Data privacy

Data Privacy Officer

You can contact the Data Privacy Officer at the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia by sending an e-mail to datenschutzbeauftragter@mwike.nrw.de or by writing to the address below:

Ministerium für Wirtschaft, Industrie, Digitalisierung und Klimaschutz des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen
Behördlicher Datenschutzbeauftragter
Berger Allee 25
40213 Düsseldorf
Telephone +49 (0) 211-61772-0

Your rights as a user

You have the following rights regarding our use of your personal data:

• Right to information,
• Right to correction or deletion,
• Right to restriction of processing,
• Right to object to processing,
• Right to data portability.

To exercise any of these rights, please send an e-mail to poststelle@mwike.nrw.de or write to the online editorial office’s address on the imprint page.

You also have the right to complain to the State Officer for Data Privacy and Freedom of Information for North Rhine-Westphalia (www.ldi.nrw.de (in German only)) regarding our processing of your personal data.

Note on data privacy

When using our information provision, personal data is collected. This is required for technical reasons, to ensure full functionality of our website and security of our service (legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 p. 1 lit. e GDPR).

Journal or log files

The Ministry’s Internet service is hosted by IT.NRW

Landesbetrieb Information und Technik Nordrhein-Westfalen (IT.NRW)
Mauerstraße 51
40476 Düsseldorf
Telephone: +49 (0) 211 9449-01
Fax: +49 (0) 211 9449-8000

Each time you access content via our website, the website will temporarily store what is known as journal or log files, which permit identification. The following data is collected each time you access the website:

• Date and time of access
• Name of the website accessed, the resource accessed, and the action used
• Query submitted by the client
• Quantity of data transmitted
• Notification of whether access was successful
• IP address of the accessing computer
• Client information (including browser, operating system)

This data from the journal or log files is used to ward off and analyse any attacks to the portal and is accessible directly and solely by administrators for up to 48 hours. After that, the data is only available indirectly via the reconstruction of backup tapes and is ultimately deleted after six weeks.

Citizens’ service and e-mail

If you wish to contact the Ministry, we provide you with various options to do this via contact forms or e-mail addresses. If you use these contacts, entry of your personal data is expressly on a voluntary basis (legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 p. 1 lit. a GDPR). This concerns, for example, enquiries via e-mail or the contact form (or orders for information, material). The following information may be stored here:

• Form of address
• Surname
• First name
• E-mail address
• Street
• House number
• Postcode
• Town
• Telephone number
• Subject
• Your message
• Time stamp
• User
• IP address

When contacting us via e-mail, through the contact form or when placing orders, the data you have voluntarily submitted must be stored to enable us to deal with your enquiry.

People under the age of 16 should not submit any personal data to us unless consent has been given by a parent or guardian (person with parental responsibility) (Art. 8 para. 1 GDPR). Consent must then be expressly noted in the message (Art. 8 para. 2 GDPR). We do not request any personal data from children or adolescents. We do not knowingly collect any such data.

We only use the personal data you have submitted for the purpose you have requested and only within federal state government or the authorities, services or institutions appointed to provide the respective service.

We delete any personal data that we receive by e-mail or via the contact form as soon as there is no longer any requirement to store this data for the purpose you intended, or in connection with administration consequently initiated and the retention requirements that apply for this purpose (appendix to the documentation for the division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (AktO); Circular from the Ministry for Internal Affairs and Municipal Issues - 51 - 17.05 - dated 25 July 2016).

Use of cookies

Our service uses what are known as ‘cookies’. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer by your browser. They are used to make our service more user-friendly and effective for you (legal basis for mandatory cookies required:Art. 6 para. 1 lit. e GDPR together with § 3 Data Protection Act NRW; legal basis for cookies on usage statistics: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a) GDPR).

You can prevent the use of cookies by applying settings in your Internet browser not to accept any cookies. However, you can also specify in your browser settings whether you want to be informed of cookies being stored on your computer and only permit this in individual cases, or whether you want to accept cookies for certain cases, or even generally exclude them. You can also activate the automatic deletion of cookies by closing your browser. These settings depend on your browser.

On your first visit to the website or individual page, you will automatically be informed about the use of cookies.

Web analysis

For the purpose of optimising the pages on the MWIKE website, the ‘Matomo’ web tracking tool (previously: ‘Piwik’) is used. IP addresses are immediately anonymised by Matomo, thus ensuring there is no possibility of identifying the visitor. The anonymous statistical data is stored separately from any personal data you enter and cannot be traced back to a specific person (legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. e GDPR in combination with § 3 Data Protection Act NRW).

Forwarding of personal data

Data logged or collected for a specific service when accessing the Ministry of Economics’ website is only forwarded to third parties outside the federal state government,

• if we are bound to do so legally or as a result of any judicial orders or State Prosecutor investigations, or
• if we are required to forward the data in the event of any attacks to the federal state government’s Internet infrastructure that are subject to legal or criminal prosecution.

However, we must emphasise at this point that the use of social media that is accessed via our website – after prior consent – may also include transmission of personal data.

