Privacy Policy

Information on data protection

Copyright © 2025 FVA GmbH 

All rights reserved.

Last updated 27 February, 2025.

Welcome to our website!

We take the protection and confidential treatment of personal data which you provide to us through the use of this website very seriously. Your personal data is processed exclusively in accordance with the applicable statutory provisions of data protection law, in particular the General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter “GDPR”).

Below you will find information about the processing of your personal data and your rights in the context of your visit to our website and our conference.

I. General Information

1. Controller and data protection officer

Body responsible for data processing:

FVA GmbH 
Lyoner Straße 18
60528 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Telephone: +49 69 6603-1515
E-mail: info(at)fva-service.de

You can reach our data protection officer as follows:

Scheja und Partners GmbH & Co. KG
Adenauerallee 136
53113 Bonn, Germany

Telephone: +49 228 22 72 26-0
E-mail: DSB-VDMA(at)scheja-partner.de
Contact: https://www.scheja-partners.de/en/contact/contact.html

2. Subject of data protection

Data protection information includes personal data. Personal data is all information that relates to an identified or identifiable natural person (so-called data subject). This includes, for example, information such as name, postal address, e-mail address, or telephone number, but also information that necessarily arises during membership of the association and/or the business relationship, such as information about the start, end, and scope of use of the membership, products, and services.

3. Your rights as a data subject

As a data subject, you have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), provided that the relevant legal requirements are met:

3.1 Right to object on a case-by-case basis

You have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, at any time to processing of your personal data which is based on Article 6(1)(f) GDPR, including profiling based on those provisions. We will then no longer process this personal data for these purposes unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights, and freedoms, or the processing serves the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims.

Right to object to the processing of data for direct marketing purposes:

In individual cases, we process your data for direct advertising purposes. You have the right to object at any time to the processing of your personal data for the purpose of such advertising. This also applies to profiling, insofar as it is associated with such direct advertising. If you object to processing for direct marketing purposes, your personal data will no longer be processed for these purposes.

3.2 Disclosure

You have the right to obtain information about the personal data we process related to you.

3.3 Amendment

You can request the amendment of incorrect personal data concerning you. You can also request the completion of incomplete data.

3.4 Deletion

In certain cases, you can request the deletion of your personal data.

3.5 Limitations of processing

In certain cases, you can request that we restrict the processing of your data.

3.6 Data portability

If you have provided us with data on the basis of a contract or consent, you may request that you receive the data you have provided in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, or that we transmit it to another controller.

3.7 Revocation of consent

If you have given us your consent to process your data, you can revoke this at any time with effect for the future. This does not affect the lawfulness of the processing of your data prior to withdrawal of your consent. In addition to the ways mentioned under "Assertion of your rights," you can also declare a revocation in accordance with the respective instructions on "Revocation of consent " in the "Integration of cookies and other third-party services" section.

3.8 Assertion of your rights

To exercise your aforementioned rights, please contact us at info(at)fva-service.de or by mail at the address provided in Section 1 above. Please ensure that we are able to clearly identify you.

3.9 Right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority

If you believe the processing of your personal data is unlawful, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, in particular in the Member State of your habitual residence, place of work, or place of the alleged infringement.

4. Recipients of personal data

Unless otherwise stated in the following data protection information, the following recipients have access to your personal data:

4.1 Internal recipients

Only those persons have access to your data who need it to fulfill the tasks within the scope of the purposes described in Section II of this declaration.

4.2 External recipients

We only share your personal data with external recipients if this is necessary for processing or handling your request, if we have separate legal permission, or if we have your consent to do so.

External recipients can be:

4.2.1 Processors:

External service providers that we use for the operation of this online offer, for example in the areas of infrastructure and platform services, computing capacity, storage space and database services, security services, and technical maintenance services. These processors are carefully selected and regularly reviewed by us to ensure that your personal information remains protected. The service providers may only use the data for the purposes specified by us.

