Data protection

Privacy Policy

We are delighted that you are interested in our organization. The protection of your personal data is particularly important to our management. You can use our websites without disclosing any personal data to us. However, if you wish to use more specific services via our websites, other internet presences, applications, and social media pages, we may need to process your personal data. If we intend to process your data and cannot rely on another legal basis, we will always ask for your consent first (e.g., via a cookie banner).

When handling your personal data (such as name, address, email, or phone number), we always adhere to applicable data protection laws. This privacy policy informs you about what data we process. It also explains your data subject rights.

We have taken various technical and organizational measures to protect your data on our websites as effectively as possible. Nevertheless, there are always risks on the internet, and complete protection is not possible. Therefore, if you prefer, you can also transmit your personal data to us through other means, for example, by telephone.

This privacy policy serves not only to fulfill obligations under the GDPR and to comply with the law of the Member States of the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). This privacy policy is also intended to comply with legal provisions such as those from Great Britain (UK-GDPR), the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection and the Swiss Data Protection Ordinance (DSG, DSV), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), China's Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), the Delaware Personal Data Privacy Act (DPDPA), the Tennessee Information Protection Act (TIPA), the Minnesota Consumer Data Privacy Act (MCDPA), the Iowa Act Relating to Consumer Data Protection (ICDPA), the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act (MODPA), the Nebraska Data Privacy Act (NDPA), the New Hampshire Consumer Data Privacy Law (SB255), the New Jersey Data Privacy Law (SB332), the South Carolina Consumer Privacy Bill (House Bill 4696), and other global data protection regulations, and shall be interpreted accordingly. The following privacy policy shall be interpreted for each country, state, or federal state in such a way that the terms and legal bases used correspond to the terms and legal bases used in the respective state or federal state.

For reasons of better readability, our websites, publications, communications, and our privacy policy do not simultaneously use gender-specific language forms (male, female, diverse, and other gender identities). All formulations used apply equally to all genders.

For suggestions for improvement regarding the texts in this privacy policy, or if you need an external data protection officer, please contact the author of the texts: Prof. Dr. h.c. Heiko Jonny Maniero, LL.B., LL.M. mult., M.L.E..

1. Definitions

In our privacy policy, we use specific terms from various data protection laws. We want our explanation to be easily understandable, and therefore, we will first explain these terms.

The following definitions may need to be interpreted or expanded based on the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the Swiss Federal Supreme Court (BGE), the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (UKSC), or based on national data protection laws or national jurisprudence of a state or federal state, including but not limited to California, including case law, also under Common Law, if this is necessary for the application of the law in individual cases.

Among others, we use the following terms in this privacy policy:

a) Personal data

Personal data means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (hereinafter, where applicable, "data subject"). An identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person, or who must be regarded as such on the basis of national data protection laws or the national jurisprudence of a state or federal state, including case law, also under Common Law.

b) Data subject

Data subject is any identified or identifiable natural person whose personal data are processed by the controller, a processor, an international organization or another recipient of data, and persons who must be regarded as such on the basis of national data protection laws or the national jurisprudence of a state or federal state, including case law, also under Common Law.

c) Processing

Processing means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organization, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction.

d) Restriction of processing

Restriction of processing is the marking of stored personal data with the aim of limiting their processing in the future.

e) Profiling

Profiling means any form of automated processing of personal data consisting of the use of personal data to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to a natural person, in particular to analyze or predict aspects concerning that natural person's performance at work, economic situation, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location or movements.

f) Pseudonymisation

Pseudonymisation means the processing of personal data in such a manner that the personal data can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information, provided that such additional information is kept separately and is subject to technical and organizational measures to ensure that the personal data are not attributed to an identified or identifiable natural person.

g) Controller

Controller means the natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data. Where the purposes and means of such processing are determined by Union or Member State law, the controller or the specific criteria for its nomination may be provided for by Union or Member State law.

h) Processor

Processor means a natural or legal person, public authority, agency or other body which processes personal data on behalf of the controller.

i) Recipient