Information on the protection of your data when you use our website
Thank you for your interest in Betaseed GmbH (hereinafter also referred to as ‘Betaseed’) and for visiting our website (www.betaseed.de). On our website, we provide you with information about Betaseed and its products and services. Certain items of personal data are collected when you visit our website. We take the protection of your personal data very seriously. This Privacy Policy tells you which personal data is stored when you use our website and how this data is used. Unless otherwise stated below, Betaseed – as the data controller – processes personal data to serve our legitimate interest of presenting you with a reliable and technically secure website whilst also protecting against unauthorised access (see Article 6, paragraph 1, sentence 1, point (f), of the EU General Data Protection Regulation).
1. What personal data is processed if you merely browse our website?
a) Data transmitted by your browser
If you use the website merely for informational purposes, the personal data transmitted to our server by your browser will be stored. Access data will be stored in the form of server log files. In particular, this data comprises (i) the IP address, (ii) the date and time of the request, (iii) the time zone difference to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), (iv) the content of the request (specific website accessed), (v) access status/HTTP status code, (vi) the data volume transferred, (vii) the website from which the request is received, (viii) the browser type used, (ix) the operating system used and its interface and (x) the language and version of the browser software used. We use this data solely to ensure the seamless operation of our website and analyse it in order to improve our offer. This data does not allow us to identify you. In particular, the IP address is anonymised, meaning that we are unable to identify specific visitors to our website. The log files are stored for a maximum period of 60 days.
b) Data stored by cookies
What are cookies?
Cookies are small files stored on your hard drive. They contain certain settings and data that facilitate communication with our system via your browser. Your browser sends this information to our website when you visit it again (regardless of how long the cookies are stored for). We use cookies to enhance the user-friendliness of our website and to find out which content is particularly interesting for visitors to our website.
There are different types of cookies. First of all, there are session cookies, which are deleted as soon as you close your browser. Secondly, there are also persistent cookies, which are stored on your hard drive for an extended period or indefinitely. The use of cookies helps us to tailor our website to your needs and makes it easier for you to use. Most browsers accept cookies automatically.
How can you disable cookies?
If you do not wish for cookies to be stored, you can prevent this by adjusting the settings of your browser software accordingly. However, you may then be unable to use the full functionality of this website. You can also configure your browser settings so that cookies are only accepted if you give your consent.
What persistent cookies do we use?
First of all, we use what are known as ‘essential’ or ‘functional’ cookies. These cookies are indispensable for us to present our website to you and to enable your use of the website. Such cookies also enable us to save your usage preferences for our website, such as your choice of language.
We also use cookies for the purpose of website analysis and marketing. These cookies collect information about the use of our website, such as the number of visitors to our website, the websites that have referred users to our website or the pages that users have visited on our website. We use this information to improve the efficiency of our website, to collect general demographic information and to monitor activity levels on our website.
c) Information on Google Analytics
Betaseed uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (‘Google’), a web analytics service provided by Google LLC (‘Google’), 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Google is certified under the EU–US Privacy Shield and therefore guarantees compliance with European data protection legislation.
Google Analytics also uses cookies. The information generated by the cookies is usually transferred to, and stored on, a Google server in the United States. However, we only use Google Analytics with IP anonymisation. This means that your IP address will be truncated by Google within the member states of the European Union or in other nations that are party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will the entire IP address be transferred to a Google server in the United States and truncated there. On behalf of Betaseed, Google will use this information to analyse your usage of information media and applications, compile reports about this usage and provide Betaseed with other related services in this context.
The IP address transmitted to Google Analytics by your browser will not be associated with any other data held by Google. You can opt out of the storage of cookies at any time by adjusting your browser settings accordingly; please note, however, that you may not be able to use the full functionality of our website in this instance.
If using the HTML version of the application (but not if using Android or Apple iOS), you can also prevent the transfer of the data generated by the cookies relating to your usage of the application (including your IP address) to Google and the processing of this data by Google by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available from the following link: http://tools.google.com.
Google expressly points out that web-based data transfer (e.g. email communication) is subject to security vulnerabilities and cannot be comprehensively protected against third-party access.
2. What personal data is processed when you enter details on our website?
You have the option of entering specific details on our website. For example, you can enter the size of your sugar beet acreage in hectares, the distance between rows and the seed spacing in an input screen on the seed calculator in order to determine how many units of seed you require. In order to calculate your crop density, you can also enter the distances between rows and the number of sugar beet plants. We do not save your information in any such case, nor do we associate these details with any other data transmitted by your browser.
3. External services (plug-ins)
On our website, we use products from third-party providers in order to incorporate their content and services.
A requirement in this regard is that the third-party providers can recognise users’ IP addresses. Without the IP address, the content cannot be sent to their browser. Therefore, the IP address is required in order to display this content.
YouTube
We incorporate, for example, videos from the platform ‘YouTube’, which is provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, 4 Barrow Street, Dublin, Ireland. The corresponding Privacy Policy can be accessed at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. An opt-out is available at https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated.
We also use a social plug-in provided by the social network Facebook (operated by Facebook Ireland Ltd., 4 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland [‘Facebook’]). We use this plug-in to display posts and comments from our Facebook fan page (indicated by a Facebook logo on our website). Facebook is certified under the EU–US Privacy Shield and therefore guarantees compliance with European data protection legislation (https://www.privacyshield.gov/participant?id=a2zt0000000GnywAAC&status=Active). The plug-in notifies Facebook that you have accessed our website. If you are signed in to your Facebook account, Facebook can associate your visit to our website with your Facebook account. If you do not have a Facebook account, Facebook may still be able to save your IP address. According to Facebook, IP addresses in Germany are only stored in anonymous form. For more information on the purpose and scope of data collection, the further processing and use of this data by Facebook and the corresponding rights and configuration options to protect users’ data, please refer to the Facebook Privacy Policy at https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/.
4. Who is the recipient of your data? Do we pass on your data to third parties?
We pass on personal data to courts, regulatory authorities and law firms insofar as this is legally permissible and necessary to comply with applicable legislation or in order to assert, exercise or defend against legal claims. We also pass on personal data to affiliated companies, but only if it is necessary to do so in order to fulfil one or more of the aforementioned purposes.
Betaseed works with service providers (known as ‘processors’) such as IT maintenance providers. These service providers may only act in accordance with the instructions of Betaseed and are contractually obliged to comply with applicable data protection requirements.
The recipients described here in Section 5 may be located in countries outside the European Economic Area (‘third countries’) in which applicable legislation does not guarantee the same level of data protection. In the event that we send your personal data to recipients outside the European Economic Area, we will ensure an appropriate level of protection for your personal data.
5. What rights do you have?
Within the EU, you have certain rights in respect of your personal data. Please note that exemptions may apply in respect of the exercising of these rights in certain cases.
6. Who to contact if you have any questions
If you have any questions about data protection or wish to exercise your rights, please write to Betaseed GmbH, Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 36, 60325 Frankfurt am Main, Germany, or send an email to infodesk@betaseed.com. You may also contact the responsible data protection supervisory authority at any time. The supervisory authority responsible for Betaseed is Der Hessische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, Gustav-Stresemann-Ring 1, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany, https://datenschutz.hessen.de/