

The mandatory data are processed in order to identify the interested persons as participants of the event, to perform the participation contract, and to provide the participants with information pertaining to the event before, during and after the event. The voluntary data allows us to plan and execute the event based on interest and age criteria.

Data processing takes place at the request of the interested participants and is necessary pursuant to the first sentence of point (b) of Article 6 (1) GDPR for the purposes mentioned for the performance of the participation contract and in order to take steps prior to entering into it.

We store the data we collect in the context of event registrations for 6 months unless you have consented to a longer storage period under Art. 6 (1) lit. a GDPR.

For the registration of our events through our web forms, we work in collaboration with the service provider Mailingwork GmbH, Birkenweg 7, 09569 Oederan (“Mailingwork”). The purpose of the collaboration is to professionally manage online registrations. For this purpose, the entered data is stored on the servers of Mailingwork in Germany.

We have concluded an order processing agreement with Mailingwork. By this agreement, Mailingwork assures that it will process the data on our account in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation and guarantees the protection of rights of the data subjects.

In addition, it may in some cases be necessary within the scope of performance of the contract to transfer your personal data 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.

c) When using the ordering service

We offer an ordering service on our website that allows you to order annual reports or the Fraunhofer magazine free of cost as a single copy or as a subscription. To order these, we collect the following mandatory data

Salutation
First name, surname
Address
Country

You may also voluntarily provide additional data (e.g. title, company, department) and provide specifics for your order.

The collection and further processing of this data takes place in order

to be able to identify you as our contractual partner
to check the entered data for plausibility
to process your order.

Data processing takes place at your request and is necessary pursuant to the first sentence of point (b) of Article 6(1) GDPR for the purposes mentioned for the fulfilment of your order and to take steps prior to entering into the contract.

We work in collaboration with a service provider, Wolanski GmbH, Ernst-Robert-Curtius-Str. 6, 53117 Bonn-Buschdorf, Germany, (“Wolanski”), for processing your order. We manually submit your data to it for your goods to be dispatched. After completion of the order, the service provider will automatically delete the data.

We have concluded an order processing agreement with Wolanski. By this agreement, Wolanski assures that it will process the data on our account in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation and guarantees the protection of rights of the data subjects.

The personal data we collect for the order is stored with us for as long as is necessary for the performance of the contract and compliance with mandatory statutory legal obligations applicable to us. If you have ordered a subscription, we will store your data until the termination of the subscription. In case of one-time orders, we will delete your personal data after completion of the delivery.

d) When subscribing to a newsletter

On various occasions, we offer on our website the option to register for a newsletter or press distribution list. If you have expressly given your consent pursuant to the first sentence of point (a) of Article 6(1) GDPR, we will use your email address to regularly send you information corresponding to your selection. To receive the information, an email address and the desired language version is sufficient.

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).

You will then receive a registration notification by email, which you need to confirm to be able to receive the newsletter (so-called double opt-in). This helps us verify that it is actually you who have initiated the registration.

Unsubscribing is possible at any time, e.g. via a link at the end of each press newsletter. Alternatively, you may also send your unsubscribing request to datenschutz@zv.fraunhofer.deby email.

After withdrawing your consent for sending the newsletter, your email address will be deleted immediately.

We send our newsletter by means of the service provider Mailingwork GmbH, Birkenweg 7, 09569 Oederan (“Mailingwork”). The email addresses and data of our newsletter recipients are stored on our behalf on the servers of Mailingwork in Germany.

Mailingwork uses this information to send and evaluate the newsletter on our behalf. For this purpose we have concluded an order processing agreement with Mailingwork. By means of this agreement, Mailingwork assures that it processes the data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation and guarantees the protection of rights of the data subjects.

Mailingwork assures that personal data is fully protected against unauthorised access. Mailingwork itself does not use the data of our newsletter recipients to write to them or to transfer the data to third parties. As a reliable email sender, Mailingwork is also certified by the Certified Senders Alliance.

e) When using the contact form for tenders

For queries regarding our tenders, we offer you the option of contacting us directly by means of a contact form provided on the website. The following data are necessary as mandatory data:

Salutation
First name and surname
Email address

We require your data to determine that the query has come from a company and to be able to answer and process it. Additionally you may provide your title, company, department, address, telephone number, fax number and homepage, if required. The data is processed exclusively for processing your query and is not taken into account for any future award procedure.

The processing of data takes place upon your request and is within the framework of answering a contact request supported by our legitimate interest pursuant to the first sentence of point (f) of Article 6(1) GDPR.

