Privacy Policy
Welcome to www.eva-merboth.com! This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect when you use our website and psychological counseling services, and how it is used.
The Basics
Who is responsible for data processing?
The responsible party within the meaning of Germany's Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz) ("BDSG") and the EU's General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") is Eva-Maria Merboth of Corneliusstraße 52, Düsseldorf, Germany, 40215 ("we", "us", or "our").
If you have any questions about this policy or our data protection practices, please contact us using info@eva-merboth.com or write to us at the above address.
What law applies?
Our use of your Personal Data is subject to the BDSG and the GDPR and of course we process your Personal Data accordingly.
What is Personal Data?
Personal Data is any information about personal or factual circumstances that relate to a person. This may include name, date of birth, email address, postal address or telephone number, but also online identifiers such as IP addresses or device IDs.
What is Special Category Data?
Special category data is Personal Data that needs more protection because it is sensitive. This includes Personal Data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data. As well as, data concerning health, a person’s sex life; and a person’s sexual orientation. In order to lawfully process Special Category Data, it is necessary to explicitly consent to the processing.
What is processing?
"Processing" is any operation or set of operations that is performed on Personal Data, whether or not it is done automatically. The term is broad and covers virtually any handling of data.
What are the legal bases for processing?
According to BDSG and the GDPR, we should have at least one of the following legal bases to process your Personal Data:
- To fulfill contractual obligations (The purposes of the data processing are primarily based on the service we provide).
- In connection with our legitimate interests.(Where necessary, we process your data beyond the actual performance of the contract to protect legitimate interests of us or third parties. Examples include:
- Ensuring IT security and IT operations,
- Corporate governance measures and further development of our services,
- defense against claims by third parties and
- Enforcement of our own claims).
- Based on your consent (If you have given us your consent to process Personal Data for specific purposes).
- To comply with legal obligations. (Processing to comply with our legal obligations.)
Am I obliged to provide data?
In the context of our business relationship, you are only obliged to provide Personal Data that is required for the establishment, implementation and termination of a business relationship or that we are legally obliged to collect. Without this data, we usually have to refuse to conclude a contract or can no longer fulfill an existing contract and may have to terminate it.
Special category data
We do neither intend nor seek to process special category data.
Automated Decision Making
Automated decision making is the process of making a decision by automated means without human involvement. Automated decision making does not occur.
DO NOT SELL
We do not sell your personal data.
Data that we collect automatically
Log data
Each time you visit our website, our system automatically collects the following data from the visiting device and stores it in a so-called log file: i) name of the file accessed, ii) date and time of the visit, iii) amount of data transferred, iv) notification of successful retrieval, type of browser and version used, v) IP address (identification of the user's device), vi) operating system of the visiting device, vii) Internet service provider of the visiting device, viii) website from which you access our website, and (ix) which pages of our website you access. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interest.
Hosting
The hosting service used by us for the purpose of operating our website is netlify.com (Netlify, Inc., 512 2nd Street, Suite 200, San Francisco, CA 94107). In doing so netlify.com processes: i) inventory data, ii) contact data, iii) content data, iv) usage data, v) meta data, and vi) communication data of customers, interested parties and visitors of our website and services. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interest.
Content Management System
We use the Content Management System (CMS) of Squarespace (225 Varick Street 12th Floor New York, NY 10014 United States), to publish and maintain the created and edited Content and texts on our website. This means that all content and texts submitted to us by users for publication is transferred to Squarespace. The legal basis for this processing is my legitimate interest.
Fonts
We use Google Fonts by Google on our website to display external fonts. To enable the display of certain fonts on our website, a connection to the Google server in the USA is established when our website is accessed. The connection to Google established when you call up our website enables Google to determine which website sent your request and to which IP address the display of the font is to be transmitted. This represents a legitimate interest.
Cookies
What exactly are cookies?
A cookie is a small simple file that is sent along with pages of our website and stored by your browser on the hard drive of your computer or other device. The information stored in it may be returned to our servers (or to the servers of the relevant third parties) on a subsequent visit. Doing so, Cookies transmit small amounts of data about your device to our web server and enable our website to recognize your computer, smartphone, or other device.
