Data protection information for registration

We require the following data in order to process the registration for and use of the services provided by Gründungswerkstatt and for sending information regarding start-up issues: Forename, surname, email address, password, post code, industry, and start-up status. We process your data exclusively for this purpose on the basis of Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR. Provision of further, optional information is voluntary. By registering, you consent to the processing of the data you have voluntarily provided in accordance with Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR. Your data will only be transferred to HKS Handelskammer Service GmbH and to the respective experts. Your data are generally stored—irrespective of the provisions for the storage of documents in accordance with § 147 of the German Tax Code (AO)—after the start-up consultancy has concluded or if you do not log into the portal for longer than 9 months.

You can revoke your consent to the processing of the data you have provided voluntarily (optionally) at any time in writing or electronically to the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce (Adolphsplatz 1, 20457 Hamburg, Tel. 040/36138-138, Fax: 040/36138-401, email: service@hk24.de) with future effect without giving any reasons. Please note that by revoking your consent, the lawfulness of the processing carried out on the basis of consent prior to the revocation is not affected.

The responsible authority is HKS Handelskammer Hamburg Service GmbH, Adolphsplatz 1, 20457 Hamburg, Tel. 040 36138-138, Fax: 040 36138-401, service@hk24.de. The representative is the Managing Director Ms Christi Degen. You can contact the official data protection officer Mr Christian Graf at Christian.Graf@hk24.de. You have the right to request information about your personal data stored by HKS Handelskammer Hamburg Service GmbH. You also have the right to the rectification, erasure, and restriction of processing of your personal data in accordance with the relevant provisions. The supervisory authority responsible for exercising the right to appeal is the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information.

Data Protection Policy for Gründungswerkstatt

Gründungswerkstatt is a consultancy service provided by HKS Handelskammer Hamburg Service GmbH.

This website is operated by HKS Handelskammer Hamburg Service GmbH (hereinafter referred to as “HKS”), Adolphsplatz 1, 20457 Hamburg. The purpose of this notice is to inform you in accordance with §13 of the German Telemedia Act about the type, scope, and purpose of the collection and use of personal data and about any processing of data in third countries outside of the European Union.

General information

In terms of the information provided by the chambers of industry and commerce, the chamber of crafts or other start-up support institutions (hereinafter jointly referred to as “regional partners”), the websites provided by Gründungswerkstatt can be accessed free of charge by the general public without needing to provide any personal data in order to use them.

Personal advisory service

Gründungswerkstatt provides personal advice for people who are interested in setting up a company or who have already set up a company but require advice during the company's start-up phase. This part of the service—hereinafter referred to as the start-up tutorial—can only be accessed following registration as a user—hereinafter referred to as a founder. A founder can use the start-up tutorial website in full without any intervention by a start-up advisor—hereinafter referred to as an expert. The relevant expert will then only contact the founder if the latter has expressly requested advice from them.

Personal data

Gründungswerkstatt is subject to the provisions of the GDPR. According to the GDPR, personal data are individual details about personal or factual circumstances regarding an identified or identifiable natural person. Our website allows the following personal data to be entered to enable you to contact us:

Personal data:

• Forename and surname
• Email address
• Message

Purpose of collection, processing, and use

Storage of personal data

The confidentiality of your data is guaranteed as only you, your expert from the respective Gründungswerkstatt, the representative of your expert in office, HKS Handelskammer Hamburg Service GmbH, and—for technical reasons and for data security—a database administrator have access to this data. Any reference to experts below applies analogously to their representative in office.

Disclosure of personal data

Experts can see your master data (name, telephone number, industry, stand-up location, start-up status). You can also disclose data and documents that you file with Gründungswerkstatt for the purposes of dialogue with your expert. You can view and cancel the current disclosure status for all data and documents at any time. It will then no longer be possible for an expert to use such data and documents. Experts and data protection administrators are particularly obliged to protect data in accordance with the German Act on the Obligations of Public Servants.

Use of personal data

All details that you as the founder voluntarily provide during the course of the advice provided by Gründungswerkstatt about yourself or your start-up projects and about your private or business situation are used exclusively in the context of advice provided by the respective tutors and by the departments of the respective regional partners consulted by the tutors for specialist queries (e.g. law, taxes, technology).

Protection of transmitted and stored data

Technical and organisational security measures are implemented in the operation of Gründungswerkstatt in order to protect the personal data provided from manipulation, loss, destruction or access by unauthorised persons. The security measures are continually improved and adapted in accordance with the state of the art. Please note that unencrypted transmitted data may be viewed by third parties. This particularly applies to the confidentiality of data you have transmitted by email or by email forms.

Employee obligations

For the Gründungswerkstatt Deutschland platform and the regional partner guarantees for their respective regional Gründungswerkstatt, HKS Handelskammer Hamburg Service GmbH guarantees that all employees working on the information and consultancy service are obliged to observe the data protection provisions of the GDPR and to maintain confidentiality.

