Privacy Policy

 

Table of Contents

  • Privacy Policy

  • Automatic Data Retention

  • Cookies

  • Rights in Accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation

  • Evaluation of Visitor Behavior

  • TLS encryption with HTTPS

  • Google Fonts Privacy Policy

  • Email Marketing

  • Blogs and Publication Media

Privacy Policy

We have written this privacy policy (version 10.03.2022) to provide you with information in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 as well as to explain what information we collect, how we use data and what choices you have as a visitor to this website.

Privacy policies usually sound very technical. However, this version should describe the most important things as simply and clearly as possible. Moreover, technical terms are explained in a reader-friendly manner whenever possible. We would also like to convey that we only collect and use information via this website if there is a corresponding legal basis for it. This is certainly not possible if you give very brief technical explanations, as are often standard on the Internet when it comes to data protection. We hope you find the following explanations interesting and informative. Maybe you will also find some information that you did not know yet.

Should you still have questions, we kindly ask you to follow the existing links to see further information on third-party websites, or to simply write us an email. You can find our contact information in our website’s Legal Notice.

Automatic Data Retention

Every time you visit a website nowadays, certain information is automatically created and stored, just as it happens on this website. This data should be collected as sparingly as possible, and only with good reason. By website, we mean the entirety of all websites on a domain, i.e. everything from the homepage to the very last subpage (like this one here). By domain we mean example.uk or examplepage.com.

Even while you are currently visiting our website, our web server – this is the computer this website is stored on – usually automatically retains data such as the following for reasons such as operational security or for creating access statistics etc. in so-called web server log files.

  • the full address (URL) of the accessed website (e.g. https://www.examplepage.uk/examplesubpage.html)

  • browser and browser version (e.g. Chrome 87)

  • the operating system used (e.g. Windows 10)

  • the address (URL) of the previously visited site (referrer URL) (e.g. https://www.examplepage.uk/icamefromhere.html/)

  • the host name and the IP-address of the device the website is accessed from (e.g. COMPUTERNAME and 194.23.43.121)

  • date and time

Generally, these files are stored for two weeks and are then automatically deleted. We do not pass these data to others, but we cannot exclude the possibility that this data may be looked at by the authorities in case of illegal conduct.

In short: Your visit is logged by our provider (company that runs our website on servers), but we do not pass on your data!

Cookies

Our website uses HTTP-cookies to store user-specific data.

For your better understanding of our privacy policy, we will explain to you below what cookies are and why they are in use.

What exactly are cookies?

Every time you surf the internet, you use a browser. Common browsers are for example Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. Most websites store small text-files in your browser. These files are called cookies.

What should not be dismissed, is that cookies are very useful little helpers. Nearly all websites use cookies. More accurately speaking these are HTTP-cookies, since there are also different cookies for other uses. HTTP-cookies are small files which our website stores on your computer. These cookie files are automatically put into the cookie-folder, which is like the ›brain‹ of your browser. A cookie consists of a name and a value. Moreover, to define a cookie, one or multiple attributes must be specified.

Cookies save certain parts of your user data, such as language or personal page settings. When you re-open our website, your browser submits these user specific informations back to our site. Thanks to cookies, our website knows who you are and offers you the settings you are familiar to. In some browsers every cookie has its own file, in others such as Firefox, all cookies are stored in one single file.

There are both first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First-party cookies are created directly by our site, while third-party cookies are created by partner-websites (e.g. Google Analytics). Every cookie is individual, since every cookie stores different data. The expiration time of a cookie also varies – it can be a few minutes, or up to a few years. Cookies are no software-programs and contain no computer viruses, trojans or any other malware. Cookies also cannot access your PC’s information.

This is an example of how cookie-files can look:

  • name: _ga

  • value: GA1.2.1326744211.152111704089-9

  • purpose: differentiation between website visitors

  • expiration date: after 2 years

A browser should support these minimum sizes:

  • at least 4096 bytes per cookie

  • at least 50 cookies per domain

  • at least 3000 cookies in total

Which types of cookies are there?

What exact cookies we use, depends on the used services. We will explain this in the following sections of the privacy policy statement. Firstly, we will briefly focus on the different types of HTTP-cookies.

There are 4 different types of cookies:

Essential Cookies
These cookies are necessary to ensure the basic function of a website. They are needed when a user for example puts a product into their shopping cart, then continues surfing on different websites and comes back later in order to proceed to the checkout. Even when the user closed their window priorly, these cookies ensure that the shopping cart does not get deleted.

Purposive Cookies
These cookies collect info about the user behaviour and record if the user potentially receives any error messages. Furthermore, these cookies record the website’s loading time as well as its behaviour within different browsers.

Target-orientated Cookies
These cookies care for an improved user-friendliness. Thus, information such as previously entered locations, fonts or data in forms stay saved.