Depending on who you ask, cookies can be classed as third party and first party cookies (for example set by us as the website operator or by a third party providing a specific service which uses cookies) or how long a cookie remains stored. When classifying cookies according to their lifespan, we may refer to cookies as session cookies or persistent cookies:
i) Session cookies
A session cookie is deleted when you close the website in question. A session cookie allows a website to recognise you while you browse the website, but the cookie is deleted when you log out or close the website in your browser.
ii) Permanent cookies
A persistent cookie recognizes you again and again for a set period of time. It remains stored on your device or in your browser for this period (which can be minutes, days, or months) after you have logged out or closed the browser. Persistent cookies are used, for example, to store certain settings you have made on a website (such as your preferred language).
What types of cookies are there?
We can distinguish between 4 types of cookies:
i) Essential or Necessary cookies
These cookies are essential or necessary to ensure that our website works properly and is secure so that you can navigate our website and use its features. Without these cookies, certain features of our website would not be available, and you would not be able to use certain services.
ii) Functional cookies
Functional cookies allow a website to remember the options you have selected (including user ID, consents you have given and/or your preferred language), your username if applicable, and any custom settings you have made (e.g., font sizes) or personalization options you have selected when browsing.
iii) Analysis and performance cookies
Analysis and performance cookies are used to monitor and improve the function and service of a website. They can also help us track down problems you may encounter when using an online service. Analysis and performance cookies may be used to facilitate online surveys, record visitor numbers, and provide other website analytics metrics.
iv) Advertising cookies
These cookies are also called targeting cookies. They are used to deliver customized advertising to the user. This can be very convenient, but also very annoying.
Google Analytics
We use Google Analytics based on our legitimate interest and your consent, a web analytics service provided by Google LLC (Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, US, and Google Ireland Limited Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland). Google Analytics also uses cookies to enable our website to analyze how users use our website across multiple devices. The information generated by the cookies about your use of our website is transmitted to and stored by Google, including transmission to the United States. The following data is processed through the use of Google Analytics: i) 3 bytes of the IP address of the called system of the website visitor (anonymised IP address), ii) the website called up, iii) the website from which the user reached the accessed page of our website(referrer), iv) the subpages accessed from the website, v) the time spent on the website, and vi) the frequency with which the website is accessed.Google states that it will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.The use of this service is based on your consent. You can disable tracking by Google Analytics with future effect by downloading and installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on for your current web browser following this link http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.
Pixel Cookies and Tags
We use so-called Pixel Cookies and Tags (“Pixel Cookies”). A Pixel Cookie is an advertising tool and typically consists of a JavaScript code snippet that allows us to understand and track visitors' activity on our website. For this purpose, Pixel Cookies collect and process information about visitors of our website and the device used (so-called event data).
Event data collected through Pixel Cookies is used for targeting our advertisements and improving ad delivery and personalized advertising. For this purpose, the event data collected on our website by means of Pixel Cookies is transmitted to the relevant operator of the Pixel Cookie and in part, also stored on your device. However, this only happens with your consent, and we and the relevant operator of the Pixel Cookie are considered joint controllers. Nonetheless, for the subsequent processing of the transmitted Event Data, the relevant operator of the Pixel Cookie is the sole controller.
For more information about how the relevant operator of the Pixel Cookie processes personal data, including the legal basis on which they rely on and how you can exercise your rights against, please refer to the following Privacy Policies: LinkedIn (605 W Maude Ave, Sunnyvale, CA 94085, USA), Medium (799 Market St 5th Floor, San Francisco, United States), YouTube by Google LLC, Vimeo (555 West 18th Street New York, NY 10011 United States), Facebook and Instagram (Meta Platforms, Inc., 1601 Willow Road Menlo Park California 94025 und 4 Grand Canal Square Grand Canal Harbour Dublin 2 Ireland).
Why do we provide information about cookies?
The provision of information about our use of cookies is required and set out in the German Data Protection and Privacy in Telecommunications and Telemedia Act (“TTDSG”) which implements the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive (“PECD”). Accordingly, the use of functional, analysis and performance or advertising cookies require your consent and thus the legal basis for the collection of your Personal Data through analysis and performance cookies, is your consent.
Cookie consent
Our website uses the cookie consent tool of [Insert Details], to obtain your consent to the storage of cookies and to document this consent. When you enter our website, the following Personal Data is transferred to us: i) Your consent(s) or revocation of your consent(s); ii) Your IP address; iii) Information about your browser; iv) Information about your device; v) Time of your visit to our website. The basis for processing is our legitimate interest and your consent.
Links to other websites
Please note that if you use a link from our website to a third-party website, that third-party may also set new cookies that are not covered by this policy. In such cases, we recommend that you read the cookie policy on the third-party website itself.
