This Privacy Notice explains how your personal data is processed in connection with the use of this website and the provided functionalities, such as the menu for ordering information, a blog and search functions (hereinafter collectively referred to as the “Website”).
This Website uses SSL or TLS encryption for security and to protect the transmission of personal data and other confidential content (e.g. orders or inquiries submitted to the data controller). You can recognize an encrypted connection by the string “https://” and the lock symbol in your browser line.
This Website is operated by IU Group N.V., Square Ambiorix 10, BE-1000 Bruxelles (“IU Group”). IU Group is the data controller for the processing of your personal data.
IU Group processes your personal data on a subject-related basis in joint controllership with other companies belonging to the Group (all with their registered office at Mülheimer Straße 38, 53604 Bad Honnef, Germany, unless otherwise stated). Activities in connection with the operation of the IU International University are carried out in joint controllership with IU Internationale Hochschule GmbH, Juri-Gagarin-Ring 152, 99084 Erfurt ("IU"). For central services within the Group, such as controlling, accounting and personnel administration, office, process and quality management, purchasing and sales, as well as other services, the aforementioned companies receive support of IU Corporate Services GmbH, which is jointly responsible for data processing; IU IT Services GmbH, Ridlerstr. 57, c/o IU Group NV, 80339 Munich, with regard to the provision of the operational IT infrastructure including hardware and software, telecommunication and electronic communication; IU Examination Service GmbH for services in the field of examination supervision; IU Marketing Service GmbH as well as IU Sales Services GmbH, Ridlerstr. 57, c/o IU Group NV, 80339 Munich, for services in the area of marketing and sales (this also includes marketing via this website and the operation of the applicant portal for students); IU Commercial 1 GmbH for the management of the online campus and IU Commercial 2 GmbH for the management of the campus locations and with regard to the campus programs; IU Student Services GmbH together with the respective GmbH that exists for the respective location and is named after its city name, e.g. IU Dortmund GmbH or IU Bonn GmbH, for the support of prospective students and students, in particular student advising. We can provide you with excerpts from the joint controller agreement. If you would like to receive an excerpt, please contact datenschutz@iu.org.
IU Group has appointed Dr. Annette Demmel, SPB DPO Services GmbH, An der Buche 4, 13465 Berlin, annette.demmel@spb-dpo-services.com, as the data protection officer for the aforementioned companies. You can contact IU Group either in writing or per email at datenschutz@iu.org.
Recipients
Unless otherwise described in the context of a certain processing, only those IU employees, who are responsible for performing a specific task have access to your personal data. In addition, employees who are responsible for operating our IT systems may have access to some of your personal data as part of their job, e.g., administering an application or performing IT security control tasks. Our employees are obligated to maintain the confidentiality of all personal data.
In the course of our business activities, we rely on the support of various service providers, in particular for the aforementioned purposes as well as for the operation of our IT systems. If the service providers we use have access to personal data, we have entered into the necessary agreements to protect your personal data; in particular, we have concluded data processing agreements in accordance with Art. 28 GDPR, in which we oblige our service providers to maintain confidentiality. Furthermore, banks may receive personal data for the purpose of processing payments, or lawyers, tax advisors and auditors may receive personal data in the course of their work for us. In some cases, we transmit personal data due to legal obligations. In the event of a suspected criminal offense or during investigative proceedings, data may be transmitted to the police and public prosecutor’s office. For further information about who has access to your personal data when using the individual applications, please refer to the description of the respective application.
Transfers to Third Countries
If we transfer data to service providers in so-called third countries, this is described for the respective application. Some of these third countries do not have an adequate level of data protection. Particularly in the case of data transfers to the USA, there is a risk that your personal data will be processed by the authorities there for control and monitoring purposes without you becoming aware of this or having sufficient legal remedies available to you. We routinely safeguard transfers to third countries by using the so-called EU standard contractual clauses. You can obtain a copy of these clauses at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?uri=CELEX%3A32021D0914&locale=de .
Consent
If you have given your consent to a processing activity, you may withdraw this consent at any time with effect for the future without providing a reason. For this purpose, please use the methods for contacting IU mentioned above or change the switch settings if you have given your consent via the selected switch settings.
Retention
It is our general policy to delete your data as soon as it is no longer needed for the required purpose and if there are no retention obligations. We usually delete your personal data within a short period of time, e.g. within a few months after the conclusion of any counseling. Unless special circumstances regarding deletion are described for the respective application, we process your personal data in accordance with the various retention periods under university or federal law for up to 15 years or in accordance with retention periods under tax and commercial law for a period of six to ten calendar years after the conclusion of a transaction or after the end of the contract. If you object to any processing under Art. 21 (2) GDPR, we will delete your data within four weeks after your objection, unless otherwise required by law or if we are obligated to block the data. If the processing takes place on the basis of your consent and you withdraw your consent or the processing ends for other reasons, we will process the information necessary to prove that consent had previously been granted, i.e. date, time, details of the granting and subject of the consent, for a period of three years after the processing based on consent ends.
