Herrmann & Lenz Solutions GmbH privacy policy

1. General Information

We are very pleased about your interest in our company. Data protection is of particular importance to us. In this privacy policy, we inform you about the data processing in our company, as far as this data processing also concerns your data.

If you would like to read an introduction to the topic of data protection and general information on the terms used in the General Data Protection Regulation, you will find further information on the website of the Federal Data Protection Officer, available at https://www.bfdi.bund.de/DE/Datenschutz/datenschutz-node.html (German language only).

2. Information regarding controller and data protection officer

2.1 Herrmann & Lenz Solutions GmbH, Am Ziegelfeld 28, 51339 Burscheid is the „controller“ and therefore responsible for the processing of your personal data. You can reach us for general questions either by email at info@hl-solutions or our contact form. Further information may be found on our website at hl-solutions.de.

2.2 For questions on data protection or exercising your rights under data protection law (see Section 5), you may contact our data protection officer either by post at our address given above or by email at datenschutz@hl-solutions.de.

3. Activities, in which we process your personal data

3.1 Visiting our website (without registration or log in)

If you visit our website without logging in, registering or otherwise filling in the input fields on the website, we process your personal data as follows:

3.1.1 For the purpose of providing our website, we process the IP address, access time, browser information, operating system, language setting, screen resolution, the page or file accessed, as well as the access status (successful or error code) for each page view of all website visitors. The processing is technically necessary to enable the use of our website (Art. 6 (1) lit. b GDPR). The data is deleted after the end of your visit to our website, unless specific data is processed for one of the following purposes.

3.1.2 For the purpose of detecting and blocking attacks on our website and the technical infrastructure (e.g. hacking, denial-of-service attack), we process the IP addresses, access time, accessed subpage(s), and transmitted data volume of all website visitors. This processing is necessary to fulfil our legal obligation to take protective measures against attacks (Article 6 (1) lit. c GDPR). The data is deleted ten (10) days after the end of your visit to our website, unless an attempted attack is detected. In the event of a detected attempted attack from your point of access, the data will be further processed for technical and, if necessary, legal processing.

3.1.3 Cookies

We use cookies on our website. Cookies are small text files. They allow us to store specific user-related information in the context of the use of our website. Cookies may be differentiated as technically necessary, not technically necessary and Third-Party Cookies.

Technically necessary cookies are those, which are required to use of our website’s functionality. Without them, we may not be able to ensure the use of our website without errors.

Not technically necessary cookies are e.g. those, which allow us to recognise you as a customer on your next visit to our website. We may then restore the settings you chose during your previous visit to our website. Moreover, those cookies help us analyse consumer behaviour in our web-shop.

Third-Party Cookies record your visit to our website, other websites you visited and the links you visited. This information may be used to optimise a website and the advertisements addressed to you and design them according to your interests.

We use the following cookies on our website:

For the analysis of visitor behaviour by Google Analytics we store cookies on the device of the website visitors. Thus, the IP address (shortened for anonymization), from what other website a data subject is forwarded to another website (so-called referrer), what subpages of the website are accessed or how often and for how long a subpage is viewed, are transferred to Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheater Pkwy, Mountain View, CA 94043-1351, USA as a processor (Art. 28 GDPR) and processed there. The processing there is mainly used for the optimisation of our website and for the cost-benefit analysis of internet advertising. Among other things, Google uses the data and information obtained to evaluate the use of our website, to compile online reports on the activities on our website for us, and to provide other services related to the use of our website. This processing is required to pursue our legitimate interests (Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR) to provide website visitors with a website experience that is tailored to their personal preferences and to provide product recommendations and advertising for our company and our products that are tailored to their interests. The transfer to the United States of America is based on an adequacy decision by the EU Commission (Art. 45 GDPR) due to the recipient’s participation in the “EU-US Privacy Shield”. The cookies are deleted at the latest after two years, or earlier in accordance with the settings of your web browser

You may also prevent the collection of the data on your use of the website (incl. your IP-address) that is processed in the cookie as mentioned above as well as the processing by Google, if you download and install the browser Plug-In available at this link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/qaoptout?hl=de. During this process an Opt-Out-Cookie is set, which prevents the setting of other Google Analytics Cookies. If Cookies are deleted automatically or manually in your browser, the opt-Out-Cookie will be deleted as well.

All cookies are allowed, blocked and deleted according to the settings stored in your web browser (e.g. when closing the browser window). If cookies are disabled entirely for our website, it may not be possible to fully use all functions of the website.

You may object the processing described in this sect. 3.1.3 at any time in accordance with sect. 5.2.3, if the conditions of Art. 21 GDPR are met. You can also prevent the storage and processing described in this sect. 3.1.3 by setting the preferences in your browser accordingly, for example, by activating the settings to protect against tracking of your activities.

