Whether you are a member, conference participant, interested party or just a visitor to our website: We respect and protect your privacy. In accordance with Art. 13 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we hereby inform you about the way in which we collect, process and use your personal data. Our focus here is in particular on the fair and transparent use of your data by DGKL.
Below you will find an overview of what personal data we collect from you and what we do with it. We also inform you about your rights under applicable data protection law and who you can contact if you have any further questions.

Who are we?

The German Society for Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (DGKL) is a non-profit organization and a scientific society.

Controller for the purposes of the EU GDPR
German Society for Clinical Chemistry
and Laboratory Medicine e. V.
Friesdorfer Straße 153
53175 Bonn
Phone: +49 (0)228 926 895-0
Fax: +49 (0)228 926 895-27
geschaeftsstelle@dgkl.de

Register of Associations No. VR12527
Local Court Frankfurt/Main

Authorized representative: President of the DGKL Univ.-Prof. Dr. med. Harald Renz
datenschutzbeauftragter(at)dgkl.de

Processing of your data

What personal data do we collect from you?
We collect your personal data when you submit a membership application to our company, register for one of our events (conferences, workshops, training courses, etc.) or contact us via the various communication channels.

In detail, we process the following data:
Name, e-mail address
Private address, company address, postal address
If you are a member: Date of birth, membership number, information on your academic education and, if applicable, bank details or credit card details
Affiliation to our sections, working groups, task forces or delegates
Conferences, events and committee meetings attended
IT usage data (IP address, connection date and time)

Where does this data come from?

You inform us of these yourself when you register to use our services.
If you are a member: from your membership application, from a message from you by e-mail, fax or telephone, from messages via our website, if we are missing essential communication data also from a search on the Internet.
If you have attended a conference, event or committee meeting organized by us: from your registration for this event.
If you are presenting a talk or poster at an event: from your abstract submission and from personal contact with you.
In some cases, we also receive your contact details from external cooperation partners, our umbrella organizations or sister companies, from publicly accessible directories.
When you use our Internet services, pseudonymized usage data is collected in the form of IP addresses.

What do we use this data for and what is the legal basis for this?

Performance of contractual relationships (Art. 6 (1b) of the EU GDPR):
As a rule, you have a business relationship with us (ongoing contract) or the data processing is necessary at your request for the performance of pre-contractual measures, for example:

To implement contractual relationships such as booked conferences and to invoice the services purchased.
If you are a member: to collect your annual membership fee (if you have authorized us to do so by SEPA direct debit mandate or have sent us your credit card details for this purpose), to send you information that serves the purpose of the association in accordance with the articles of association or to send you the members’ magazine.
To fulfill your wishes and to improve our offer based on a balancing of interests (Art. 6 para. 1f of the EU GDPR):
To inform you about events or publications that could thematically correspond to your interests.
To ensure orderly operation and to optimize our services: We monitor the use of our services to ensure capacity utilization and IT security. This is done on the basis of IP addresses. We do not associate IP addresses used with your user account.
Due to legal requirements (Art. 6 para. 1c of the EU GDPR):
As an association, we are subject to numerous tax and commercial law provisions. We must process and store your data in order to comply with these provisions.

On the basis of your consent (Art. 6 (1a) of the EU GDPR):
In some cases, you have given us your consent to process your data, e.g. if you have submitted a membership application, registered for an event or joined a study group or working group. You can revoke this consent at any time. This also applies to consents that you gave us before the EU GDPR came into force, i.e. before May 25, 2018.

How long do we store your data?

Different time limits apply to the storage period of your data

If you were a member: 1 year, if there are still outstanding claims from the contractual relationship, in accordance with the statutory limitation periods
Data with relevance under tax law is generally stored for 10 years
Data with relevance under commercial law is generally stored for 6 years
Conference history: maximum 10 years
Usage data such as connection history (pseudonymized via IP address): 1 year

Do we pass on your data to third parties?

Within the DGKL networks
DGKL networks such as working groups, sections or the Young Scientists Academy inform their members about activities and relevant news. The spokespersons of these structures receive your data in order to fulfill this purpose.
All participants are obliged to carefully comply with all relevant data protection regulations.

External service providers
We work with a number of external service providers or cloud service providers who support us in the provision of our event and other services. All service providers have been carefully selected by us and contractually obliged to conscientiously comply with all relevant data protection regulations. At the same time, we naturally only pass on the minimum data required to use these services.

Disclosure to other organizers
If we hold an event together with an external organizer, we will pass on all relevant data to the external organizer for the purpose of holding the event. If you participate in an event from a series of events with (usually international) changing organizers, we will generally pass on your contact details to the next organizer of this series of events, unless you have objected to your data being passed on when registering for this event.

Forwarding to (journal) publishers
If you are a member of the DGKL, we may forward your address data to external (journal) publishers who cooperate with us.

Member directory
If you are a member or work on one of our committees, other DGKL members or members of your committee can view your contact details so that they can get in touch with you personally. This is in line with our statutory purpose of promoting the exchange of scientific information and opinions.

What other rights do you have?

Right of access, rectification, erasure or restriction
In accordance with Articles 14-17 of the EU GDPR, we hereby inform you that you have the right to access, rectify, erase or restrict the processing of your data at any time.

Right to withdraw consent
If you have given us your consent to process your data, you can withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.

Right to object to the use of your data for direct marketing
We may use your data for our marketing measures or direct marketing on the basis of a weighing of interests. You have the right to object to this at any time. The objection can be made informally by e-mail, fax or letter. The easiest way to unsubscribe from our newsletter is to use the unsubscribe link in the newsletter.

Right to lodge a complaint
You have the right to lodge a complaint with a competent supervisory authority at any time.

Use of cookies
Cookies are small text files that are sent to your computer when you use our website. We use cookies exclusively in order to be able to implement special user functions (so-called session cookies). In some cases, you may therefore not be able to use our websites as intended without cookies. However, we do not use cookies to create user profiles.

Most Internet browsers are set to accept cookies automatically. However, you can deactivate the storage of cookies or set your browser so that it notifies you as soon as cookies are sent. To do this, use the help function of your Internet browser.

Further information
If you have any questions or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us.