Data Protection Notice

Effective date: October 23, 2026

Protecting your personal data is important to us. We process personal data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and supplementary national provisions, and we take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your privacy as best we can.

1. Controller

The controller within the meaning of Art. 4 No. 7 GDPR for the processing of data on this website is:

2. Our role as a processor

As part of our product Ortsnetz, we process personal data on behalf of the municipalities that use Ortsnetz. In this respect, we are a processor within the meaning of Art. 4 No. 8 GDPR; the respective municipality is the controller for this processing. This data protection notice applies exclusively to this website.

3. Provision of the website

This website is delivered by Microsoft Azure via Microsoft's worldwide network. When you visit it, our hosting provider processes technically necessary data such as your IP address, the time of access and the page requested, in order to deliver the website and ensure its security. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a secure and functional website (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR). Beyond that, we do not collect any personal data when you visit the website; we do not use any analytics or tracking tools and do not embed any third-party content.

4. Contact form

We only process the personal data you enter in the contact form on this website: name, organization, role, email address and your message. We use this data exclusively to process your request and to get in touch with you.

If your request is aimed at concluding a contract, for example about using Ortsnetz in your municipality, the legal basis is the performance of pre-contractual measures (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR). Otherwise, the legal basis is our legitimate interest in answering requests addressed to us (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR). Providing the data is voluntary; without it, however, we cannot process your request.

Your request is processed and stored in a Microsoft Azure data center in Germany (Frankfurt am Main). It is deleted automatically six months after it was received.

5. Protection of the contact form against abuse (Friendly Captcha)

To protect the contact form against spam and automated requests, we use Friendly Captcha. The check is only loaded once you start filling in the contact form. Visitors who do not use the form do not connect to Friendly Captcha.

During the check, your browser connects to Friendly Captcha's global service; in particular, your IP address is processed. Depending on your location, the request may also be processed on servers outside the European Union or the European Economic Area. According to Friendly Captcha, IP addresses are made unrecognizable by one-way hashing, and no personal data of visitors is stored. As our processor, Friendly Captcha is contractually obliged (Art. 28 GDPR) to transfer personal data to third countries only in compliance with Art. 44 et seq. GDPR.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in protecting the contact form against abuse (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR).

Friendly Captcha does not set any cookies. For the duration of the check, a random session ID, a counter and the status of the check are kept in your browser's session storage; this data is deleted automatically when you close the tab. This storage is technically necessary for the protection of the form you are using (Section 25 (2) No. 2 of the German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act, TDDDG).

6. Recipients and processors

The following service providers process personal data on our behalf:

• Microsoft Azure – hosting of this website as well as processing and storage of contact requests in Germany.
• Friendly Captcha – protection of the contact form against spam and abuse (see section 5).

Your data is not passed on to any other third parties.

7. Transfers to third countries

Your data only leaves the European Union or the European Economic Area in the following cases:

• When the website is delivered via Microsoft's worldwide network, connection data such as your IP address may also be processed at locations outside the EU or EEA (see section 3).
• The check by Friendly Captcha may take place outside the EU or EEA (see section 5).

Microsoft is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, for which the European Commission has adopted an adequacy decision (Art. 45 GDPR). In addition, Microsoft's data protection terms include the European Commission's standard contractual clauses (Art. 46 (2) (c) GDPR). For Friendly Captcha, see section 5.

8. Storage period

We only store personal data for as long as is necessary for the respective purpose. Contact requests are deleted automatically six months after they were received.

9. Data security

We take appropriate technical and organisational security measures to protect personal data against loss, misuse, unauthorized access, unauthorized disclosure, alteration or deletion. The connection between your browser and this website is encrypted.

10. Cookies and similar technologies

This website currently does not use any cookies or comparable technologies for analytics or tracking purposes – apart from the session storage of Friendly Captcha described in section 5. Should this change, we will ask for your consent beforehand where required.

11. Your rights

You have the right at any time

• to request information about which data we store about you (Art. 15 GDPR),
• to request the correction of inaccurate data (Art. 16 GDPR),
• to request the deletion of your data (Art. 17 GDPR),
• to request the restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR),
• to receive a copy of your data in a common format (Art. 20 GDPR),
• to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to processing based on our legitimate interest (Art. 21 GDPR).

To do so, please contact info@ortsnetz.eu. You also have the right to lodge a complaint about the processing of your data with a data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR), in particular with the authority responsible for us, the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of Baden-Württemberg.

12. Changes to this data protection notice

This data protection notice may change over time. The current version is published on this website.