Advertising Cookies
These cookies are also known as targeting-Cookies. They serve the purpose of delivering individually adapted advertisements to the user. This can be very practical, but also rather annoying.

Upon your first visit to a website you are usually asked which of these cookie-types you want to accept. Furthermore, this decision will of course also be saved in a cookie.

How can I delete cookies?

You yourself take the decision if and how you want to use cookies. Thus, no matter what service or website cookies are from, you always have the option to delete, deactivate or only partially allow them. Therefore, you can for example block cookies of third parties but allow any other cookies.

If you want change or delete cookie-settings and would like to determine which cookies have been saved to your browser, you can find this info in your browser-settings:

  • Chrome: Clear, enable and manage cookies in Chrome

  • Safari: Manage cookies and website data in Safari

  • Firefox: Clear cookies and site data in Firefox

  • Internet Explorer: Delete and manage cookies

  • Microsoft Edge: Delete cookies in Microsoft Edge

If you generally do not want to allow any cookies at all, you can set up your browser in a way to notify you whenever a potential cookie is about to be set. This gives you the opportunity to manually decide to either permit or deny the placement of every single cookie. The settings for this differ from browser to browser. Therefore, it might be best for you to search for the instructions in Google. If you are using Chrome, you could for example put the search phrase »delete cookies Chrome« or »deactivate cookies Chrome« into Google.

How is my data protected?

There is a »cookie policy« that has been in place since 2009. It states that the storage of cookies requires the user’s consent. However, among the countries of the EU, these guidelines are often met with mixed reactions. In Austria the guidelines have been implemented in § 96 section 3 of the Telecommunications Act (TKG).

If you want to learn more about cookies and do not mind technical documentation, we recommend the Request for Comments of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) called HTTP State Management Mechanism.

 

Rights in Accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation

You are granted the following rights in accordance with the provisions of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the Austrian Data Protection Act (DSG):

  • right to rectification (article 16 GDPR)

  • right to erasure (»right to be forgotten«) (article 17 GDPR)

  • right to restrict processing (article 18 GDPR)

  • right to notification – notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing (article 19 GDPR)

  • right to data portability (article 20 GDPR)

  • right to object (article 21 GDPR)

  • right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing – including profiling (article 22 GDPR)

If you think that the processing of your data violates the data protection law, or that your data protection rights have been infringed in any other way, you can lodge a complaint with your respective regulatory authority. For Austria this is the Data Protection Authority.

 

Evaluation of Visitor Behaviour

The evaluation of the data of your visit to this website is generally made anonymously, and we cannot link to you personally based on your behaviour on this website.

 

TLS encryption with HTTPS

The terms TLS, encryption and HTTPS sound very technical, which they are indeed. We use HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) to securely transfer data on the Internet. This means that the entire transmission of all data from your browser to our web server is secured – nobody can ›listen in‹.

We have thus introduced an additional layer of security and meet privacy requirements through technology design (Article 25 Section 1 GDPR). With the use of TLS (Transport Layer Security), which is an encryption protocol for safe data transfer on the internet, we can ensure the protection of confidential information.

You can recognise the use of this safeguarding tool by the little lock-symbol , which is situated in your browser’s top left corner in the left of the internet address (e.g. examplepage.uk), as well as by the display of the letters https (instead of http) as a part of our web address.

If you want to know more about encryption, we recommend you to do a Google search for »Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure Wiki« to find good links to further information.

 

Google Fonts Privacy Policy

On our website we use Google Fonts, from the company Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA).

To use Google Fonts, you must log in and set up a password. Furthermore, no cookies will be saved in your browser. According to Google, all requests for CSS and fonts are fully separated from any other Google services. If you have a Google account, you do not need to worry that your Google account details are transmitted to Google while you use Google Fonts. Google records the use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) as well as the utilised fonts and stores these data securely. We will have a detailed look at how exactly the data storage works.

What are Google Fonts?

Google Fonts (previously Google Web Fonts) is a list of over 800 fonts which Google LLC provides its users for free.

Many of these fonts have been published under the SIL Open Font License, while others have been published under the Apache License. Both are free software licenses.

Why do we use Google Fonts on our website?

With Google Fonts we can use different fonts on our website and do not have to upload them to our own server. Google Fonts is an important element which helps to keep the quality of our website high. All Google Fonts are automatically optimised for the web, which saves data volume and is an advantage especially for the use of mobile terminal devices. When you use our website, the low data size provides fast loading times. Moreover, Google Fonts are secure web fonts. Various image synthesis systems (rendering) can lead to errors in different browsers, operating systems and mobile terminal devices. These errors could optically distort parts of texts or entire websites. Due to the fast Content Delivery Network (CDN) there are no cross-platform issues with Google Fonts. All common browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera) are supported by Google Fonts, and it reliably operates on most modern mobile operating systems, including Android 2.2+ and iOS 4.2+ (iPhone, iPad, iPod). We also use Google Fonts for presenting our entire online service as pleasantly and as uniformly as possible.

