Privacy statement

This privacy statement provides the details of how the BMBF ensures the protection of your data and what types of data are collected for what purpose. The statement addresses the future requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDRP), which will be enforced from 25 May 2018.

Data processing on this website

Section 1 - Collection of personal data

(1) The following is for your information on how we collect personal data when you use our website. Personal data refers to all information which can be used to determine a person’s identity, including name, address, e-mail addresses, and website usage.

(2) ‘Controller’ pursuant to Art. 4 (7) GDRP is Mr Wilfried Kraus, Head of Directorate 72 “Sustainability, Climate, Energy” at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Kapelle-Ufer 1, D-10117 Berlin; bmbf@bmbf.bund.de. You can contact our Data Protection Commissioner by sending an e-mail to Datenschutz@bmbf.bund.de or in writing to our postal address (Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Kapelle-Ufer 1, D-10117 Berlin), ATTN: “Datenschutzbeauftragte”.

(3) The data which you provide when you contact us by e-mail or use an online contact form (e-mail address, name, phone number) will be stored until 30 April 2019 for the purposes of answering your enquiries. The data collected for these purposes will either be deleted after storage is no long required or anonymized in the event of further processing should legal retention requirements be in place.

Section 2 - Your rights

(1) You have the following rights concerning your personal data:

• Right of access
• Right to rectification and erasure (“right to be forgotten”)
• Right to restriction of processing
• Right to object to processing
• Right to data portability (from 25 May 2018)

(2) You also have the right to lodge a complaint about the processing of your personal data by us. The responsible authority is: Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI, Husarenstr. 30 53117 Bonn, phone: +49 (0)228-997799-0; e-mail: poststelle@bfdi.bund.de

Section 3 - Collection of personal data when using our website

(1) When you use our website for purely informational purposes, i.e. in cases where you do not register to use our website or do not otherwise provide us with information, we only collect the personal data communicated through your browser to our server. If you wish to see our website content, we collect the following data which is technically necessary to enable website access and to ensure stability and security (legal basis is Art. 6 (1) letters a) and f) GDRP):

• IP address
• Date and time of your enquiry
• Content of your enquiry (specific page)
• Access status/HTTP status code
• Webpage from which the enquiry was launched
• Browser
• Operating system

(2) In addition to the above-mentioned data, cookies are stored on your computer when you use our website. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your hard drive and are assigned to the browser you are using. Specific information flows through these text files to the entity that has set the cookie (in this case this means the BMBF).

Cookies are unable to execute programs or pass viruses on to your computer. They serve to make the Internet service more user-friendly and more effective.

(3) Use of cookies:

a) This website uses the following types of cookies to the extent explained:

• Transient cookies (see b) below)
• Persistent cookies (see c) below)

b) Transient cookies are automatically deleted when you close your browser. They include session cookies in particular. Session cookies store a so-called session ID which allows various enquiries from your browser to be allocated to the same shared session. This allows your computer to be recognized when you return to the website. Session cookies are deleted when you log out or close your browser.

c) Persistent cookies are automatically deleted after a pre-defined period of time which varies depending on the cookie concerned. You can delete the cookies at any time via the security settings in your browser.

d) You can customize your browser settings to suit your requirements, e.g. you can refuse to accept third-party cookies or all cookies. Please be advised that this may prevent you from using all the functions of this website.

Section 4 - Data Analytics

If you have given your consent in accordance with Article 6 (1) (a) of the GDPR, the BMBF, together with its service provider contracted for support and development “ITZBund”, will analyse information on your use of our website for statistical purposes as part of public relations work and for the purpose of providing information on tasks within the BMBF’s remit as needed.

It does so using the Matomo web analytics service.

The software uses permanent cookies to recognize visitors returning even after longer periods of time. This information is stored as a text file on the hard drive of the user’s computer. The cookie is valid for 13 months after which it deletes itself.

The software also uses session cookies. Session cookies are small information units that are stored by the provider of a website in the active memory of the visiting user’s computer. A randomly generated, unique ID number, a so-called session ID, is stored in a session cookie. A cookie also contains information on its origin and the period of time it is to be stored on a computer. These cookies cannot store any further types of data. The software uses session cookies to provide for the unambiguous identification of visitors.

The following data is stored when individual pages of our website are accessed:

• Two bytes of the IP address of the user’s retrieving system (anonymous)
• The accessed web page
• The website from which the user reached the accessed web page (referrer)
• The sub-pages loaded via the accessed web page
• The length of time spent on the web page
• How often the page has been accessed

The software is configured so that IP addresses are stored incomplete with 2 bytes concealed (e.g. 192.168.xxx.xxx). This makes it impossible for the shortened IP address to be linked to the retrieving computer, meaning that you remain anonymous as the user.

The relevant software runs only on the web servers of the service provider “ITZBund” on behalf of the BMBF. These are the only servers where information on your use of the website is stored. No data is disclosed to third parties.

If you want to modify your decision regarding use of the cookie for web analytics purposes and give your consent or withdraw it again, you can do this by changing your settings before continuing your visit. The default setting for web analytics is that they are disabled.

Open privacy settings

Section 5 - Accreditation / Registration

Your data is stored on our servers when you register for the conference.

After the conference event this data will be deleted, at the latest by 30 April 2019.

The personal data which you provided for registration will be used solely for the purposes of your registration and participation.
The data provided is forwarded to third parties involved in the organization of the conference. These agencies will use the data as follows: for purposes of conference management; for the identification of attending guests by contracted security services; for hotel reservations (upon request from participants themselves). The responsible agencies, security services and hotels are also bound by the requirements of the GDRP and will be informed of the requirement to delete data (by 30 April 2019 latest).

Section 6 - Orders / E-mail communication

If you send us an e-mail, your message and e-mail address will be used solely for the purpose of corresponding with you. In the case of order transactions, any personal data submitted will be passed on to third parties solely for purposes of handling the order (e.g. to a mail order company or other public authorities or institutions which are responsible for the dispatch of the material ordered). Your data will be deleted once your order has been completed.

Section 7 - Access to your data

You can view the data that has been automatically transferred from your browser to our server by clicking [here]. Any internet browser can be set up to notify you whenever cookies are set and to display their contents. Detailed information is available on the websites of the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information and the Federal Office for Information Security.