The personal data collected by us when you use the contact form will be deleted after completion of your query.

f) Fraunhofer Location Map (OpenStreetMap)

On our website www.maps.fraunhofer.de we embed the maps from OpenStreetMap. OpenStreetMap is a project of the OpenStreetMap Foundation, 132 Maney Hill Road, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands B72 1JU, Great Britain, which collects public domain geodata and provides them in a database for free use.

When you visit the website, initially no connection to OpenStreetMap’s servers is made. Instead of the embedded maps, you are initially shown only a preview image that we retrieve from our web server.

For any subsequent interaction on this website (such as a search by institute, region, continent, organizational unit) you are connected to the OpenStreetMap Foundation’s servers and data on the OpenStreetMap Foundation are transmitted in order to display embedded maps. Additional information concerning data protection in connection with OpenStreet Map can be found in the Privacy Policy of OpenStreetMap Foundation.

When connection is established to display the maps, the following data are transmitted to OpenStreetMap’s servers:

IP address,
user’s browser and device,
operating system,
web page from which you were directed to the OpenStreetMap Foundation site (referring web page) and
date and time the website was visited.

If you have a user account with OpenStreetMap and are logged in when you visit our website, the following additional data will be transmitted to OpenStreetMap’s servers:

user ID,
email address associated with your account and
content blocked by the user and associated messages.

Embedding is done on the basis of Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR and with the purpose of making our website more user-friendly and interesting. This may be regarded as a legitimate interest within the meaning of the aforementioned provision.

You may prevent any data transfer to OpenStreetMap’s servers by deactivating JavaScript in your browser. In that case, however, you cannot use the map display.

Additional information on data protection in connection with OpenStreetMap may be found here.

3. Transfer of personal data to third parties

Except for the aforementioned cases (registration for events, using the ordering service, subscription to a newsletter), we forward your personal data to third parties only if:

you have given your express consent pursuant to the first sentence of point (a) of Article 6(1) GDPR,
it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you pursuant to the first sentence of point (b) of Article 6(1) GDPR,
A statutory obligation exists for transferring pursuant to the first sentence of point (c) of Article 6(1) GDPR.

In the event that personal data is transferred to a third country (outside the EU) or an international organisation, we will provide information accordingly.

4. Web analysis through Leadlab (Wiredminds GmbH)

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

The use of Leadlab involves tracking pixels that allow statistical analysis of the use of this website based on your visits. 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 combine 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 the purpose of 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 compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation and guarantees the protection of the data subjects’ rights.

5. Social plug-ins

We use so-called social media buttons (also called social media plug-ins) on our website. These are small buttons by means of which you may publish the contents of our website in your profile on social networks.

If you activate such a button, a connection is established between our website and the social network. In addition to the contents in question, the operator of the social network also obtains additional, partly personal, information. For instance, it includes the fact that you are currently visiting our site.

The social media buttons are integrated using the so-called Shariff solution. This solution developed by Heise and c’t prevents a connection with a social network from being established just because you access a page with a social media button, without actually activating it. This means that information is sent to the social network only when you press the button.

We use the following social media plug-ins:

a) Meta Platforms Ireland Limited: Sharing on Facebook

Information is partly transferred to the parent company Meta Platforms Inc., headquartered in the USA, to other Meta-companies and external partners of Meta, each of which may be located outside the European Union. Meta utilizes standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission and relies on the European Commission's adequacy decisions about certain countries.
For the purpose and scope of the data collection, further processing and use of the data by Facebook as well as your related rights and configuration options for protecting your private, please refer to the Meta's privacy notice.

b) Twitter International Company: Sharing on X

Information is partly transferred to the parent company X Corp., headquartered in the USA, to other X-companies and external partners of X, each of which may be located outside the European Union. X utilizes standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission and relies on your consent.

For more information on data protection on Twitter, please refer to the X privacy statement.

c) NEW WORK SE (formerly: XING SE): Sharing on XING

In part, information is transmitted to other NEW WORK-companies and external partners of NEW WORK, each of which may be located outside the European Union. NEW WORK utilizes standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission or other appropriate safeguards as set forth in article 46 GDPR and relies on the European Commission's adequacy decisions about certain countries as well as your consent.

For the purpose and scope of data collection, further processing and use of data by NEW WORK as well as your related rights and configuration options for protecting your privacy, please refer to the XING's privacy statement.

d) LinkedIn Corporation: Sharing on LinkedIn

Information is partly transferred to the parent company LinkedIn Corporation, headquartered in the USA, to other LinkedIn-companies and external partners of LinkedIn, each of which may be located outside the European Union. LinkedIn utilizes standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission.

