Privacy policy (old edition)

This privacy policy was valid until 31 March 2022.

The data controller is the Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland e.V., Singerstraße 109, 10179 Berlin. Enquiries to our data protection officer Beata Hubrig can be sent to datenschutz@okfn.de. The competent supervisory authority is the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information.

The security of your data is our highest priority. We take every possible measure to protect your personal data from unauthorised access. We comply with all requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG), the Telemedia Act (TMG) and all other data protection regulations. You can visit our site without providing any personal information.

Within the framework of the FragDenStaat.de website, you can be assisted in making requests to public authorities in accordance with the Freedom of Information Acts, you can archive requests and read the stock of archived requests.

1. When reading archived requests, access data is stored exclusively for the purpose of optimising and improving the service (purpose limitation).

1.1 Types of data

This includes, for example, the following data

• the computer address (IP address) in abbreviated form
• the page from which the file was requested
• the name of the transferred file
• the date and time of the request,
• the amount of data transferred,
• the access status (file transferred, file not found, etc.) and
• a description of the type of web browser used.

1.2 Evaluation by means of Matomo. Opt-out possible.

The FragDenStaat.de website uses Matomo, an open source web analysis tool, for evaluation. No cookies are set in the process. We use the information collected to evaluate usage and to compile reports on website activity.

FragDenStaat.de will not transfer this information to third parties.

By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by FragDenStaat.de in the manner and for the purposes set out above. If you would like to switch off the analysis by Matomo, you can do so using this link: To the opt-out page. This sets a so-called opt-out cookie with the name "piwik_ignore", which signals to Matomo that it should not analyse your behaviour.

1.3 Personal reference cannot be completely ruled out in individual cases.

The collection of personal information can be almost completely avoided by using Matomo and shortening the IP address. However, a traceability of this data to individual persons cannot be completely ruled out in individual cases, at least theoretically.

2. Use of FragDenStaat.de as an archive platform or as a messenger for making enquiries

Personal data such as name, a pseudonym and additional data such as address, telephone number, email address are collected if, as far as and as long as this is necessary in the context of the use of the two aforementioned services. The details can be found in the corresponding general terms and conditions of these services.

3. Publication / transmission of data to third parties

3.1 Publication / transmission of data to bodies obliged to provide information in the context of Freedom of Information Act (IFG) requests

If you submit a "freedom of information request" ("request") to a body obliged to provide information via fragdenstaat.de, you must fill in the mandatory fields first and last name. In this context, you specify once whether your name should be public in your requests for access to information. If you decide not to do so, your name will only be sent to the authority, but will not be displayed publicly by us. Of course, you can also enter a pseudonym in the mandatory fields for first name and surname anyway; however, in some cases, authorities that are obliged to provide information require proof of identity before processing the request or will only accept requests by post. Furthermore, you have the option of voluntarily entering a postal address or deciding whether a postal address once entered should be part of a future enquiry to the office requiring the information. In no case will this be publicly displayed by us as part of your public enquiry. It makes sense to enter a postal address if you want the information provider to send you something by post.

Only if you decide in a second step that the enquiry should be public ("public enquiry"), your first and last name will also be displayed publicly. We would also like to point out that personal data that you include in the text of your enquiry will also be displayed publicly in the case of public enquiries, without any special redaction (see below). Your public enquiries and, if applicable, the personal data contained therein can then also be found by third parties in the context of corresponding search engine search orders. In case of doubt, you should therefore refrain from including personal data in your public enquiry and also not request such personal data from the body responsible for providing information in the context of your enquiry. You have the option at any time of subsequently blacking out personal data in your enquiry using a tool provided by us on fragdenstaat.de.

If the authority responsible for providing information sends attachments in the course of the electronic response to your request, you can decide separately whether you want to publish them. If the attachments contain personal data about you, in particular data that you provided to the information provider in the course of your enquiry (e.g. a postal address or e-mail address), you can check the attachments for such data before publication and black them out before you intend to make them publicly available on the platform using a tool provided by us in this step. You can also do this at any time after the public release of the attachments.

Since you yourself can decide voluntarily whether your first name and surname should be displayed publicly in connection with enquiries, whether your respective enquiry should be public, whether a postal address should be transmitted to the body obliged to provide information and whether attachments transmitted by the body obliged to provide information should be published and you can anonymise them before publication if necessary, the legal basis for the data processing processes concerned is your consent pursuant to Art. 6 (1) lit. a, 7 DSGVO. You can revoke this consent at any time, in particular by anonymising the data yourself in the form of the aforementioned "redactions" in your request or its response, including attachments, if applicable. If this is not possible for you, you can also contact us at info@fragdenstaat.de so that we can make the corresponding redactions for you.

