Legal Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to us!

It is our policy to respect your privacy regarding any information we may collect while operating our websites and services.

Hereby, we follow a few fundamental privacy principles:

• We don't ask for your personal information unless we truly need it.
• We don't sell, rent or exchange your personal information to anyone. Period.
• We don't share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, provide our services, or protect our rights.
• We don't keep your personal information longer than is necessary to provide our services to you.
• We don't store personal information on our servers unless required for the on-going operation of our sites.
• We aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what's visible to the public, seen by search engines, kept private, and permanently deleted.

Last but not least, we are not "one of those" companies that apply shady tricks to get your data or exploit loopholes. We really care about data privacy. Yours and our own.

If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us!

Privacy Policy

Duty to provide information when collecting personal data pursuant to Art. 13 GDPR

§1 Contact

(1) Controller within the meaning of Art. 4 (7) GDPR:

Telefon: +49 177 6998863
E-Mail: contact (at) social - diving . com

(2) Our company's data protection officer

Julius Launhardt

We prohibit the use of the contact information given in this Impressum - given to oblige with legal regulations - and any further published contact data by third parties for sending unsolicited advertising and marketing materials. We reserve the right to take legal action in the event of the unsolicited sending of advertising information, such as spam emails.

§2 Security

Social Diving and its partners constantly work towards protecting your privacy and data from unauthorized third parties. We use a number of different providers to make sure our sites run smoothly and securely. This includes password protection, media encryption, and secure communication among website-specific safety tools.

Social Diving and its partners constantly work towards protecting your privacy and data from unauthorized third parties. We use a number of different providers to make sure our sites run smoothly and securely. This includes password protection, media encryption, and secure communication among website-specific safety tools.

The security of your personal information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet (e.g. when communicating by e-mail or using a web browser), or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

If you have suggestions on how we can improve on these measures, do not hesitate to contact us.

§3 Data Collection on this site

How and why we collect data

Like most website operators, Social Diving collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request.

Social Diving's purpose in collecting both non-personally identifiable and personally identifiable information is to better understand how our visitors use its website and to ensure the error-free operation of our sites.

From time to time, Social Diving may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

We don't share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, provide our services, or protect our rights. If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

Some personal data may be shared with third parties such as tracking and analytics tools. You can disagree to the tracking of this data in our cookie policy.

Unless a specific storage period is specified in this privacy policy, Social Diving will retain your personal information indefinitely or until the purpose for the data processing no longer applies. In any case, we keep your data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy policy.

We will retain and use your information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our policies.

If you make a legitimate request for deletion or revoke your consent to data processing, your data will be deleted unless we have any other legally permissible reasons for storing your personal data (e.g. tax or commercial retention periods); in that case, the deletion takes place after these reasons no longer apply.

For example, in Germany, we need to store any invoice data for a minimum of 10 years.

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

If you have registered a user profile on our site, any personal data provided on it will remain with us indefinitely, or until you delete your user profile.

Cookies & Web Beacons

To enrich and perfect your online experience, like any other website, ours uses “Cookies”, similar technologies and services provided by others to display personalized content, appropriate advertising, and store your preferences on your computer.

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor's computer, and that the visitor's browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Social Diving uses cookies to help us identify and track visitors, their usage of https://www.social-diving.com, and their website access preferences.

Social Diving visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using our websites, with the drawback that certain features of our websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

By continuing to navigate our website without changing your cookie settings, you hereby acknowledge and agree to Social Diving's use of cookies.

If you leave a comment on our 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.

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me“, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Server Log Files

We follow a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and they are a part of a hosting service's analytics. The information collected by log files includes:

• Internet protocol (IP) addresses
• Operating system
• Browser type
• Internet Service Provider (ISP)
• Date and time stamp
• Referring/exit pages/url
• Clicks Number

These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.

This data is recorded on the basis of Art. 6 Paragraph 1 lit. f GDPR. Website operators have a legitimate interest in the technically error-free presentation and optimization of their website which requires the recording of server log files.

Social Diving also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for logged-in users and for users leaving comments on our blog posts. Social Diving only discloses logged-in user and commenter IP addresses under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information as described in this privacy policy.

Contact Form

Any personal data that you enter into the contact forms will be stored, used, and processed by us in regard to the corresponding matter specified in the form based on Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. b DSGVO. We collect only the data necessary to provide our services and products and for statistical reasons.

In all other cases, the processing is based on our legitimate interest in the effective processing of the inquiries sent to us (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f GDPR) or on your consent (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a GDPR) if this was queried.

By entering your email address in the contact form you agree explicitly to our terms of service and to receiving communication and marketing campaigns such as newsletters.

You may opt out of receiving such communication at any time.

Email or phone

If you contact us by e-mail or phone, your request including all personal data derived from it will be stored, used, and processed in regard to the corresponding matter based on Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. b DSGVO. We collect only the data necessary to provide our services and products and for statistical reasons.