Social media

Social media is incorporated on www.gründen.nrw via plug-ins (aka ‘widgets’). These are offered such that data can only be transmitted after your agreement by means of what is known as a ‘two-click solution’. In the course of the two-click solution, you are asked to expressly and consciously decide whether you want to use the social media plug-ins on gründen.nrw. You can only access social media on gründen.nrw after you have given this consent (legal basis: Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a) GDPR).

If you activate social media on gründen.nrw, the data protection provisions of the respective service always apply for these applications. We therefore expressly request that you pay careful attention to the respective data protection provisions before activating anything, as in the event of doubt when accessing social media from your computer, data will be transferred immediately to the account operator.

Which data is collected and how it is processed in each individual case is not fully known by any of the services. The following data at least is recorded securely, even when you are not logged in:

• IP address
• Time of accessing the website
• URL of the website on which the plug-in was used
• Location-related information (with mobile terminal devices)
• Device-related information (e.g. operating system used and browser information)
• Websites previously visited for advertising purposes
• Data of non-participating third parties (e.g. e-mail addresses for recommendations)

If nothing else is specified, you may assume with all services that data collection involve the use of the following technologies in plug-ins:

• Cookies (e.g. permanent storage of your login data), this can also happen through third-party providers, such as advertising clients
• Log files (storage of cookie data on the service’s servers)
• Analysis scripts (e.g. recording click behaviour on a page or website)
• Forwarding of posted links (primarily with Facebook and X)
• Local file storage (e.g. permanent storage of images)

All services forward personal data

• To third-party providers instructed to provide outsourced services (e.g. newsletters) and
• To authorities, if legally bound to do so or if there is any suspicion of a breach of rights, and
• To new business proprietors in the event of a business being bought out or an insolvency.

Below, you will find data privacy notices issued by the social media providers included here, restricted to the plug-ins used:

Facebook

• Data usage guidelines: www.facebook.com
• Why is my data recorded?
• User authentication
• Localisation
• Targeted advertising (mainly on the service’s pages)
• Analysis and research of usage behaviour
• Statistics
• Forwarding to third parties: In addition to the legal obligation to forward personal data to authorities, personal data is also forwarded in an anonymised form to advertisers.

You can amend your ‘private settings’ in your user account.

X

• Data privacy guidelines: www.X.com
• Why is my data recorded?
• User authentication
• Localisation
• Targeted advertising (mainly on the service’s pages)
• Statistics
• Forwarding to third parties: X is authorised to forward anonymised personal data to third parties.

You can amend your ‘data privacy settings’ in your user account.

YouTube

• Data privacy statement: www.google.com
• Note: YouTube is a subsidiary of Google
• Why is my data recorded?
• User authentication
• Targeted advertising
• Analysis and research of usage behaviour
• Forwarding to third parties: User accounts for all Google services are run together centrally. Data that is collected is automatically linked to other Google services. Anonymised data is forwarded to advertising partners and other third parties, e.g. for viewing trends and statistics.

You can manage all your settings centrally in the ‘dashboard’.

LinkedIn

• Data privacy statement: www.linkedin.com
• Why is my data recorded?
• User authentication
• Localisation
• Targeted advertising (mainly on the service’s pages)
• Statistics
• Forwarding to third parties: In addition to the legal obligation to forward personal data to authorities, personal data is also forwarded in an anonymised form to advertisers.

You can edit your settings on data privacy in your user account settings.

You can obtain further information about the purpose and scope of data collection and data processing by the plug-in provider in the respective provider’s data privacy statements. This will also include other information regarding your rights in this respect and settings options to protect your personal privacy.

Addresses of the respective plug-in providers and URLs with the respective data privacy notices:

Facebook Inc., 1601 S California Ave, Palo Alto, California 94304, USA; www.facebook.com/policy.php; further information on data collection: www.facebook.com/help/186325668085084, www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info-on-other#applications and www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info#everyoneinfo. Facebook is subject to the EU-US Privacy Shield, www.privacyshield.gov/EU-US-Framework.

X Corp., 1355 Market St, Suite 900, San Francisco, California 94103, USA; X.com/privacy. X is subject to the EU-US Privacy Shield, www.privacyshield.gov/EU-US-Framework.

YouTube LLC, 901 Cherry Ave. San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. Represented by: Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA, represented by Sundar Pichai (Chief Executive Officer). Authorised representative for the YouTube LLC within the context of § 5 para. 1 German Network Enforcement Act: Google Germany GmbH Legal Department - ABC-Straße 19, 20354 Hamburg, Germany; policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.

LinkedIn Corporation, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Data privacy statement: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy; LinkedIn is subject to the EU-US Privacy Shield, www.privacyshield.gov/EU-US-Framework.

General information on data privacy

In the course of enhancing our website, we may also need to make changes to this data privacy statement. We therefore recommend that you re-read this data privacy statement from time to time.

You will find general information on the subject of data privacy on the State Officer for Data Privacy and Freedom of Information for North Rhine-Westphalia's website: www.ldi.nrw.de (in German only).

Please note that operators of third-party websites linked via the portal may collect and analyse the data of visitors to these websites.

The imprint is available here.