When using our Website for informational purposes only, i.e. if you do not register or otherwise transmit information to us, we only collect data that your browser transmits to our server (so-called “Server Log Files”). When you access our Website, we collect the following data, which is technically necessary in order to display the Website for you:
The processing takes place in accordance with Art.6(1)(b) of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) on the basis of your use of our Website and our interest in improving the stability and functionality of our Website in accordance with Art.6(1)(f) GDPR.
We process your data in order to provide you with a functional website, retain the data for the duration specified by IU Group for this purpose and delete your data thereafter.
Only employees of IU Group who are responsible for maintaining the Website receive access to your personal data.
We use third-party services on our Website. Further information about these services and the related data processing is found in this Privacy Policy or the cookie settings.
Depending on your browser settings and whether you have given us your consent, cookies may be used when you visit this Website in order to extend the functionality of the Website and make it more convenient for you to use. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer. Most of the cookies used by IU Group are deleted from your hard drive at the end of the browser session (“Session Cookies”). In addition, IU Group uses so-called permanent cookies (“Persistent Cookies”), which remain on your device in order to recognize you the next time you visit the Website. If cookies are used, they collect and process to an individual extent certain user information such as browser and location data, IP address values and as described in the Server Log Files. Persistent cookies are automatically deleted after a specified period of time, which may differ depending on the cookie.
An overview of the cookies used and the duration of the respective cookie storage can be found in the cookie settings in our Cookie Consent Tool.
If personal data is also processed through individual cookies used by us, the processing takes place in accordance with Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR on the basis of our legitimate interest in improving the stability and functionality of our Website (so-called “Necessary Cookies”) or in accordance with Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR on the basis of your consent for all other cookies (marketing and analysis cookies).
Please note that you can configure your browser in such a way that you are informed about the use of cookies and can decide individually whether to accept or to refuse to accept them in certain cases or in general. Each browser differs in the way it manages cookie settings. Cookie settings are described in the help menu of each browser, which explains how you can change your cookie settings.
Please note that if you do not accept cookies, the functionality of our Website may be limited.
This website uses a so-called cookie consent tool of Usercentrics GmbH, Rosental 4, 80331 Munich, Germany (the “Cookie Consent Tool”) to obtain consent to the use of cookies and cookie-based applications that require consent.
By integrating a corresponding JavaScript code, users are shown a banner when they access our Website, in which consent for certain cookies and/or cookie-based applications can be given by ticking the appropriate box.
The Cookie Consent Tool blocks the use of all cookies requiring consent until the respective user grants the corresponding consent by ticking the appropriate box. This ensures that cookies of this type are only placed on the user’s device if consent has been granted.
In order for the Cookie Consent Tool to be able to clearly assign page views to individual users and to individually record, log and store the consent settings chosen by the user for a session duration, certain user information, as described in the Server Log Files and including the IP address, is collected by the Cookie Consent Tool when our Website is accessed, transmitted to servers of the Cookie Consent Tool and stored there. For further details, please refer to the information provided in each case in the Cookie Consent Tool.
The data processing carried out by the Cookie Consent Tool takes place in accordance with Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR on the basis of our legitimate interest in a legally compliant, user-specific and user-friendly consent management for cookies and thus our legitimate interest in our Website being lawfully designed.
We have concluded a data processing agreement with Usercentrics GmbH, which obligates Usercentrics GmbH to protect the data of visitors to our Website and to refrain from disclosing such data to third parties.
We process your data for this purpose for the duration of your session and delete your data thereafter, unless you have given your consent to the use of cookies, in which case we process your data for the duration specified for each cookie.
For further information on the use of data by Usercentrics GmbH, please refer to Usercentrics’ Privacy Policy at https://usercentrics.com/privacy-policy/.
If you contact us by email, we process your email address. If you also provide us with your name and other personal data, we also process this data. The legal basis for this processing is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR. We process your data in order to respond to your inquiry. Your personal data will be retained in each case for the period determined by IU Group in order to perform the task and will be deleted thereafter. Only employees of IU Group who are responsible for responding to contact requests will receive access to your personal data.
Except for the transfers of usage data to the USA described in connection with Google Analytics, IU Group will not transfer your personal data to a third country outside the EU. Any other transfer will only take place if IU Group is required to do so by law or by public authorities or if the transfer is necessary in the context of your use of the Website.
IU processes from representatives of the press and journalists their names, contact details, information about professional activities and the content of the communication for the purpose of press and public relations work and direct communication. The legal basis for the processing of personal data is Art. 6 par. 1 lit. f) GDPR. The legitimate interest for the processing is the implementation of public relations and press work, which is why we maintain a press distribution list. For the email press distribution list we use the services of Meltwater (Meltwater Deutschland GmbH, Rotherstraße 22, 10245 Berlin). You may unsubscribe from the press distribution list by clicking on the link that is included at the end of each email. We have entered into a data processing agreement with Meltwater in accordance with Art. 28 GDPR.