Which data is saved by Google?

Whenever you visit our website, the fonts are reloaded by a Google server. Through this external cue, data gets transferred to Google’s servers. Therefore, this makes Google recognise that you (or your IP-address) is visiting our website. The Google Fonts API was developed to reduce the usage, storage and gathering of end user data to the minimum needed for the proper depiction of fonts. What is more, API stands for »Application Programming Interface« and works as a software data intermediary.

Google Fonts stores CSS and font requests safely with Google, and therefore it is protected. Using its collected usage figures, Google can determine how popular the individual fonts are. Google publishes the results on internal analysis pages, such as Google Analytics. Moreover, Google also utilises data of ist own web crawler, in order to determine which websites are using Google Fonts. This data is published in Google Fonts’ BigQuery database. Enterpreneurs and developers use Google’s webservice BigQuery to be able to inspect and move big volumes of data.

One more thing that should be considered, is that every request for Google Fonts automatically transmits information such as language preferences, IP address, browser version, as well as the browser’s screen resolution and name to Google’s servers. It cannot be clearly identified if this data is saved, as Google has not directly declared it.

How long and where is the data stored?

Google saves requests for CSS assets for one day in a tag on their servers, which are primarily located outside of the EU. This makes it possible for us to use the fonts by means of a Google stylesheet. With the help of a stylesheet, e.g. designs or fonts of a website can get changed swiftly and easily.

Any font related data is stored with Google for one year. This is because Google’s aim is to fundamentally boost websites’ loading times. With millions of websites referring to the same fonts, they are buffered after the first visit and instantly reappear on any other websites that are visited thereafter. Sometimes Google updates font files to either reduce the data sizes, increase the language coverage or to improve the design.

How can I delete my data or prevent it being stored?

The data Google stores for either a day or a year cannot be deleted easily. Upon opening the page this data is automatically transmitted to Google. In order to clear the data ahead of time, you have to contact Google’s support. The only way for you to prevent the retention of your data is by not visiting our website.

Unlike other web fonts, Google offers us unrestricted access to all its fonts. Thus, we have a vast sea of font types at our disposal, which helps us to get the most out of our website. You can find out more answers and information on Google Fonts. While Google does address relevant elements on data protection at this link, it does not contain any detailed information on data retention.

It proofs rather difficult to receive any precise information on stored data by Google.

On Google Privacy & Terms you can read more about what data is generally collected by Google and what this data is used for.

 

Email Marketing

Summary

  • Data subjects: newsletter subscribers

  • Purpose: Direct marketing by email, notification of system-relevant events.

  • Data processed: Data entered during registration but at least the email address. More details can be found with the respective email marketing tool used.

  • Storage period: Duration of the existence of the subscription.

  • Legal basis: Art. 6 § 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), Art. 6 § 1 lit. f DSGVO (legitimate interests).

What is email marketing?

In order to keep you up to date, we also use the option of email marketing. If you have agreed to receive our emails or newsletters, data from you will be processed and stored. Email marketing is a sub-area of online marketing. It involves sending news or general information about a project, products or services by email to a specific group of people who are interested in them.

If you want to participate in our email marketing (usually via newsletter), you just have to register with your email address. To do this, you fill out an online form and submit it. However, it may also happen that we ask you for your title and name, for example, so that we can write to you personally.

The registration for newsletters works with the help of the so-called »double opt-in procedure«. After you have registered for our newsletter on our website, you will receive an email to confirm your newsletter registration. This ensures that the email address belongs to you and that no one has registered with a third-party email address. We or a notification tool we use logs each individual subscription. This is necessary so that we can also prove the legally correct registration process. As a rule, the time of registration, the time of the registration confirmation and your IP address are stored. In addition, it is also logged when you make changes to your stored data.

Why do we use email marketing?

We want to stay in touch with you and always present you with the most important news about our project. To do this, we use, among other things, email marketing as an essential part of our online marketing. If you agree to this or if it is legally permitted, we will send you newsletters, system emails or other notifications by email. When we use the term »newsletter« in the following text, we mainly mean regularly sent emails. Of course, we do not want to bother you in any way with our newsletters. That’s why we always try to provide only relevant and interesting content. For example, you will learn more about our project, our services or products. Since we are always improving our offers, our newsletter will also tell you when there is news or when we are offering special, lucrative promotions. If we use a service provider that offers a professional mailing tool for our email marketing, we do so in order to be able to offer you fast and secure newsletters. The purpose of our email marketing is basically to inform you about new offers and also to get closer to our business goals. 