4.2.2 Public authorities:

Authorities and state institutions, such as public prosecutors, courts, or tax authorities, to whom we are required to transfer personal data for compelling legal reasons.

4.2.3 Other bodies:

Cooperation partners to whom data is transmitted on the basis of consent or a legal basis, for example trade fair companies, standardization and research institutions, conference and event organizations, national and international association organizations.

5. Storage period

The storage period for personal data can be found in the respective chapter on data processing.

In addition, the following generally applies: We only store your personal data for as long as this is necessary for the fulfillment of the purposes or - in the case of consent - as long as you have not revoked your consent. In the event of an objection, we will delete your personal data unless further processing is permitted under the relevant statutory provisions.

We will also delete your personal data if we are obliged to do so for legal reasons.

II. Data processing on our website

1 Internal services

The following services are used on our website:

1.1 Log files

When visiting and using our website, we store certain log information in a file (log file), which contains personal data (IP address of the user, time and date of access, name of the requested website or file, status of the transmission and amount of data transferred, websites from which the user's system accesses our site [so-called "referrer"], websites accessed by the user's system via our website, information about the browser type and version used, user's operating system, user's Internet service provider). The processing serves our legitimate interest (Article 6 para. 1 f) GDPR) of displaying our website error-free, improving the website, system security, and error diagnosis, as well as the creation of statistical evaluations. The log files are deleted 7 days after creation.

1.2 Newsletter registration and direct marketing

You have the option of registering for our newsletter on our website. When you register for our newsletter, we process your e-mail address as well as your first and last name. When you register for our newsletter, we will send you a confirmation link to the e-mail address you have provided. You will only receive our newsletter after you have activated the link (double opt-in). We process this data for the purpose of sending the newsletter. The legal basis for the processing is your consent in accordance with Article 6 (1) a) GDPR.

If we have received your data as part of an event booking or similar and you have not objected to the sending and receipt of direct advertising by e-mail, we will process your name and e-mail address as well as your area of interest in order to inform you about similar events. The legal basis for processing is the weighing of interests pursuant to Art. 6 (1) f) GDPR, whereby our legitimate interests lie in informing you about events that may be of interest to you.

You can unsubscribe from the newsletter or direct advertising at any time. In this case, we will mark your e-mail address so that it is no longer used for sending newsletters/direct advertising. If we no longer need your contact details for other purposes arising from our business relationship with you, they will be deleted.

1.3 Personal conference area: myConference

You have the option of registering on our website as a participant or speaker in myConference. We process the personal data that you enter in the input mask (username = e-mail address and password). Your registration is required in order to participate in conferences.

Your personal data will be stored in your myConference area. This includes your basic registration data, your ticket purchases and, if you wish to appear as a speaker, your submissions in the Call for Papers, your speaker profile, as well as the presentations and conference proceedings you have uploaded. Mandatory information is marked accordingly. MyConference is also used for communicating with you. In particular, myConference is used to send acceptances and rejections for your event submissions. We transfer your contact details to our CRM system. The speaker profile stored in myConference will be published on the website.

If you purchase tickets for a conference, we collect further personal data (name, address, date and time of the order, payment date, and the subject of the order), which we process solely for the purpose of processing your ticket order.

If you do not yet have a “myConference” account, you can create a new account. Your name, company name, position, e-mail address, password, company address, billing address, and telephone number are mandatory entries. You can also voluntarily enter your title, academic title, company department, VAT identification number, mobile phone number, fax number, and an alternative e-mail address.

The legal basis for the processing described is the contract concluded with you or the implementation of pre-contractual measures in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 b) GDPR and the weighing of interests in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 f) GDPR. Our legitimate interests lie in the uniform administration of conference speakers and participants and the ability to communicate with you.

The storage duration corresponds to the duration of the user status as an event speaker or visitor in myConference.

1.4 External links

Our website includes so-called hyperlinks to websites of other providers. When you activate these links, you will be forwarded directly from our website to the website of another provider. You can recognize this by the change of URL, among other things. We cannot accept any responsibility for how these providers handle your data on these external websites, as we have no influence on how these providers handle your personal data.

