Data Protection

Thank you for visiting our website and for your interest in our company (VMZ Berlin Betreibergesellschaft, in the following called “VMZ”) and our services. We take the protection of your data seriously and want you to feel comfortable during your visit to our web pages. The protection of your private rights when processing personal data is an important task which we respect in our business procedures. The VMZ runs this website in correspondence with applicable legal requirements regarding the protection of personal data and data security.

VMZ Websites can include links to other websites, to which this data protection declaration does not apply.

The following conditions give information on which information we collect for this website, for which purposes we use it and to whom we make it available.

Collection and Processing of Personal Data
When you use our website, we save in a standard procedure the name of your internet service provider, the website from which you have visited us, the websites you visit on and from our pages, as well as the date and duration of your visit.

We further protocol access to our website for security analysis and defense against attacks. For this propose we collect and use no personal data, with the exception of the IP-address. An analysis of the IP address only occurs in the case of an attack.

We further collect personal data (for example name, address, telephone number, or email address) in connection with our website only when you voluntarily make such data available for us (for example through registration, contact requests, surveys, etc.) and we are permitted to do so on the basis of permission granted by you or on the basis of a legal condition permitting the processing or use of this personal information.

We use this data only for the reason for which you have made it available to us, for example to answer your inquiries, process your requests, or to give you access to certain information or offerings. 

Use of Cookies
When you visit VMZ websites, information is saved on your end device in the form of a ‚cookie‘. Cookies are small files which are saved on your end device and save certain settings and data for exchange with our server via your browser.

Cookies permit us, for example, to adjust a website to your interests or to save your password so you don’t have to reenter it every time you visit. We do not collect personal data with cookies unless you have given us a respective permission to do so.

If you don’t want us to recognize your end device, adjust the settings on your internet browser so that it erases all cookies from your device, blocks all cookies, or warns you before a cookie is saved. Please be advised that it is possible that some parts of our website may not function or may not function correctly without cookies.

Categorisation of Cookies
Depending on the function and purpose of cookies, they can be placed into one of four different categories: Required cookies, performance cookies, functional cookies and cookies for marketing purposes. Required cookies are necessary so that you can navigate VMZ Websites and use the basic functions of the website, for example distribution of anonymous session IDs for bundling multiple interconnected requests to the server.

Performance Cookies
Performance Cookies collect information about website use, for example the kind of browser and operating system used, the domain name of the website from which you came, the number of visits, the average visit duration, and the pages you accessed. 

These cookies don’t save any information which would allow a personal identification of the user.  The information collected with these cookies is aggregated and therefore anonymous. Performance cookies are used to improve the user-friendliness of a website and thereby the user experience. You can prevent the use of such a cookie by using an ‘exception cookie’ (see the section ‘managing cookies’ below).

Functional cookies
permit a website to save already-entered input (for example user name, language selection, or your current location) and offer the user improved, more personal functions. Functional cookies are also used to allow requested functions like playing videos.

Cookies for marketing purposes
are employed to offer the user relevant content adjusted to his or her interests. They are further used to limit the frequency that an ad appears and to measure and steer the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. They register whether the user has visited a certain website or not as well as which content has been accessed. This information can, in some cases, be shared with third parties, for example advertisers. These cookies are often linked to page functions from third parties.

Managing cookies
Performance cookies (Piwik /Matamo) and functional cookies:
To follow user preferences and count the number of accesses to our websites, the VMZ employs the tool Piwik/ Matamo. This tool is recommended by, among others, the Independent Regional Center for Data Protection Schleswig-Holstein (ULD) because data processing occurs only on German servers, in contrast to other providers (like , for example, Google Analytics). We have configured the web analysis tool Pikwik/Matamo according to the recommendations of the ULD so that we only collect data for anonymous counts of access to our websites.

Piwik/Matamo uses Cookies which are saved on your computer and which allow an analysis of our website use. The information generated from the cookie about the use of our internet offerings is anonymized on servers in Germany. Your IP address is anonymized immediately after processing and before it is saved.

To prevent the data on your visit to this website from being used in a data aggregation and analysis, please click here: 

OPT-Out

With the opt-out you set a so-called ‚exception cookie‘.  This cookie contains no personal information but technically allows Piwik/Matamo to permanently recognize your preferences. 

You can also prevent the installation of cookies through respective browser settings. We inform you, however, that, in this case, you may not be able to use all functions of this website completely.  

Information: If you delete your cookies from your device, the opt-out-cookies will also be deleted and you must reactivate them, if desired.

We do not use required cookies or cookies for marketing purposes.

Data Sharing
The VMZ works together with service providers in connection with the administration of this website and its services, for example service providers for hosting or IT maintenance.

Data sharing occurs only in the framework of and under respect for the applicable legal conditions. We will not sell your personal data to third parties or market it in any other way. Transfer of personal data to state institutions and agencies occurs only in the framework of legal requirements. Our employees are required to keep your data confidential.

Security
The VMZ employs technical and organizational security measures to protect the data we manage about you from coincidental or intentional manipulations, loss, destruction or access by unauthorized persons. We continuously improve our security measures according to technological developments.

Contact
We explicitly inform you that by contact via email through or links, data transfers can involve security risks. We do not guarantee a seamless protection of data against third party access.

We prohibit the use of our published contact information for unsolicited and not explicitly-desired advertising purposes. We explicitly reserve all legal rights in the case of unsolicited advertising, such as spam messages.

Right to information
On request the VMZ will inform you if and which personal data about you we have saved. In the case that we have wrong information regarding your personal data despite all of our efforts to keep data correct and current, we will correct this on your request.

Should you have questions about how we process your personal data, you may contact our Data Protection Officer, who will assist you in obtaining information and handle your feedback or complaints regarding data protection.

Data Protection Officer
Mr. Andreas Müer
VMZ Berlin Betreibergesellschaft mbH
Ullsteinstraße 120
D-12109 Berlin

Last Updated: 31.05.2021