We take data protection and the protection of your personal data seriously. Our data protection principles are a fundamental guideline for our companies worldwide. We comply with applicable national regulations and our understanding of data protection is based on the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – adapted to local regulations where these are stricter.
1. General information
This section deals with the controller of your personal data, how to contact this controller and what rights data subjects have in this context. A controller is a company that is responsible for handling personal data.
1.1 Data controller
Data controller refers to the company (legal entity) that determines the purpose and means of processing your personal data. With respect to the overarching processing activities described in this Privacy Policy, Future Insight e.V. is the data controller. In addition, any affiliated company of Merck KGaA Darmstadt that processes personal data may become a data controller or joint data controller. This includes, in particular, any company of the Merck KGaA group of companies, Darmstadt, with which you enter into an agreement.
Future Insight e.V. |
Merck KGaA |
Frankfurter Straße 250 |
Frankfurter Straße 250 |
64293 Darmstadt, Germany |
64293 Darmstadt, Germany |
Phone: +49 6151 72-0 |
Phone: +49 6151 72-0 |
Telefax: +49 6151 72-2000 |
Telefax: +49 6151 72-2000 |
1.2 Data protection officer
We have appointed a data protection officer for the Group. You can contact this person and the team itself at any time:
Group Data Protection Officer
Merck KGaA
Frankfurter Strasse 250
64293 Darmstadt, Germany
+49 6151 72-0
privacy@emdgroup.com
You can also exercise your data protection rights by making your request directly on our Data Privacy Portal.
2 The processing activities in detail
This section explains the different data processing activities we use to process your personal data.
2.1 Processing of your personal data in other contexts
We process your personal data in the various situations we describe in this section, including any of your online and offline interactions with us regarding the products and services we offer and business activities we conduct.
Generally, we process your personal data for contractual purposes and to communicate with you for commercial purposes when you or we purchase goods or services from each other. For this purpose, we only process the data needed to fulfill the contract itself and for any additional obligations we are subject to, such as tax payments.
In addition, we may use your personal data based on our legitimate interest to develop and provide our products and services, learn more about your interests, market in accordance with local market rules, and continually improve our offerings.
Please see the explanations below and/or individual privacy statements we provide as part of our business communications with you to learn more about the relevant processing of your personal data in this context.
2.1.1 Marketing communications
We process your personal data as part of our public relations and marketing processes. This includes, in particular, the issue of newsletters, press kits and registrations for press distribution lists, press contacts and press representatives.
2.1.1 Newsletter
This processing activity may include the following categories of data:
– Your contact information (e.g., name, title, title, home address, gender, phone numbers, email address);
– Information about your job (e.g. job title, position, personnel number, work location, branch, department).
If you would like to subscribe to one of our available newsletters, you can enter your email address in our registration form and then click the “Submit” button. You will then receive an email from us to your email address. You can complete the registration by confirming your email address using the reply function in your email program.
This processing activity includes the following categories of data: The information you provide for a subscription, such as title, name, email and personal/professional interests.
The processing is based on the consent you have given us as part of the subscription process. Your personal data will be deleted if you withdraw your consent, for example by filling out the unsubscribe form on our website.
2.1.1.2 Other processing for marketing purposes; profiling.
Any other processing in this context is based on our legitimate business interests. We have a legitimate interest in informing our customers about news, events, etc. in order to win new business and to build and maintain long-term business relationships.
Our goal is to provide you with information that may be of interest to you and to communicate with you seamlessly through various channels (phone, email, SMS, postal mail, messages on social media) without sending redundant information. Our communications with you are based on the information we have collected about you that we may use. For example, we use a combination of your email address and browsing data so that we can provide you with information about a product you have viewed on our website. Based on the information we collect, we may indicate internally that you are interested in certain categories of information.
We also use profiling techniques to optimize and personalize our customer relationship management and advertising efforts. To optimize and personalize our advertising efforts, we develop customer profiles and assign customers to specific customer segments based on these customer profiles. Based on these segments, we can manage the type, content and frequency of specific advertising measures for specific target groups. We use the data we receive from you in the course of our business relationship for profiling purposes and on the basis of our legitimate interests. This includes personal data such as your purchasing behavior and browsing behavior. Profiling may also relate to the use of data we create by measuring and evaluating the customer’s interaction with electronic advertising and, in particular, by measuring and evaluating the open and click-through rates for email newsletters.