Please note that the third-party offers linked from our website may install their own cookies on your end device or collect personal data. We have no influence over this. In this respect, please obtain information directly from the providers of these linked third-party offers, in particular with regard to the type, scope, legal basis, and storage period.

2. Integration of cookies and other third-party services

In some cases, we integrate cookies and other third-party services on our website. Please refer to the following explanations for detailed information on the type, scope, purposes, and legal basis in connection with these services.

2.1 Cookies

We use cookies on our website which are technically necessary to enable the use of the website. Cookies are small text files that are generated by a web server and stored on your computer during your online visit via your web browser. We use so-called "session cookies," in which technically necessary data such as your session ID are stored. These session cookies are automatically deleted at the end of your browser session.

The processing of your personal data is in our legitimate interest of error-free display of our website offer. The legal basis for the processing is Art. 6 para. 1 f) GDPR and § 25 para. 2 no. 2 TDDDG.

2.2 Integration of YouTube videos

We use a plugin from Google Ireland Limited, Google Building Gordon House, 4 Barrow St, Dublin, D04 E5W5, Ireland (hereinafter referred to as “Google”), to embed YouTube videos on our website.

The embedded videos can be played directly from our website. The videos are all embedded in extended data protection mode, whereby we use the so-called “no cookies” function. This ensures that no cookies are stored on your device when you visit our website, and therefore no personal data is exchanged with Google. If you wish to play a video, you must first give your consent. When you play the videos, your IP address, the referrer URL, and your device information are processed. The legal basis for this processing is your consent in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 a) GDPR and Section 25 para. 1 sentence 1 TDDDG. Further information on the processing of your personal data by Google can be found at: https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy.

  1. Data processing in the context of your conference participation

We process your personal data that is required for the preparation and organization of our conferences. The legal basis for this is Art. 6 para. 1 b) GDPR.

The purposes include, in particular:

  • Conference organization, implementation, and follow-up
  • Provision of conference documents
  • Generation and dispatch of registration confirmations, participation confirmations and, if applicable, certificates
  • Participation in commercial exhibitions and poster sessions
  • Billing and invoicing
  • Presentation as a conference sponsor

We also process your personal data to protect our legitimate interests or those of third parties (pursuant to Art. 6 para. 1 f) GDPR), such as:

  • Improvement of our conferences and offers
  • Follow-ups after the event, in particular the evaluation of feedback provided, including the necessary communications with you
  • Participation management

In any case, we only store your personal data for so long as is necessary to fulfill the purposes described above.

We may also process your personal data on the basis of a declaration of consent provided by you. The purpose pursued with the processing results from the content of the respective declaration of consent. This may apply in the following cases:

•             Production and publication of photos and video recordings

Data processing is carried out on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 a) GDPR. You can withdraw your consent at any time.

We delete data if it is no longer required for the pursued purposes, the storage period specified in the consent has expired, or you have withdrawn your consent and there is no other legal basis. In the event of the latter case, we will delete the data once the other legal basis no longer applies. We retain documentation of the consent itself for 3 years after the revocation in order to comply with our obligation to provide evidence. The legal basis for this processing is Art. 6 para. 1 c) in conjunction with Art. 5 para. 1 a), para. 2, Art. 7 para. 1 GDPR and Art. 6 para. 1 f) GDPR.

We also process your personal data in order to comply with legal obligations to which we are subject (pursuant to Art. 6 para. 1 c) GDPR). The obligations may arise, for example, from commercial, tax, money laundering, financial or criminal law.

Thank you for taking the time to read this legal information and for your interest in FVA. Do you still have questions? Our support team will be happy to answer them.

 

Note: The German version of this "Privacy Policy for FVA GmbH Conference Websites" ("Datenschutzerklärung FVA GmbH Kongresswebsites") shall be considered definitive. This English version is provided for informational purposes only.

Status: 27.02.2025

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