For the provision of a user-friendly newsroom and for the publication of press content, we use PressPage (PressPage B.V., Joan Musykenweg 22, 1096 CJ Amsterdam). We provide a contact form on our website that you can use to get in touch with us. For this purpose, we process the mandatory information requested there (first and last name, e-mail address, medium) as well as other optional information that you provide to us. We also use PressPage to manage your request. We have entered into a data processing agreement with PressPage in accordance with Art. 28 GDPR.
Employees involved in public and press relations have access to the data. We process the personal data for the period in which we occasionally provide press representatives and journalists with information. We delete contact data upon request or after we have become aware that an activity for the press or in the area of public relations is no longer being carried out.
Our website uses analysis services in order to collect information about our website, provided you have consented to the setting of the corresponding cookies. The data obtained with the help of these analysis services, such as the location of the visitors or their length of stay on our website, gives us information about visitor behaviour on our website. With the help of this data, we can not only eliminate website issues, but also improve the efficiency of our website. Further information on the analysis services used on our website can be found below. For information on the processing of personal data by the cookies set for this purpose, such as the storage duration of the cookies, please refer to our cookie settings.
We use Google Analytics to get an overview of the behaviour of website visitors, and gain insights regarding our digital marketing efforts. Google Analytics allows us to collect and evaluate the data specifically relevant to IU Group, for example how far down a webpage was scrolled, which button was clicked, etc. Google Analytics also helps us, for example, understand user demographic characteristics such as age, gender and interests, geographic characteristics such as language and location, as well as technical characteristics such as device type, browser and operating system. With the help of this data we can not only optimise our website, but can also recognise how the respective user sessions ended (e.g. simple website visit, request for information material, application for studies). Google Analytics also helps us recognise which webpage a user is accessing and via which channel the users come to our website from (e.g. via a paid or unpaid ad, a Google search, a Facebook post or direct access to the website). With the help of this information, IU Group can identify which marketing channels are working and which are not. Google Analytics also allows us to recognise user paths, i.e. where users are moving on our website, whether they are going back to the start page and how many users access our website. With the help of this information, we can, for example, recognise whether the jumping off of a large number of users is due to a technical defect in the website. The above data gives us a good overview of our website and how it is used. Even if we collect user data, we cannot draw any conclusions about your identity from this data, as we receive reports from Google Analytics that are based on aggregated data sets.
Information on the provider, the cookies set, the legal basis for cookie collection, international data transfers and storage times of the cookies can be found in our cookie settings.
This website uses Google Tag Manager (“GTM”), a service provided by Google Ireland Ltd. (“Google”), with its registered office at Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland. Through the use of GTM, tags such as code snippets or pixels are used on our own Website by means of a so-called container, which inserts a kind of placeholder into the source code and in which the tools that are to be used are stored without IU Group having to interfere with the source code of our Website. Using GTM, tools can be used on our own Website without having to include each of them in the source code. Instead, only the code of GTM has to be included, and then GTM can be used as a central place to launch or disable the desired tools.
GTM works on the Website when a defined user behavior triggers a tag (i.e. a pixel tag, web beacon, or html code) for the tool. GTM collects the relevant data for the built-in tool and forwards it to the tool. Information about the tools used on our Website that are loaded via GTM can be found here. In this context, not only are the data categories described for the respective tools transferred to the respective tool providers; Google Ireland Ltd. also receives information about your usage behavior on our Website. Since a large number of the tool providers are located in countries outside the EU, please refer to the description of the respective tools if you would like to receive information on the transfer mechanisms agreed with IU Group. IU Group has also entered into a data processing agreement with Google Ireland Ltd., which incorporates the EU standard contractual clauses. The main content of this agreement is available for review here: https://policies.google.com/privacy/frameworks?hl=de.
IU Group uses GTM to deploy not only statistical tools but also marketing tools. Accordingly, GTM is a statistics and marketing tool, and the use of GTM is based on your consent in accordance with Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, which you may withdraw at any time with effect for the future by sending an email to datenschutz@iu.org.
Clicking on a link, such as to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok or LinkedIn, will take you to the respective websites of the different providers. Data processing on the respective website is governed by the privacy policy that applies there. IU Group has no influence on the data processing that takes place there.
You can contact IU Group in writing or per email at datenschutz@iu.org in order to exercise the following rights:
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority in connection with the processing of your personal data.
You may choose not to provide us with your personal data or choose to provide incomplete data. In such a case, for example, if you prevent the storage of a cookie, you may not be able to use all the functionalities of the Website. If you do not provide us with your personal data or only provide us with incomplete personal data in the context of an admission procedure or a job application, we may not be able to accept you as a student or offer you the opportunity to participate in a job application procedure.
