Data protection

Data protection and data processing

We take your privacy extremely seriously when processing personal data. The personal data collected from visitors to our web pages is processed in accordance with the relevant statutory provisions. Our website may contain links to web pages of other providers to which this data privacy statement does not extend.

What is personal data?

According to the General Data Protection Regulation, data is personal if is related either to an identified natural person or can be related to natural person such that the data makes this person identifiable. This includes all information which enables inference to be made about identify (e.g. name, telephone number or email address).

Preparation of usage data for web statistics

We would like to make our web pages as attractive and convenient for you as possible. For this purpose, evaluating statistical data concerning usage and the collection of a range of technical details via the web browsers and computers of our visitors is very helpful.

For this reason, we use the web analytics programme Matomo (formally PIWIK). This operates using Cookies and JavaScript and automatically transfers pseudonymised usage data to us.

Further information about data collected and about options for objecting is available in our data collection statement.

Personalised services (e. g. newsletter)

If you have decided to make use of a personalised service, the data required and entered by you is stored. This is normally your email address, name and first name and other data depending on the type of services offered. Your information is used solely to provide the service you requested to your satisfaction and to be able to respond to queries. If you no longer wish to make use of a personalised service, your personal data is deleted after you have deregistered, provided use of the service requires you to register.

If you would like to deregister from a personalised service, please use the function provided for this on the website. Alternatively, you can also contact the Internet Editing Team at the “Recognition in Germany” portal. It is also possible to unsubscribe from newsletters via a link at the end of the newsletter.

Your personal information is administered and stored for selected services on the systems of bringe Informationstechnik GmbH in Karlsruhe, Germany as part of a data processing services agreement.

Contact forms

Questions about recognition and the feedback form

Your information in the contact form is stored in the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) for the purposes of responding to your enquiry and for research analysis.

Your information will be forwarded to other institutions insofar as this is necessary in order to respond to your enquiry. Specifically, these are the hotline “Working and Living in Germany” and the Service Center for Professional Recognition (ZSBA).

Data stored is used by the BIBB for academic research evaluations within the context of “Anerkennung in Deutschland”. All entries in the contact form fields are stored for this purpose, including message text. The aim is to analyse the occurrence of enquiries e.g. with regard to nationality, origin of professional qualification, professional qualification, country of residence, city. The aim is also to analyse the content of message texts. As part of the analyses, your personal data is only processed internally at BIBB. The data is not used in the research analysis.

Your data is deleted once it is no longer needed for achieving the purpose for which it was collected but no later, however, than 6 months after receipt of your enquiry.

Calendar entries and recording campaigns

Data for the purpose of announcing events, campaigns or publications on the “Anerkennung in Deutschland” portal, e.g. as part of the initiative “Recognition Days”, are collected electronically via the “report post” form or via the email address termine_anerkennung@bibb.de and saved and used exclusively to process the request.

We do not currently use social media plug-ins from external providers. This means that if you visit our web pages no personal data is ever transferred. In order to facilitate use of social media for you, the BIBB uses solutions developed in house. This does not give social media providers access to your IP address.

Right to request information

You have the right at any time to request information regarding personal information stored on you, the origin of such data and the purpose of the storage. Upon request, we will act in accordance with applicable law in notifying you in writing whether we hold personal information about you and which information we hold. If, despite our best endeavours, information stored is incorrect, we will rectify such information upon request. Information about data stored is provided by the “Recognition in Germany” Editing Team.

If you have any questions regarding the topic of data privacy, the Data Protection Representative of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training is available via the contact form and by telephone on +49 228 107 1713.

Security

We employ technical and organisational security measures to protect your data against accidental or deliberate manipulation, loss, destruction and against unauthorised access. We improve our security arrangements on an ongoing basis in line with technological advances.

Data transfer

Your personal data will only be transferred to government organisations and authorities without your consent in circumstances where this is legally required or for prosecution in the event of attacks on our network infrastructure. Personal data is not transferred to third parties for any other purpose.

