Use of Social Media

We maintain publicly available profiles on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. The individual social media platforms we use are listed below.  Social media platforms generally analyse your user behaviour if you visit their website or a website with integrated social media content (e.g. “like” buttons or banner ads). When you visit our social media pages, several actions are triggered. Specifically: 

  • If you are logged in to your social media account and visit our social media page, the operator of the social media platform (such as Facebook) can assign this visit to your user account. Under certain circumstances, your personal data may also be recorded if you are not logged in or do not have an account with the respective operator of the social media platform. In this case, this data is collected, for example, via cookies stored on your device or by recording your IP address. 
  • Using the data collected in this way, the operators of the social media platforms can create user profiles in which your preferences and interests are stored. This process allows you to see interest-based advertising inside and outside of your social media presence. If you have an account with the applicable social media platform, interest-based advertising can be displayed on any device you are logged in to or have logged in to. Please note that we cannot identify all processing operations on the social media platforms. Depending on the operator, additional data collection processes may therefore be carried out. Further details can be found in the terms of use and privacy policy of the respective social media platforms.

Legal basis

Our social media use is a legitimate interest within the meaning of Art. 6 (1) of the General Data Protection Regulation 679/2016 (or “GDPR”). The specific legal basis used by the operator of the social media platform may be different and you should review their privacy policy.

Responsibility and assertion of rights

If you visit one of our social media pages (e.g. Facebook), we, together with the operator of the social media platform, are responsible for the data collection and processing triggered during your visit. You can in principle exercise your legal rights (such as access to information, correction, deletion, limitation of processing, data portability and complaint) against us as well as against the operator of the respective social media platform (e.g. Facebook).

Please note that despite the shared responsibility with the operator of the social media platform, our legal ability with respect to responding to your legal rights is determined by the applicable operator.

Storage time

The data collected directly by us via the social media pages will be deleted from our systems as soon as you ask us to delete it, you revoke your consent to the storage (if applicable) or the purpose for the data storage lapses. Stored cookies remain on your device until you delete them. Mandatory statutory provisions relating to data retention periods remain unaffected.

We have no control over the storage and duration of your data that is stored by the operator of the social media platform. For details, please contact the operator of the social media platform.

Social Media Platforms Used