Data we collect directly
Contact
The processing of Personal Data depends on the nature of your contact. In addition to your name and email address, IP address or phone number, we usually collect the context of your message, which may also contain certain Personal Data. The Personal Data collected when you contact us is used to process your request, and the legal basis is your consent.
Please note that
As a rule, we do not require any special categories of personal data in order to contact you. We ask you not to provide us with such information from the outset. If such information is relevant for contacting you, we will process it together with your other data. Your data will not be used by us for automated decision-making or profiling, nor will it be passed on to third parties. Your data will be processed by us or on our behalf.
Bookings
For booking a meeting in an easy and convenient way, we use Cal.com (3802 North Navarro, San Francisco, California USA). Your data from the form will be transferred to our appointment account at Cal.com after you press the "Book appointment" button. You will then receive a confirmation email with a link to the event. Your data will be kept at Cal.com until the purpose for storing the data no longer applies (appointment made) or you request us to delete it. Cal.com undertakes not to pass on your data to third parties. The legal basis is your consent as well as our legitimate interest.
Provision of contractual services
We process various data as part of the provision of our services, psychological counseling services and to initiate and process the contractual relationship between you and us.This includes in particular our support, correspondence with you, invoicing, fulfillment of our contractual, accounting and tax obligations. Accordingly, the data is processed on the basis of fulfilling our contractual obligations and our legal obligations.
Please note that
We ask you not to provide us with health data from the outset. If health data is relevant, we process it together with your other data. Your data will not be used by us for automated decision-making or profiling, nor will it be passed on to third parties. Your data will be processed by us or on our behalf.
Online Meetings
We use Zoom (55 Almaden Boulevard, 6th Floor, San Jose, California, 95113, USA) to conduct our online meetings. When using Zoom various types of data are processed. The scope of the data depends on the information you provide before or during the online meeting. The processing bases are your consent as well as our legitimate interest.
Within the meetings you may be able to share certain details, engage with others, exchange knowledge and insights. You have choices about the information you provide. You don’t have to provide additional information however, information helps you to get more from our online meetings. It’s your choice whether to share sensitive information and to make that sensitive information public. Please do not share data that you would not want to be available. The legal basis for the storage is our legitimate interest and the processing basis is your consent.
Contract Data
We process the Personal Data that arises when you use our services in order to provide our contractual services those include your Full Name, Title, Email address, Billing details,. In particular, this includes our support, correspondence with you, invoicing, fulfillment of our contractual, accounting and tax obligations. Accordingly, the data is processed on the basis of the fulfillment of our contractual obligations and our legal obligations.
Payment Data
The provision of payment details is subject to your bank and does currently not take place through our website. For further information, please refer to your Bank`s Privacy Policy. The legal basis is the fulfillment of a contractual obligation and the fulfillment of our legal obligations.
Administration, financial accounting, office organization, contact management.
We process data in the context of administrative tasks and the organization of our business and compliance with legal obligations, such as archiving. In this context, we process the same data that we process in the provision of our contractual services. The processing bases are our legal obligations and our legitimate interest.
Marketing
If you have given us your separate consent to process your data for marketing and promotional purposes, we are entitled to contact you for these purposes through the communication channels for which you have given your consent.
You may give us your consent in a variety of ways, such as by checking a box on a form asking for permission to send you marketing information, or sometimes your consent is implied from your interactions or contractual relationship with us. In cases where your consent is implied, it is based on the assumption that you could reasonably expect to receive a marketing communication based on your interactions or contractual relationship with us.
Direct marketing is typically by email, but may include other less traditional or new channels. These forms of contact are managed by us or by our contracted service providers. Any direct addressed marketing sent or conducted by us or on our behalf will provide you with the opportunity to opt out or exclude yourself.
Economic analyses and market research
For business reasons, we analyze the data we have on business transactions, contracts, enquiries,browsing behavior etc., whereby the group of persons concerned may include contractual partners, interested parties, and users of our services.
The analyses are carried out for the purpose of business evaluations and market research. The analyses serve us alone and are not disclosed externally and processed using anonymous analyses with summarized and or anonymized values. Furthermore, we take the privacy of users into consideration and process the data for analysis purposes as pseudonymously as possible and, if feasible, anonymously (e.g., as summarized data).
