Data Protection Statement

Data protection is of a particularly high priority to the TRR228 data management system / database (TRR228DB) website. The processing of personal data on this website shall always be in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and in accordance with the data protection statement of the University of Cologne.

Cookies

Our TRR228DB website makes use of so-called cookies in order to recognize repeated use of our website by the same user/internet connection subscriber. Cookies are small text files that your internet browser downloads and stores on your device. They are used to improve our website and services. In most cases these are "session cookies" that are deleted once you leave our website.

To an extent, however, these cookies also pass along information used to automatically recognize you. Recognition occurs through an IP address saved to the cookies. The information thereby obtained is used to improve our services and to expedite your access to the website.

You can prevent cookies from being installed by adjusting the settings on your browser software accordingly. You should be aware, however, that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions of our website.

General collection of personal data and information of TRR228DB website visitors

The TRR228DB website collects general data as described in the data protection statement of the University of Cologne. In addition, we collect your IP address and/or an internal identifier when you call up a metadata set and when you download datasets from our website. This data is stored for statistical purposes only and will only be used for internal analysis. All such information will be deleted or anonymized after no more than 14 days and can thereafter no longer be used to personally identify you.

Registration on our website & collection of personal data and information from registered TRR228DB users

All members of the TRR228 research project have the opportunity to apply for a user account for the TRR228 data management system / database (TRR228DB) website. For this purpose, it is necessary to collect further personal information such as name, email address, phone number or associated institution. This information is publicly accessible via the website (e.g. as metadata creator contact details of a dataset). Furthermore, account login credentials from the user's University of Cologne Personal Account from the Regional Computing Centre (RRZK) is needed to create a user account. More information about the RRZK Personal Account is provided at the Identity Management of the University of Cologne.

The registration of users, with the specification of personal data is intended to enable contents or services that may only be offered to registered users. All information is stored solely for the use by our website and none of it is transferred to third parties.

Scientific data submission via the TRR228DB website

The TRR228DB website contains a web application to submit scientific datasets to be stored in the TRR228 database (TRR228DB) with the aim to publish them. If a user uploads a dataset to the TRR228DB website the transmitted personal data (e.g. TRR228DB user details) are automatically stored. Such personal data is stored for instance for the purpose of processing or contacting the user (e.g. if there are queries about or problems with submitted datasets).

To successfully submit scientific datasets to the TRR228DB, the data subject has to provide some additional personal data (e.g., name of authors and co-authors) with the purpose to be compliant with various metadata schemas and to allow correct citation of those datasets in the scientific community. This information will be made available to the public after the submission process through dataset metadata via the TRR228DB website. This is a requirement of scientific publishing. Scientific data publications including the aforementioned personal data may be consumed by third parties (e.g. libraries, data portals) using the metadata and data services of the TRR228DB.

By submitting scientific data, the user agrees with publishing those datasets in the public interest, for scientific or historical research purposes or for statistical purposes according to Art. 9(2) lit. j GDPR and Art. 89 GDPR.

Use of Clustrmaps.com

On this website ClustrMaps Ltd, 2005-2018 has been integrated. ClustrMaps is a combined hit counter, visitor tracker and geographic visualization tool. It collects location information from your IP address on the website from a data subject who came to our website. Furthermore, it collects which pages of the website were accessed, how often and for which period of time a sub-page was viewed.

The purpose of Clustrmaps is the analysis of the visitor flows on our website. The obtained data and information shows the activities on our Internet pages.

Clustrmaps sets a cookie on the information technology system of the data subject. The definition of cookies is explained above. With the setting of the cookie, an analysis of the use of our website is enabled. The cookie is used to store personal information, such as the access time, the access location, and the frequency of visits to our website. With each visit of our websites, these personal data, including the IP address of the Internet access used by the data subject, are transferred.

For more information, visit Clustrmaps.com's privacy policy (external link).

Use of Matomo

This website uses Matomo, a software that statistically analyses user access. Matomo uses cookies to allow for an analysis of how you are using the website. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website is stored on the server of the University of Cologne in Germany. Your IP address will be made anonymous immediately after processing and before it is stored. On our website we offer you the possibility to opt-out of the analysis procedure. In this way, another cookie is placed in your system which signals our system not to store your data. If you delete the corresponding cookie from your system in the meantime, the opt-out cookie must be set again.

More information on the Matomo software’s privacy settings can be found here.

Use of Google Maps API

The Google Maps API from Google LLC is also integrated on the TRR228DB website. The tool is used to display maps of geographic locations and coverages of scientific datasets. When using Google Maps on the TRR228DB website, user information and a user's IP address will be transferred and stored on Google's servers in the USA.

Under its data protection policy, Google does not pass this information on to third parties, but does make exceptions to this rule. This means that data collected in this way may be provided to third party where such is required under USA legislation or where such data is processed by third parties on Google's behalf.

You can also disable Google Maps to stop your personal data from being transmitted to Google. To do so, disable Java Script in your browser. Please note that doing so means that our TRR228DB map search is no longer usable.

For more information, visit Google Inc.'s data protection policy (external link).

Information/Cancellation/Deletion

On the basis of the Federal Data Protection Act, you may contact us at no cost if you have questions relating to the collection, processing or use of your personal information, if you wish to request the correction, blocking or deletion of the same, or if you wish to cancel explicitly granted consent. Please note that you have the right to have incorrect data corrected or to have personal data deleted, where such claim is not barred by any legal obligation to retain this data.

If you have further questions or concerns about your personal data stored in the TRR228 database (TRR228DB) website please contact the TRR228DB admin.