In all other cases, the processing is based on our legitimate interest in the effective processing of the inquiries sent to us (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. f GDPR) or on your consent (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a GDPR) if this was queried.

By contacting us this way you agree explicitly to our terms of service. Any contact data you share with us may be used to send you communication and marketing campaigns such as newsletters.

You may opt out of receiving such communication at any time.

Website registration

You can register on our sites in order to use additional functions, products, or services.

We use the personally identifiable information entered during the registration process only for the purpose of using the respective offer or service for which you have registered. The mandatory information requested during registration must be given in full.

The data entered during registration is processed for the purpose of implementing the user relationship established by the registration and, if necessary, to initiate further contracts (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. b GDPR).

For users that register on our website (if any), we store the personal information they provide in their user profile.

All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information. Some of this information, such as username or name may be visible to other users of this site.

In case of important changes, for example in the scope of the offer or for technically necessary changes, we will use the e-mail address provided by the user for communication. The data recorded during registration will be stored by us as long as you are registered on our sites and will then be deleted. Statutory retention periods remain unaffected.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor's IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

All comments will be held in moderation before being approved and published on our sites. Please also refer to our comment policy for more information.

The IP address of the users who write comments will be stored. We need this data in order to be able to proceed against the author in the event of legal violations such as insults or propaganda.

You can subscribe to receive notifications when new comments are added to our site. In this case, you agree to receive email or other communication from us in this regard. You may unsubscribe to receive such communication at any time.

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated third-party spam detection service.

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

Comments are saved on the basis of your consent (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. a GDPR). You can revoke your consent at any time by contacting us. The legality of the data processing operations that have already taken place remains unaffected by the revocation.

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.

Gravatar

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

§4 Your rights as a data subject according to the EEA data protection rights

If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA), you have certain data protection rights. If you wish to be informed what Personal Information we hold about you and if you want it to be removed from our systems, please contact us.

In certain circumstances, you have the following data protection rights, unless these contradict applicable law:

• The right to access, update or to delete the information we have on you
• The right of rectification
• The right to object
• The right of restriction
• The right to data portability
• The right to withdraw consent

You are welcome to contact the e-mail address above to exercise your rights as a data subject.

§5 Hosting and Content Delivery Networks (CDN)

This website is hosted by an external service provider (“host“). The personal data recorded on this website is stored on the host's servers. This may include IP addresses, contact requests, meta and communication data, contract data, contact details, names, website access, and other data generated via a website.

The host is used to fulfill the contract with our potential and existing customers (Art. 6 Para. 1 lit. b GDPR) and in the interest of a secure, fast, and efficient provision of our online services by a professional provider (Art. 6 Para . 1 lit. f GDPR).

Our host will only process data that is necessary to fulfill its obligation to perform and follow our instructions with regard to this data.

We use the following host:

Hetzner Online GmbH
Industriestr. 25
91710 Gunzenhausen
Germany

Telefon: We use servers located in Germany and run on 100% eco-friendly energy.

In order to ensure data protection-compliant processing, we have concluded an order processing contract with our host.

This site may use a CDN in order to better serve customers outside of Germany.

§6 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

We are a Data Controller of your information.

Social Diving's legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described in this Privacy Policy depends on the personal information we collect and the specific context in which we collect the information:

• We need to perform a contract with you
• You have given us permission to do so
• Processing your personal information is in our legitimate interests
• We need to comply with the law

§7 Data transfer to the USA & other countries

We use tools on our sites from companies based in the USA and other countries. When these tools are active, your personal data can be passed on to the (US) servers of the respective companies.

We would like to point out that the USA is not a safe third country within the meaning of EU data protection law. US companies are obliged to surrender personal data to security authorities without you as the person concerned being able to take legal action against this.

Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that US authorities (e.g. government or secret services) process, evaluate, and permanently store your data on US servers for monitoring purposes. We have no influence on these processing activities.

The same indications may apply to other countries, as well. (Source: e-recht24.de)

We comply with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the US Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information from European Union member countries to the United States pursuant to Privacy Shield. To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/

In the event of violations of the GDPR, you have the right to file a complaint with appropriate supervisory authorities. The right of appeal exists without prejudice to other administrative or judicial remedies.

§8 Children's Information

Another part of our priority is adding protection for children while using the internet. We encourage parents and guardians to observe, participate in, and/or monitor and guide their online activity.

https://www.social-diving.com does not knowingly collect any personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on our website, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.

§9 Business Transfers

If Social Diving, or substantially all of its assets, were acquired, or in the unlikely event that Social Diving goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would be one of the assets that are transferred or acquired by a third party. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur and that any acquirer of Social Diving may continue to use your personal information as set forth in this policy.

§10 Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time, and at our sole discretion. We encourage you to frequently check this page for any changes to our Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.