Explanation of data collection

Options for objecting to the collection of usage data for web statistics

At the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) we use the web analytics programme Matomo (formally PIWIK) for statistical data collection.

The following independent options are available to you for objecting to data collection by BIBB’s central Matamo service:

Activate the Do Not Track setting in your browser. While this setting is activated, our central Matamo service will not store any data from you. Important: the Do Not Track instruction generally applies only to the single device and individual browser in which you activate the setting. If you use several devices/browsers, then you must “activate Do Not Track” separately in each case.
Use our Opt Out function. Click the tick in the checkbox to stop data collection or to reactivate it. While this setting is activated, our central Matamo service will not store any data from you. Important: for the Opt Out we have to store a special identification cookie in your browser. If you delete this or use another PC/browser then you must object to data collection again on this web page.

We only use cookies necessary for operation in order to optimise the display of content and to present content in a personalised way. According to the judgements of the European Court of Justice of 01.10.2019 and of the German Federal Court of 28.5.2020, no active consent from the user to the use of cookies is therefore required.
Data Protection Page of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training

Data collected by Matomo

The following data is recorded – provided you have not objected – by the BIBB’s central Matomo service and is included in the usage statistics.

Basic data:

IP address, anonymised by abbreviation
Previously visited URL (referrer), where this is transferred by the browser
Name and version of the operating system
Browser name, version and language setting

Also, provided JavaScript is activated:

URLs visited on this web page
Time of page access
Type of HTML requests
Screen resolution and colour depth
Technologies and formats supported by the browser (e. g. Cookies, Java, Flash, PDF, WindowsMedia, QuickTime, Realplayer, Director, SilverLight, Google Gears)

BIBB evaluates this data for statistical purposes only (web statistics) in order to improve our Internet provision. Data for web statistics is collected anonymously (with abbreviated IP address) and cannot be allocated to any specific person.

Data collected via the contact forms

The following data is stored – on the basis of your consent – from the contact forms and, where necessary, forwarded to the Hotline “Working and Living in Germany” and the Central Service Center for Professional Recognition (ZSBA):

Email address
First name and surname
Current place of residence
Nationality
Job title
Country in which you have acquired your qualification
Date of qualification
Name of the institute of higher education at which the qualification was obtained

You can withdraw your consent to the processing at any time with effect for the future. The legality of the processing based on the consent until withdrawal of consent remains unaffected.

Calendar entries and recording campaigns for the days of recognition

The data listed below that we receive for the purpose of announcing events, campaigns or publications on the “Recognition in Germany” portal via the “report post” form or via the email address termine_anerkennung@bibb.de are collected electronically, saved and used exclusively to process the enquiry.

Campaign type (event / other campaign)
Name of the event /campaign
Date
Short description
Description
Link to event/campaign
Language
Registration required/not required
Target group
Event location
Details of event organiser
- Event
- Street, house no.
- City
- Postcode
- Country
Contact partner for questions (not public):
- Name
- Surname
- Email
- Telephone
- Fax

The processing of the data takes place on the basis of your consent, which you can withdraw at any time with effect for the future. The legality of the processing based on the consent until withdrawal of consent remains unaffected.

Data collected by the server statistics

The internet provision can be used without any logging of personal information. However, with every visit to a web page, data which your browser transfers to our server is logged. This includes:

Type and version of your internet browser
Operating system used
Page accessed
Page previously visited (referrer URL)
Time of server enquiry

Data collected by applications

For technical reasons, our servers and applications store your personal connection details in your log files when you access our web pages. However, this data is only used for the direct provision of our services, for fault rectification or for defending against an attack and is automatically deleted after a short period.

The following data is stored temporarily.

Your IP address
The date and time you access the page
Address of the page accessed
Address of the web page previously visited (referrer)
Name and version of your browser/operating system (if transferred)

Personal data is only stored in cases where you yourself provide such data, for example when using the contact form or ordering publications. The transmission of personal data is encrypted using a procedure in accordance with the latest technology (Secure Sockets Layer – SSL).

