This blog is a personal website without commercial aims, written and edited by me. However, it collects and stores data – just like any other website at the world wide web – in order to allow for a smooth user experience and to secure operations.

Relating to personal data, if you visit this website, your IP address might be logged on the server. And if you are trying to log on to the content management system – which you are not allowd to anyway – your IP-address will also be logged and stored in plain text.

If you leave comments on the blog, I ask you to provide an email address. I do not allow anonymous blog comments. This email address is stored to link different comments and to allow you to subscribe to comments.

Plugins, installed in order to secure the operation of the website, might use the collected data for analytical purposes. They are not used for advertising or contacting you personally on behalf of this blog.

Since I want to know how often this blog is read and where the users are coming from, I have a usage statistics plugin, which records page views, IP addresses, browser agent etc.

You can contact me at anytime through the contactform to ask which data I have stored about you. In this case, you need to tell me your email address and name. If you have never commented on the blog, there will probably no data about you.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Contact

If you use the contact form to contact me, the data you entered in this form will be collected. As soon as your enquiry has been processed, this data will be deleted.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site the data shown in the comments form is collected, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

If you opt in to have a Gravatar image displayed next to your name when commenting, your email address is converted to a pseudonymized string (hash) and transmitted to the Gravatar.com service to check if you have an account there and to download your profile image (privacy policy of Gravatar.com). After your comment has been approved, your profile picture will be shown in the context of your comment.

Server log files

The website hoster automatically collects and stores information that your browser automatically transmits to us in ‘server log files’. These are:

• Browser type and browser version
• Operating system used
• Referrer URL
• Host name of the accessing computer
• Time of the server request
• IP address

These data cannot be assigned to specific persons and will not be combined with data from other sources.

The basis for data processing is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR. The website operator has a legitimate interest in the storage of log data to ensure an optimized service provided free of technical errors. A data processing agreement with the website hoster excists.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on this site you may opt in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

Matomo (formerly called Piwik)

This website uses the open-source web analysis service Matomo. Matomo uses technologies that make it possible to recognize the user across multiple pages with the aim of analyzing the user patterns (e.g. cookies or device fingerprinting). The information recorded by Matomo about the use of this website will be stored on the server on which this website is hosted. Prior to archiving, the IP address will first be anonymized.

Through Matomo, we are able to collect and analyze data on the use of our website-by-website visitors. This enables us to find out, for instance, when which page views occurred and from which region they came. In addition, we collect various log files (e.g. IP address, referrer, browser, and operating system used) and can measure whether our website visitors perform certain actions (e.g. clicks, downloads, etc.).

The use of this analysis tool is based on Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR. The website operator has a legitimate interest in the analysis of user patterns, in order to optimize the operator’s web offerings and advertising. If a corresponding agreement has been requested (e.g. an agreement to the storage of cookies), the processing takes place exclusively on the basis of Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR; the agreement can be revoked at any time.

Hosting

We host Matomo exclusively on the server where this website is hosted, so that all analysis data remains with us and is not passed on to third parties.

Opt-out complete; your visits to this website will not be recorded by the Web Analytics tool. Note that if you clear your cookies, delete the opt-out cookie, or if you change computers or Web browsers, you will need to perform the opt-out procedure again.

You may choose to prevent this website from aggregating and analyzing the actions you take here. Doing so will protect your privacy, but will also prevent the owner from learning from your actions and creating a better experience for you and other users.

You are not opted out. Uncheck this box to opt-out. You are currently opted out. Check this box to opt-in.

The tracking opt-out feature requires cookies to be enabled.

Links to other sites

This Website may contain links to other sites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party’s site. I strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit.

I have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.

Who we share your data with

Your data will not be shared with third parties, unless it is legally obliged to provide those data.

How long we retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.