3.2 Contact form on our website

For the purpose of providing an opportunity to make contact for the initiation of business and answering general questions, we process the following data entered into the contact form: name, email-address, IP-address and messages relating to the request, as well as any additional information freely given in the messages relating to the company, department, address, as well as phone number of the person making the enquiry. These data are only processed to handle the respective enquiry. The email-address is also used to be able to link the enquiry to an existing contractual relationship. The data will only be processed for other purposes (e.g. to send advertisement), if it is necessary to fulfil the request (e.g. if interest was shown for the products, but not in case of support requests). The processing is necessary for the performance of the contract (Art. 6 (1) lit. b GDPR). Immediately after the handling of the enquiry is concluded, data processing is limited to the fulfilment of legal retention obligations, particularly from commercial or tax law and the data is deleted after the last retention period expires.

3.3 Processing of requests by telephone

To process general telephone enquiries and in order to answer customer support requests on the phone, we process names, first names, telephone numbers and customer number of the caller, other personal data communicated by the caller via telephone as well as details of the content of the telephone request. The processing is necessary to handle the request of the caller (Art. 6 (1) lit. b GDPR). Depending on the content of the request, processing will be restricted to processing for the specific purpose of the request immediately after completing the processing of the requestor’s enquiry (e.g. use of our products by the customer, promotion of our services in the context of new customer acquisition). After the fulfilment of the respective purpose as well as all statutory retention obligations, in particular commercial and tax retention requirements, the data is deleted automatically.

3.4 Processing email requests

To process all inquiries that reach us by email, we process the surname, first name, email address, customer number or username of the sender and other personal data communicated in the email as well as information on the content of the request. The processing is necessary to handle the request or enquiry (Article 6 (1) lit. b GDPR). Depending on the request, processing will be restricted to the specific further purpose of the request immediately after completing the processing of initial request (e.g. use of our products by the customer, promotion of our services in the context of new customer acquisition). After the fulfilment of the request or inquiry as well as all statutory retention obligations, in particular commercial and tax retention requirements, the data is deleted.

3.5 Advertisement to prospective clients

To advertise our company’s products by telephone, mail, email, and electronic messages on the platforms Twitter, Facebook or Google+, we process the names, first names, mailing addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, and electronic identifiers of the respective platform, the position in the company and the information available on the specific interest of the company in our products and services of the contact persons of potential customers. Insofar as we have not received this data from the (representative of a) potential customer (e.g. as a contact at a trade fair or event, via the contact form on the website or as part of a call), we collect the data from the respective platform used (Twitter, Facebook or Google+), as far as they are visible for everybody or have been shared with us there, as well as from public directories. This processing is required to pursue our legitimate interests (Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR) to advertise our services to prospective customers directly, thereby increasing sales of our services. The data is no longer processed for direct advertising if the prospective customer objects (sect. 5.2.3) and in any case only to the extent that the potential client would expect in the context of a contractual relationship without being considered a nuisance. The data is deleted, respectively the connection on the platforms Twitter, Facebook or Google+ terminated, if the contact person objects to the data processing for advertising purposes. The data is deleted manually upon decision of our sales department if, during the course of the conversation, it is made clear that the potential client has no present or future interest in our services, or if enough time has passed without response of the potential customer that a reaction can no longer be expected.

4. Data processing on our behalf

For all of the data processing activities mentioned in sect. 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.2 and 3.4 above, we use the services provided by Herrmann & Lenz Services GmbH, Am Ziegelfeld 28, 51399 Burscheid as a processor (Art. 28 GDPR). For the data processing activities mentioned in sect. 3.1.1, 3.1.2, and 3.2, Herrmann & Lenz Services GmbH in turn uses services of Hetzner Online GmbH, Industriestraße 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, and for the data processing activities mentioned in sect. 3.4 services of 1&1 Internet SE, Elgendorfer Str. 57, 56410 Montabaur as processors (Art. 28 GDPR). Personal data processed for those processing activities is transferred to the processors. The location of the servers is in Germany.

5. Your rights as data subject

5.1 You may at any time exercise your rights as a data subject by contacting us by mail to our address mentioned in section 1 or by email to the email address mentioned in section 2.2. Please keep in mind that we do not process any enquiries on personal data by telephone, because generally the identity of the caller cannot be determined with sufficient certainty.

5.2 You have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

5.2.1 You may exercise your right of access (Art. 15 GDPR), the right to rectification (Art. 16 GDPR), the right to erasure (Art. 17 GDPR) and the right to restriction of processing, i. e. blocking for certain purposes, (Art. 18 GDPR) at any time, if the respective statutory prerequisites are met.

5.2.2 Your right to data portability (Art. 20 GDPR) also stipulates that, if the statutory prerequisites are met, you may demand that your personal data stored by us will be transferred to you – or insofar as technically feasible, to another controller designated by you – in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

5.2.3 You have the right to object to processing (Art. 21 GDPR) for some processing purposes, in particular advertising purposes. Insofar as we process your data based on a balancing of interests (pursuant to Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR), you have the right to object to this processing at any time based on grounds related to your particular situation. Such grounds may be compelling in particular, if they give special weight to your interests, which thereby outweigh our interests, for example if these reasons are not known to us and therefore could not be taken into account in the balancing of interests.

5.3 You also have the right to contact the competent data protection supervisory authority for questions or complaints regarding the processing of your personal data.