For more information on data protection on LinkedIn, please refer to the LinkedIn privacy statement.

e) Pinterest Europe Ltd.: Sharing on Pinterest

In part, information is transmitted to other Pinterest-companies and external partners of Pinterest, each of which may be located outside the European Union. Pinterest utilizes standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission or other appropriate safeguards as set forth in article 46 GDPR and relies on the European Commission's adequacy decisions about certain countries as well as your consent.

For the purpose and scope of data collection, further processing and use of data by Pinterest as well as your related rights and configuration options for protecting your privacy, please refer to the Pinterest's privacy statement.

f) Meta Platforms Ireland Limited: Sharing on Instagram

6. YouTube

We embed components (videos) of the video hosting service “YouTube” of the company Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland (hereinafter “Google”) in our websites. We use 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”) on our websites. The implementation is based on Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR; our legitimate interest in this case is the smooth integration of the videos and the attractive design of our website.

We use the option of "privacy-enhanced mode” provided by Google.

When you access a page containing an embedded video, a connection to the Google servers is established and the contents are displayed on the Internet page through a notification to your browser.

Pursuant to Google specifications, in the “extended data protection mode” your data - especially which of our Internet pages you have visited as well as device-specific information including the IP address - is sent to the Google servers in the US only when you view the video. By clicking on the video, you give your consent to this transfer.

If you are simultaneously logged on to Google, this information is assigned to your Google member account. You may prevent this by logging out of your member account before visiting our website.

In part, information is transmitted to the parent company Google Inc., headquartered in the USA, to other Google-companies and external partners of Google, each of which may be located outside the European Union. Google utilizes standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission and relies on the European Commission's adequacy decisions about certain countries.

For more information on data protection in connection with YouTube, please refer to the data protection regulations of Google.

7. Rights of the data subject

You have the right:

pursuant to Article 7(3) GDPR, to withdraw the consent given to us at any time. This means that in future we may no longer continue to process the data as based on this consent;
pursuant to Article 15 GDPR, to obtain information about your personal data processed by us. More particularly, you may obtain information about the purpose of processing, the category of the personal data, the categories of recipients, to whom your data has been or is disclosed to, the storage period planned, the existence of a right to request from the controller rectification , erasure, restriction of processing or objection, the existence of a right to lodge a complaint, the source of your data if it has not been collected by us, as well as about the existence of automated decision-making including profiling and, if applicable, significant information about its details;
pursuant to Article 16 GDPR, to obtain the rectification of inaccurate personal data without undue delay or the completion of your personal data stored with us;
pursuant to Article 17 GDPR, to obtain the erasure of your personal data stored with us unless processing is necessary to exercise the right to freedom of expression and information, for compliance with a legal obligation , for reasons of public interest, or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims;
pursuant to Article 18 GDPR, to obtain the restriction of the processing of your personal data if you contest the accuracy of the data, the processing is unlawful but you deny its erasure and we no longer need the data while you still require it for establishing, exercising or defending legal claims or if you have objected to processing pursuant to Article 21 GDPR;
pursuant to Article 20 GDPR, to receive your personal data that you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format or to obtain the transmission to another data controller and
pursuant to Article 77 GDPR, to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. For this, you may normally contact the supervisory authority of your habitual residence or workplace or our company headquarters.

8. Information on your right to object pursuant to Article 21 GDPR

You have the right to object, on grounds relating from your particular situation, at any time to processing of your personal data, which is based on point (e) of Article 6(1) GDPR (data processing for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest) and on point (f) of Article 6(1) GDPR (data processing for the purposes of the legitimate interests); this is also applicable to profiling pursuant to Article 4(4) GDPR based on this regulation.

If you file an objection, 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 unless processing serves the establishment, exercise or defence 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 is also applicable to profiling, insofar as it is related to such direct marketing.

If you wish to make use of your right to object, please send an email to datenschutz@zv.fraunhofer.de.

9. Data security

All your personal data is transferred in an encoded manner using the widely used and secure TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption standard. TLS is a secure and proven standard that is also used for online banking, for instance. You will recognise a secure TLS connection by the additional s after http (i.e., https://..) in the address bar of your browser or from the lock icon in the lower part of your browser, among other things.

Besides, we use suitable technical and organisational security measures to protect your data against accidental or intentional manipulation, partial or complete loss, destruction or against unauthorised access by third parties. Our security measures are continuously being improved as the technology advances.

10. Timeliness and Amendments to this Data Protection Information

This data protection information is currently applicable.

It may become necessary to change this data protection information due to the further development of our website and its offers or on account of amended legal or official requirements. You may always access and print the latest data protection information on the website at
https://www.fraunhofer.de/en/data-protection-policy.html.