Privacy policy

Our website is hosted by Vercel Inc., 440 N Barranca Ave #4133, Covina, CA 91723, USA. Each visit involves technically necessary data: IP address, date and time, the page requested, the previous page (referrer), and browser and operating system.

This data is needed to deliver the website and keep it secure and stable. The legal basis is our legitimate interest under Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR. It is kept only as long as necessary for these purposes and is not combined with other data.

We have a data processing agreement with Vercel (Art. 28 GDPR). Vercel is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (adequacy decision under Art. 45 GDPR); the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses (Art. 46 GDPR) also apply.

We only store what the site needs to work:

• Language choice: If you choose German in the language switcher, a cookie (“lang”) remembers this for one year.
• Phone menu: To keep the menu open when you move to another page, a short note is placed in your browser's session storage for a few seconds. It is then deleted, or when you close the tab.

These are technically necessary (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG) and do not require consent. They contain nothing that could identify you.

If you write to us or call, we process your details (e.g. name, email address, phone number, content of your message) to deal with your request. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR where it concerns a sponsorship, a donation or a project trip, and otherwise our legitimate interest in replying (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We delete the data once it is no longer needed, unless we are legally required to keep it.

If you support us by bank transfer or standing order, we process your name, address, bank details, amount and payment reference. We need this to record your donation, look after sponsorships and issue donation receipts (Art. 6(1)(b) and (c) GDPR). The data is used only within the association, not passed on, and deleted when the statutory retention periods (German Fiscal Code) end.

For online donations we link to betterplace.org. There, gut.org gemeinnützige Aktiengesellschaft is responsible for processing your data, and its privacy policy applies.

Our site links to betterplace.org, Instagram, Facebook and other services. Only when you click such a link do you leave our website; no data is sent to these providers before that. The providers are responsible for the linked pages.

For our Facebook page we are jointly responsible with Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd. (Art. 26 GDPR) insofar as Meta compiles statistics on how the page is used. Details are in Meta's privacy information. You can also exercise your rights directly with Meta.

You have the right of access (Art. 15 GDPR), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18) and data portability (Art. 20). You can withdraw any consent at any time with effect for the future.

Right to object: Where we process data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you may object at any time on grounds relating to your particular situation (Art. 21 GDPR).

An informal message to the contact details above is enough. You can also complain to a data protection supervisory authority, for example the one responsible for us: Die Landesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz Niedersachsen, Prinzenstraße 5, 30159 Hannover, Germany.

Our website is transmitted only in encrypted form over HTTPS, shown by the padlock in your browser's address bar.