System operator and scope of data processing

Information is collected automatically every time our website is accessed. This information, also known as server log files, is generic and does not allow you to be identified.

• Details about the type/version of the browser and the operating system used
• The referrer URL (the website from which our website is accessed)
• IP address of the contacting computer
• Date and time of access

We use this information exclusively for the purpose of optimisation and error analysis. No comparison is made with other data and no transfer is made to third parties, even in extracts. We reserve the right to subsequently check this data and transfer it to authorised third parties in the event of any suspicion of unlawful use of our website. The data will be erased automatically after no more than 30 days.

The legal basis for the temporary storage of data and log files is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies in order to provide you with a convenient and functional online service and to verify your authorisation to use the service. Cookies are data files that contain information in order to identify returning visitors exclusively for the duration of the visit to our website. Cookies are stored on your computer’s hard drive and do not cause any damage there.

The website cookies contain personal data. Cookies save you from entering data multiple times, simplify the transmission of specific content, and help us to identify particularly popular areas of our website. They allow us to continue to improve the structure and content of our website.

Gründungswerkstatt uses so-called session cookies, which are deleted immediately when you close your browser. We use these session cookies in order to improve services for our visitors and to make browsing our website easier. Deleting or blocking these cookies does not affect the use of our website and its functions.

We also use cookies that last beyond the session (“trans-session cookies”). The purpose of these cookies is to allow us to make our website user friendly, more effective, and more secure.

You can deactivate the acceptance of cookies on your device in your browser. However, we cannot guarantee that all functions of our website will then be available.

Data security

Unfortunately, the transfer of information over the internet is not completely secure, which is why we are unable to guarantee the security of the data transferred via the internet to our website. We protect our website and other IT systems against the loss of availability, integrity, and confidentiality using appropriate technical and organisational measures. Your personal data are transferred to us in an encrypted form. You can see that the connection is secure if the displayed address begins with “https://...” instead of “http://...” and a locked padlock is shown in your browser. You can find more information about our SSL certificate by clicking on the padlock.

Your rights and contact information

You can request information about the personal information we store about you and, if applicable, the rectification and/or erasure of such at any time. Please use the contact address provided in the legal notice for this purpose and/or to obtain further information about this.

If you have any questions, comments or queries regarding our collection, processing and use of your personal data, please also contact us using the contact details provided. Please note that, if applicable, you can revoke any consent that you have provided to us at any time with future consent.

Amendments to this data protection policy

We reserve the right to amend this data protection policy at any time with future effect. The current version can be found on our website. Please visit our website regularly to familiarise yourself with the current data protection policy.

Third party services

Displaying YouTube videos

On our website, we have embedded videos from the provider YouTube (YouTube LLC, 901 Cherry Avenue, San Bruno, CA 94066, USA, represented by Google Inc. whose registered office is at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA, 94043, USA).

We have embedded our videos in so-called “extended data protection mode” in order to allow you to view them in a data-protection-friendly manner. If you play the videos, a connection is established to a YouTube server. This transmits data to YouTube about which of our web pages you have visited.

If you are logged into YouTube as a member, YouTube allocates this information to your personal user account. By using this service, e.g. clicking the play button on a video, this information is also allocated to your user account. You can prevent this information being allocated by logging out of your YouTube user account and other YouTube LLC and Google Inc. user accounts and deleting the respective cookies for these companies before using our website. You can find further information about data processing and advice on data protection by YouTube at www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy/.

By embedding YouTube videos on our website, cookies may be placed by YouTube.

Using Facebook

Plugins from the social network Facebook, 1601, South California Avenue, Palo Alto, CA, 94304, USA are integrated on our website. The Facebook plugins can be recognised by the Facebook logo or the “Like” button on our website. An overview of the Facebook plugins can be found here: http://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/ When visiting our website, the plugin establishes a direct connection between your browser and the Facebook server. In this way, Facebook receives information that you have visited our website from your IP address. If you click the Facebook “Like button” whilst you are logged into your Facebook account, you can link the contents of our website to your Facebook profile. This enables Facebook to allocate your visit to our website to your user account. Please note that, as the website provider, we have no knowledge of the content of the transferred data or the use of such data by Facebook. You can find further information about this in Facebook’s data protection policy at https://de-de.facebook.com/policy.php

If you do not want Facebook to be able to allocate your visit to our website to your Facebook user account, please log out of your Facebook user account.

Using Twitter

Functions of the service provider Twitter are associated with our website. These features are provided by Twitter Inc., Twitter, Inc. 1355 Market St, Suite 900, San Francisco, CA 94103, USA. By using Twitter and the “retweet” feature, the websites you have visited are linked to your Twitter account and are disclosed to other users. Data are also transferred to Twitter in this way.

Please note that we as the service provider of the website obtain no knowledge about the content of the transferred data or the use of such data by Twitter. Further information about this can be found in Twitter’s Data Protection Policy at http://twitter.com/privacy.

You can change your data protection settings with Twitter by going to your account settings at http://twitter.com/account/settings.