Social Media
General
We are present on social media (currently, LinkedIn, Medium, YouTube by Google LLC, Vimeo, Facebook and Instagram) on the basis of our legitimate interest. If you contact or connect with us via social media, we and the relevant social media platform are jointly responsible for the processing of your data and enter into a so-called joint controller agreement. The Personal Data collected when contacting us is to handle your request and the bases are both your consent and our legitimate interest.
Market research and advertising
In addition, your data may be processed for market research and advertising purposes. For example, usage profiles can be created from your usage behavior and the resulting interests. This allows, for example, advertisements to be placed within and outside the platforms that presumably correspond to your interests. The legal basis is our legitimate interest.
When you visit our profiles and interact with us and others
When you visit our social media profiles, we, as the operator of the profile, process your actions and interactions with our profile (e.g., the content of your messages, enquiries, posts or comments that you send to us or leave on our profile or when you like or share our posts) as well as your publicly viewable profile data (e.g., your name and profile picture). Which Personal Data from your profile is publicly viewable depends on your profile settings, which you can adjust yourself in the settings of your social media account. The legal basis is our legitimate interest and your consent.
General Principles
Who receives my information?
Within our company, those who have access to your information are those who need it to fulfill our contractual and legal obligations.
Processors used by us may also receive data for these purposes. These are companies in the areas of IT services, telecommunications, and sales and marketing. If we use processors to provide our services, we take appropriate legal precautions and corresponding technical and organizational measures to ensure the protection of Personal Data in accordance with the relevant legal provisions.
Data is only passed on to third parties within the framework of the legal provisions. We only pass on user data to third parties if this is necessary, for example, for contractual purposes or due to legitimate interests in the economic and effective operation of our company including the sale of our business, or if you have consented to the transfer of data.
How long will my data be stored?
To the extent necessary, we process and store your Personal Data for the duration of our business relationship, which includes, for example, the initiation and execution of a contract.
In addition, we are subject to various retention and documentation obligations, which result, among other things, from the statutory minimum retention periods and other retention periods prescribed in this sense, e.g. retention periods under tax or commercial law. Depending on the document and the legal regulation, the periods specified there for storage and documentation are five to six years.
How do we secure your data?
Our website uses SSL or TLS encryption to ensure the security of data processing and to protect the transmission of content or contact requests that you send to us. In addition, we have taken numerous security measures (“technical and organizational measures”), such as encryption or access only when necessary, to ensure the most complete protection of Personal Data processed through this website.
Nevertheless, Internet-based data transmissions can always have security vulnerabilities, so that absolute protection cannot be guaranteed. And databases or records containing Personal Data may be breached inadvertently or by unlawful intrusion. If we learn of a data breach, we will notify all affected individuals whose Personal Data may have been compromised as soon as possible after the breach is discovered.
Is data transferred to a third country?
We ensure that the processing of your Personal Data is governed by processing contracts that include standard contractual clauses to ensure a high level of data protection.
Your rights and privileges
Rights to protect your data
Under the BDSG and the GDPR, you may exercise the following rights:
- Right to information
- Right to rectification
- Right to deletion
- Right to data portability
- Right to object
- Right to withdraw consent
- Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority
- Right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing.
If you have any questions about the type of Personal Data we hold about you, or if you wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact us.
Updating your data
If you believe that the data we hold about you is inaccurate or that we are no longer entitled to use it and you wish to request that it be rectified or erased, or object to its processing, please contact us.
Withdrawal of your consent
You may withdraw any consent you have given at any time by contacting us. The legality of the data processing carried out until the withdrawal remains unaffected by the withdrawal.
Request for information
If you would like to make a request for information about your data, you can inform us in writing. We will respond to requests for information and correction as quickly as possible. If we are unable to respond to your request within thirty (30) days, we will tell you why and when we will be able to respond to your request. If we are unable to provide you with the personal information you have requested or to make a correction, we will tell you why.
Complaint to a supervisory authority
You have the right to lodge a complaint about our processing of Personal Data with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection. The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI) (www.bfdi.bund.de) is the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection. However, we would appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns before you contact any state commissioner or the BfDI.
Does this policy change?
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. This might be for a number of reasons, such as to reflect a change in the law or to accommodate a change in our business practices and the way we use your Personal Data. We recommend that you check here periodically for any changes to our Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy was last updated on Tuesday, 07 November 2023.
Who should I contact for more information?
If you have any questions about this policy or our data protection practices, please contact us using info@eva-merboth.com write to us at the above address.