What data is processed?

When you become a subscriber to our newsletter via our website, you confirm by email that you are a member of an email list. In addition to IP address and email address, your title, name, address and telephone number may also be stored. However, only if you agree to this data storage. The data marked as such are necessary for you to participate in the service offered. Providing this information is voluntary, but failure to provide it will result in you not being able to use the service. In addition, information about your device or your preferred content on our website may be stored. You can find out more about the storage of data when you visit a website in the section "Automatic data storage". We record your declaration of consent so that we can always prove that this complies with our laws.

Duration of data processing

If you unsubscribe your email address from our email/newsletter distribution list, we may store your address for up to three years based on our legitimate interests so that we can still prove your consent at the time. We may only process this data if we need to defend ourselves against any claims.

However, if you confirm that you have given us your consent to subscribe to the newsletter, you can submit an individual deletion request at any time. If you permanently object to the consent, we reserve the right to store your email address in a blacklist. As long as you have voluntarily subscribed to our newsletter, we will of course also keep your email address.

Right of objection

You have the possibility to cancel your newsletter subscription at any time. All you have to do is revoke your consent to the newsletter subscription. This usually takes only a few seconds or one or two clicks. Most of the time, you will find a link to cancel your newsletter subscription right at the end of each email. If you really can't find the link in the newsletter, please contact us by mail and we will cancel your newsletter subscription immediately. 

Legal basis

The sending of our newsletter is based on your consent (Article 6 (1) a DSGVO). This means that we may only send you a newsletter if you have actively signed up for it beforehand. If applicable, we may also send you advertising messages on the basis of Section 7 (3) of the German Unfair Competition Act (UWG), provided that you have become our customer and have not objected to the use of your email address for direct advertising.

Information on special email marketing services and how they process personal data – if available – can be found in the following sections.

 

Blogs and Publication Media

Summary

  • Data subjects: website visitors

  • Purpose: Presentation and optimization of our service performance, as well as communication between website visitors, security measures and administration.

  • Processed data: Data such as contact details, IP address and published content. More details can be found at the tools used.

  • Storage duration: depending on the tools used.

  • Legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO (consent), Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO (legitimate interests), Art. 6 para. 1 p. 1 lit. b. DSGVO (contract)

What are blogs and publication media?

We use blogs or other communication media on our website, with which we can communicate with you on the one hand and you can also communicate with us on the other hand. In the process, data from you may also be stored and processed by us. This may be necessary so that we can present content appropriately, communication works and security is increased. In our data protection text, we generally go into what data can be processed from you. Exact details on data processing always also depend on the tools and functions used. In the privacy notices of the individual providers, you will find precise information about data processing. 

Why do we use blogs and publication media?

Our biggest concern with our website is to provide you with interesting and exciting content and at the same time your opinions and content are important to us. That is why we want to create a good interactive exchange between us and you. With various blogs and publication options we can achieve exactly that. For example, you can write comments on our content, comment on other comments or, in some cases, write posts yourself.

What data is processed?

Exactly what data is processed always depends on the communication functions we use. Very often, IP address, username and the published content are stored. This is done primarily to ensure security protection, to prevent spam and to be able to take action against illegal content. Cookies can also be used for data storage. These are small text files that are stored with information in your browser. You can find more details about the collected and stored data in our individual sections and in the privacy policy of the respective provider.

Duration of data processing

We will inform you about the duration of data processing below, provided we have further information on this. For example, contribution and comment functions store data until you revoke the data storage. In general, personal data is only stored for as long as is absolutely necessary for the provision of our services. 

Right of objection

You also have the right and the possibility to revoke your consent to the use of cookies or third-party communication tools at any time. This works either via our cookie management tool or via other opt-out functions. For example, you can also prevent data collection through cookies by managing, deactivating or deleting cookies in your browser.

Since cookies may also be used with publication media, we also recommend that you read our general privacy policy on cookies. To find out exactly what data is stored and processed by you, you should read the privacy statements of the respective tools.

Legal basis

We use the communication tools mainly on the basis of our legitimate interests (Art. 6 (1) lit. f DSGVO) in fast and good communication with you or other customers, business partners and visitors. Insofar as the use serves the settlement of contractual relationships or their initiation, the legal basis is furthermore Art. 6 para. 1 p. 1 lit. b. DSGVO.

Certain processing, in particular the use of cookies and the use of comment or message functions require your consent. If and insofar as you have consented that data from you can be processed and stored by integrated publication media, this consent is considered the legal basis for data processing (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO). Most of the communication functions we use set cookies in your browser to store data. That is why we recommend that you read our privacy text about cookies carefully and view the privacy policy or cookie policy of the respective service provider.

Source: Created with the Datenschutz Generator by AdSimple.
All texts are copyrighted.