Privacy Policy

As a non-profit organization, we are obliged to treat any personal information gathered, processed or used through this website in compliance with the provisions of the European General Data Protection Regulation, the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG), and the Telemedia Act (TMG).

We shall not disclose any personal information, except when such disclosure is required by law, or if you have given prior agreement to disclosure.

Methodology and extent of data processing

  • Web analytics and Cookies
  • Right to Object
  • Secure Data Transfer
  • Online Forms
  • Social Media
  • Integration of External Services
  • Data protection on our social media accounts
  • Information and Objection
  • Respect of “Do not track”
  • Technical und Organizational Measures
  • Data Protection Officer

Web analytics and Cookies

Our website uses the analytics tool “Piwik/Matomo”.

Piwik/Matomo

The Piwik/Matomo version used on our website ensures that Internet Protocol (IP) addresses are anonymized.

As a result, it is not possible to track user IPs. A shortened version of your IP-address is only used to obtain a general geolocation, whereby your country of origin and your Internet provider are identified and saved

The analytics tool Piwik/Matomo works by placing a cookie, which will stay saved on your device as a little text document, or so-called “Persistent Cookie”, provided you have not deactivated this function in your browser. The cookie has a duration of two weeks and can recognize devices, which have previously visited the website, as well as undertake non-personalised analysis of behaviour on the website for statistical purposes.

With each visit to the website, additional access data will be stored: name of the visited website; data, date and time of accessing the website, quantity of data transferred, report of successful retrieval, type of browser and version, operating system installed on the device, referrer-link and the requesting provider.

Right to Object i.S.d. § 15 Abs. 3 TMG

It is possible to prevent analysis of user behaviour by blocking the setting of cookies by our website in your browser. Please refer to the program help to find out how to set this up in your browser.

You are informed that blocking cookies could cause malfunctions while using our website. Furthermore you have the option to activate the “Do-not-track”-option (DNT) on your web browser (Section to DNT). Provided the “Do not track”-option is activated in your browser, your data will not be used without permission.

Furthermore, you can prevent any form of user analysis by Piwik on this website by activating a “block-cookie” or “opt-out-cookie”. You can do this in the following checkbox, when making the appropriate setting.

An analysis of your activities will continue for as long as you do not delete the cookie in your browser. If you have already activated the opt-out-cookie, this will be indicated in the following message and you will be able to re-activate the web analytics on this website.

You can change / revoke your consent at any time by clicking here on Cookie settings.

Secure Data Transfer

A secure SSL connection is used for accessing all Germanwatch online-forms and transmission of your data. You can identify this secure transfer through the closed lock in the status bar of your internet browser. Your data is encrypted on the way from your computer to us and can only be read again when it is on our server. A security certificate from THAWTE, the leading global certification authority, confirms the authenticity.

Online Forms

Data submitted by you through the online forms of Germanwatch is used exclusively for association purposes, for fundraising and for sending you further information from Germanwatch. You can object to the use of your data at any time, e.g.by sending an e-mail to info@germanwatch.org (subject: objection).

If you donate to Germanwatch, apply for membership, order a gift certificate, publication(s) and/or subscription(s), or request information about climate & resource expeditions, we will use your contact and payment details in order to carry out the requested transaction

Donation form: The donation form is made available by the service provider Twingle.
We chose this provider to ensure the highest data  security for your data. Twingle guarantees complete protection and  legally compliant data storage. Twingle takes care of payment processing on our behalf through a secure and certified environment. Data related to donation transactions are always SSL-encrypted and stored in  certified data centers in Germany. Processing of personal data is done  according to BDSG (Federal Data Protection Act). Information about data  security and data protection at Twingle can be found at twingle.de.
If you use the payment services provided by Twingle (PayPal), please refer the respective  privacy policies of PayPal.

  • Donations per direct debit: If you donate via direct debit, your data will be transferred through an encrypted connection to our bank, the Social Economy Bank.
  • Donations per PayPal: If you donate via PayPal, after submitting the donation formula, you will be directed to the website of PayPal, where you can finish your donation. We do not receive any details of your bank account and are only informed about successful payment.

Newsletter: We use the software Newsletter2Go for the purposes of sending out our newsletters. By registering for our newsletter, you agree that your data may be transmitted to Sendinblue GmbH. Please refer to the Privacy Policy and the General terms and conditions of business of Sendinblue GmbH.

After registering online, you will receive an e-mail with a confirmation link. You will be only be added to the distribution list after you have activated the link. In this way, we can prevent unauthorized third parties from misusing your e-mail address and ensure that you only receive the content that you have actually ordered. You can unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time. For this purpose, every issue of the newsletter contains a link to un-subscribe. You can also remove your e-mail address from our distribution list here

We chose to cooperate with Sendinblue GmbH located in Berlin, because they fulfil high standards of data privacy and protection. All activities are performed in compliance with the basic data protection regulation (DSGVO).

Social Networks

Share buttons for Facebook, Twitter and youtube are integrated on our website. These are not active while the site is loading. This means that no data is transferred to the servers of the social media providers when the page is loading without your explicit consent. Activation occurs only after you click a button and you can recommend the page from Germanwatch via the respective social network.

Integration of External Services

Use of Youtube in advanced privacy mode: We use the provider Youtube for integrating videos. Videos are covered by the advanced privacy settings. However, similar to many other websites, Youtube uses cookies to collect information from visitors to their website. YouTube uses this information for collecting video statistics, preventing fraud, and improving user experience, amongst other things. It also creates a connection with the Google DoubleClick network. Playing the video, could trigger further data processing operations. This is outside of our control . For more information about privacy on Youtube, please see their privacy policy at: http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy_at_youtube.

Data visitation service 23 degrees GmbH: We have included maps and diagrams provided by 23 Degrees on some pages. When you load pages with this content, your IP address as well as information about your browser and your session are automatically transmitted to 23 Degrees (Vienna, Austria). For more information about privacy on 23 Degrees, please see their privacy policy.

Data protection on our social media profiles

We do not collect any personal data from our social media profiles on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter and ourselves. However, we would like to point out that when using social media services, you are subject to their respective data protection regulations and that data may be transferred to these services.

Information and Objection

You have the right at all times to object to the use of your data, for example via e-mail to ds@germanwatch.org (subject: “objection”). You are also entitled to free-of-cost written information about your data stored by us and its use, as well as, under certain conditions, the right of correction, blocking or deletion of this data.

Respect of “Do not track”

We fully respect “Do not track” (DNT). Depending on the browser, DNT is either a switch in the program settings or a module (add-on or plug-in) for later installation. By activating this option, your browser signals to our website, that tracking options may not be activated without your explicit agreement. Accordingly, our server will deactivate all tracking-functions.

This means, that our websites are delivered without any code to the analytics tool Piwik. This ensures full privacy without you having to take any further action with respect to our internet presence.

Depending on your internet browser, there are different procedures for activating the “Do not track”-option. Please follow the links below:

Technical and organizational Measures

Germanwatch uses technical and organizational security measures to protect your data. Our measures are constantly improving in line with developing technology. Nevertheless, you are hereby notified, that protection of your data in open networks such as the internet cannot be completely guaranteed under the current state of technology.

Data Protection Officer

Dirk Wolf | skriptura dialog systeme GmbH

If you have any questions regarding data protection, please write to us: datenschutz@germanwatch.org

Or to:
Germanwatch e.V.
Dr.Werner-Schuster-Haus
Kaiserstr. 201
D-53113 Bonn

– Stand: 23.11.2020 –