Cookies

Cookies are small text files which are stored on your own device via the browser in accordance with defined standards.

Surveys and empirical studies

The data collected by BIBB within the scope of surveys and empirical studies is treated confidentially and is used for research purposes only. Responses provided in online surveys are transmitted in encrypted form (Secure Sockets Layer – SSL). Evaluations carried out use anonymised datasets only. This makes it impossible to trace data back to an individual respondent.

Use and transfer of personal data and designated purpose

We will use your personal data only for the purposes stated at the time when such data is collected. Your data will not be passed on to third parties without your express permission.

YouTube

We use YouTube to embed videos in order to make our website attractive and informative for you. As a rule, when you visit one of our web pages that features a YouTube plug-in, a connection to the YouTube servers is established. However, we use a so-called two-click solution on our site, which ensures that the connection to YouTube is initially deactivated. All our videos are embedded in our web pages in such a way that the transfer of your IP address to the YouTube servers does not begin until you actively click on the video. If you do not click on the video, no data are sent to YouTube while you are visiting our website. The operator of YouTube is YouTube LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA.

YouTube uses cookies to collect information about visitors to its website. YouTube uses this information to, among other things, compile video statistics, prevent and solve issues of fraud, and improve user-friendliness. A connection to the Google DoubleClick network may also be established. When you start a YouTube video, it may lead to additional data processing activities. We have no influence over this.
If you have a YouTube account and are logged into the account at the same time as you access our web pages, you enable YouTube to link your surfing activities directly to your personal YouTube profile. You can prevent this by logging out of your YouTube account.

Further information about data protection at YouTube can be found in its privacy policy:
YouTube Privacy Policy
Google Privacy Policy

Your rights

Regarding your personal data, you have the following rights with regard to the responsible parties:

Right of access, Art. 15 GDPR
Right to rectification, Art. 16 GDPR
Right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”), Art. 17 GDPR
Right to restriction of processing, Art. 18 GDPR;
Right to object to processing of personal data, Art. 21 GDPR
Right to data portability, Art. 20 GDPR

Insofar as the processing of personal data takes places on the basis of your consent (Article 6, Para. 1 (a) GDPR), you have the right to withdraw this consent for the stated purpose at any time. The lawfulness of the processing on the basis of your given consent remains unaffected until receipt of notice of withdrawal.

You can assert the aforementioned rights via our Internet Editing Team.

You also have the right to appeal to the supervisory authority for data protection (Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information).

You can address any questions and appeals to the Data Protection Officer at the BIBB.

Processing of personal data in the context of social network use.

“Recognition in Germany” is active on the following social networks: Facebook and LinkedIn

To fulfil its tasks in the social networks, “Recognition in Germany” processes and saves anonymised and aggregated information on the users that interact with the website “Recognition in Germany”.

We draw your attention to the fact that the indirect processing of personal data by “Recognition in Germany” in the analysis or evaluation of the respective social media profiles takes place on the basis of Article 6 Paragraph 1 (e) GDPR in connection with Article 3 of the German Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG). The use of the personal data transmitted by you to the respective platform is necessary in order to deal with your enquiry as well as for the purpose of public relations work.

Furthermore, we expressly draw your attention to the fact that the services store their users’ data (e.g. personal information, IP address) in accordance with their data usage guidelines and use it for commercial purposes. “Recognition in Germany” has no influence on the collection and further use of data by the social networks. We therefore do not know the extent, location and duration of the data storage, the extent to which the networks comply with existing obligations to delete data, what evaluations and links are made in relation to the data and to whom the data are forwarded.

Information regarding what data are processed by the services and for what purposes the data are used can be found in the current version of the privacy policy of each service provider:

Facebook Privacy Policy

LinkedIn Privacy Policy

Data Protection Representative

The Data Protection Representative of the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training is available to respond to any further question you may have and to provide additional information on the subject of data protection.

The contact details of the BIBB Data Protection Representative are:
Anette Fischer-Peters
Tel.: 0228 107-2273