The management of your personal data provided in the context of using fragdenstaat.de by ourselves is based on Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b DSGVO. We need the relevant information in order to be able to offer you our service in the manner described.

3.2 No transmission to third parties for advertising purposes without express consent

Your personal data will only be passed on to third parties if this is necessary for the provision of our service or the execution of the contract, or if you have expressly consented to this (for the passing on of data to campaign partners, see under 5). Authorities or other state institutions will only be provided with information within the scope of the statutory duty to provide information or on the basis of court decisions.

3.3 Use of payment service providers

We use the following payment service providers for the purpose of payment processing:

For credit card, SOFORT transfer and SEPA direct debit: Stripe Payments Europe Ltd, Block 4, Harcourt Centre, Harcourt Road, Dublin 2, Ireland and Stripe Payments UK, Ltd, 7th Floor, The Bower Warehouse, 211 Old Street, London EC1V 9NR, United Kingdom ("Stripe"). For more information on Stripe's privacy policy, please visit the URL https://stripe.com/de-DE/privacy.

For PayPal: PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A. 22-24 Boulevard Royal L-2449 Luxembourg ("PayPal"). You can view PayPal's data protection information under the following links: https://www.paypal.com/de/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full.

The payment service provider is responsible for data processing in the context of payment processing.

We may also transmit your first and last name, e-mail address and address to Stripe for the purpose of fraud prevention.
The legal basis for this data transfer is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO. The legitimate interest here lies in the prevention of economic damage through criminal offences and in the protection of donors.

3.4 Information orders

By order of the competent authorities, we must and may provide information about this data in individual cases, insofar as this is necessary for the purposes of criminal prosecution, to avert danger, to fulfil the statutory tasks of the constitution protection authorities or the Military Counter-Intelligence Service or to enforce intellectual property rights.

4. Newsletter

When registering for the e-mail newsletter, your e-mail address will be used with your consent for our own purposes until you unsubscribe from the newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link provided for this purpose in the newsletter, via your profile page on fragdenstaat.de or by notifying us accordingly.

5. Campaigns

If you participate in one of our enquiry campaigns by submitting a corresponding freedom of information request (e.g. "Black Box EU", "Pot Secret"), we process your data in addition as follows: We use your name and email address to keep you informed of progress and news about the campaign in question, as well as the launch of thematically similar campaigns. If we notice that your enquiry has stalled, we will write to you once on our own initiative to give you advice on how to continue your enquiry. The legal basis for this is Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f DSGVO. Our legitimate interest is to inform the persons interested in a campaign about the course, results and upcoming challenges of the respective campaign and their request and thus to help the campaign to be successful as well as to inform participants of previous campaigns about similar campaigns according to their interests. You can object to the corresponding use of your data at any time. We will then stop the corresponding use of your data (Art. 21 DSGVO).

If we work together with cooperation partners in campaigns (e.g. in the case of "Topf Secret" with "Foodwatch"), the names and email addresses you provide will be transmitted to our respective campaign partner. The respective campaign partner uses the data once to draw attention to their newsletter and is independently responsible for this under data protection law in accordance with Art. 4 No. 7 DSGVO. The legal basis for the transmission is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO. Our legitimate interest is to give our campaign partners the opportunity to address the participants of a particular campaign personally by email once, to draw their attention to their other work and topics, which regularly have a close connection to the content of the campaign. You can object to the transfer of data to us at any time (Art. 21 DSGVO) and/or contact the campaign partner(s) to assert your data protection rights (Art. 15 ff. DSGVO).

6. Retrievability of the data protection declaration

You can call up the data protection declaration at any time from any page of this website under the link "Data protection". Please note that changes to the offer, statutory and legal innovations as well as any subsequently identified regulatory gaps may make changes to this data protection declaration necessary.

7. Questions, right to information, right to object and profiling

Your trust is important to us. Therefore, we would like to answer your questions regarding the processing of your personal data at any time and free of charge. If you have a profile with fragdenstaat.de, you can export your stored data at any time on the profile page. You also have a right of access to your personal data pursuant to Art. 15 et seq. DSGVO, you have a right to free information about your stored data and, if applicable, a right to correction, blocking or deletion of this data as well as to data portability. You can also revoke the consent given to us for data collection and use at any time without giving reasons. You can complain to a supervisory authority if you believe that the processing of your personal data is unlawful.

You have no contractual or legal obligation to provide us with personal data. However, we are unable to provide you with our services without the data you provide.

We do not use automated decision making that has legal effect on you or affects you.

If you have any questions that have not been answered by this privacy policy or if you would like more detailed information on any point, please contact info@fragdenstaat.de at any time.

8. Security notice

We would like to point out that data transmission on the Internet (e.g. when communicating by e-mail) can have security gaps. Complete protection of data against access by third parties is not possible.

 

Status: November 2020