We process data of our contractual and business partners, such as customers and prospects (collectively referred to as “contractual partners”), as part of contractual and similar legal relationships and related measures, as well as in the context of communication with contractual partners (or pre-contractually), for example, to respond to inquiries.

We process this data to fulfill our contractual obligations. This includes, in particular, obligations to provide the agreed services, any updating obligations, and remedying warranty and other performance disruptions. Furthermore, we process the data to safeguard our rights and for the purposes of the administrative tasks associated with these obligations and the organization of the company. Additionally, we process the data based on our legitimate interests in proper and business-oriented management, as well as security measures to protect our contractual partners and our business operations from misuse, jeopardizing their data, secrets, information, and rights (e.g., involving telecommunications, transportation, and other auxiliary services as well as subcontractors, banks, tax and legal advisors, payment service providers, or financial authorities). In accordance with applicable law, we only disclose contractual partners’ data to third parties to the extent necessary for the aforementioned purposes or to fulfill legal obligations. Contractual partners are informed about other forms of processing, such as for marketing purposes, as part of this privacy policy.

We inform contractual partners before or during data collection, for example, in online forms, through special markings (e.g., colors) or symbols (e.g., asterisks), or personally, about which data is required for the aforementioned purposes.

We delete the data after the expiration of statutory warranty and comparable obligations, i.e., generally after 4 years, unless the data is stored in a customer account, for example, as long as it must be retained for archiving purposes for legal reasons. The statutory retention period is ten years for tax-relevant documents as well as for commercial books, inventories, opening balance sheets, annual financial statements, the management reports required for understanding these documents, and other organizational documents and booking vouchers, and six years for received commercial and business letters and copies of sent commercial and business letters. The period begins at the end of the calendar year in which the last entry was made in the book, the inventory, the opening balance sheet, the annual financial statement, or the management report was prepared, the commercial or business letter was received or sent, or the booking voucher was created, and also when the record was made or the other documents were created.

If we use third-party providers or platforms to provide our services, the terms and privacy policies of the respective third-party providers or platforms apply in the relationship between users and providers.

• Processed Data Types: Master data (e.g., names, addresses); Payment data (e.g., bank details, invoices, payment history); Contact details (e.g., email, phone numbers); Contract data (e.g., object of the contract, duration, customer category); Usage data (e.g., visited websites, interest in content, access times); Meta, communication, and procedural data (e.g., IP addresses, timestamps, identification numbers, consent status).
• Data Subjects: Prospects; Business and contractual partners. Customers.
• Purposes of Processing: Provision of contractual services and fulfillment of contractual obligations; Contact inquiries and communication; Office and organizational procedures; Management and response to inquiries; Conversion measurement (measurement of the effectiveness of marketing measures). Profiles with user-related information (creation of user profiles).
• Legal Bases: Contractual performance and pre-contractual inquiries (Art. 6(1) sentence 1 lit. b) GDPR); Legal obligation (Art. 6(1) sentence 1 lit. c) GDPR). Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1) sentence 1 lit. f) GDPR).

Further Information on Processing Processes, Procedures, and Services:

• Economic analyses and market research: For business reasons and to be able to recognize market trends, desires of contractual partners and users, we analyze the data available to us on business transactions, contracts, inquiries, etc., whereby contractual partners, prospects, customers, visitors, and users of our online offering can be included in the group of data subjects. The analyses are carried out for the purpose of business evaluations, marketing, and market research (e.g., to determine customer groups with different characteristics). We may consider the profiles of registered users, including their information on services used, if available. The analyses are for our use only and are not disclosed externally unless they involve anonymous analyses with aggregated, i.e., anonymized values. Furthermore, we respect the privacy of users and process the data for analytical purposes as pseudonymously and, if possible, anonymously (e.g., as aggregated data);
• Legal Basis: Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1) sentence 1 lit. f) GDPR).