2.1.2 Business contacts
If we receive your contact details at business events, for example as part of business meetings (e.g. exchange of business cards) or as part of an order, we use your contact and business details to maintain our business contacts. For this purpose, we usually transfer your contact details to our CRM (Customer Relationship Management).
This processing activity may include the following categories of data:
– Your contact information (e.g. name, title, title, home address, gender, telephone numbers, email address);
– Information about your job (e.g. job title, position, personnel number, work location, branch, department, qualifications).
This data processing is based on our legitimate business interests. We have a legitimate business interest in maintaining contacts beyond the initial contact and in using them to establish and develop a business relationship and to keep in touch with the parties involved. These business contacts may also be processed, where appropriate, in a simple manner as part of our email communications with you and then retained in regular company software, either centrally or on the electronic devices of our employees.
2.2 Privacy policy for this website
This section explains the various data processing activities that Future Insight e.V. uses. processes your personal data for the provision of the services listed on this website (“Websites”).
2.2.1 Operation of our websites
We process your personal data to operate our Websites. You can access our Websites without directly providing any personal information. However, when you access our websites, we automatically transfer personal data for technical reasons.
This processing activity may include the following categories of data:
– IP address of the requesting device;
– Date and time of your visit;
– Name and URL of the file accessed;
– Transferred data volume;
– Access status (file transferred, file not found, etc.);
– Identification data of the browser and operating system used;
– Name of the provider of the user’s Internet connection; and
– Website from which the access is made and websites you access.
This data processing is based on our legitimate business interests. We process this data for the presentation of our websites and to ensure their technical stability and security (e.g. to prevent hacker attacks).
2.2.2 Cookies
Cookies improve the user experience on our websites, for example, by allowing the system to recognize returning visitors. The term “cookies” in this privacy notice refers to cookies and similar technologies. Cookies are small, usually randomly encoded text files that are sent to and stored on your device. These cookies allow our browser to track certain information that can be retrieved and used by Internet servers at a later time. Future Insight e.V. uses cookies and similar technologies on its websites for a variety of reasons, such as:
– Websites load faster;
– websites can be browsed faster
– your preferences, such as language and time zone, can be saved;
– security on websites is improved because your identity can be verified; and
– Your login to protected websites is made easier.
We use the following three categories of cookies on our websites:
2.2.2.1 Necessary Cookies.
These cookies are necessary to ensure the functionality on our websites, the services provided on them, and to operate the websites. Cookies are set in response to your actions and depend on your specific service requests (e.g., setting your privacy preferences, filling out forms, logging in). In particular, we set the following cookies:
- __stripe_mid: This cookie is used for payment processing and to provide fraud prevention. This cookie is active for 1 year.
- __stripe_sid: We use Stripe for payment processing and to provide fraud prevention. This cookie is deleted within 30 minutes.
- _gat_UA-*: We use Google Analytics for website statistics and to provide technical monitoring. This cookie is deleted after your session.
- cmplz_elementor_banner_id: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.
- cmplz_statistics: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.
- cmplz_policy_id: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.
- cmplz_saved_services: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.
- cmplz_consented_services: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.cmplz_marketing:
- cmplz_preferences: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.
- cmplz_functional: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.
- cmplz_id: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.
- cmplz_saved_categories: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.
- cmplz_user_data: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.
- cmplz_banner-status: We use Complianz for cookie consent management and to store cookie consent preferences. This cookie is active for 365 days.
- AKA_A2: This cookie provides an Advanced Acceleration feature, which enables DNS Prefetch and HTTP2 push. It expires after 1 hour or upon the withdrawal of your consent.
- incap_ses_: This cookie is used for visitor recognition. It expires when you close your browser or upon the withdrawal of your consent.
- *_mixpanel: We use Mixpanel for website statistics. Purpose pending investigation.
- jetDasboardData: We use this cookie to save user preferences. This cookie is active for 3 months.
- Loglevel: We use Loglevel to collect data on user interaction with video-content. This cookie is persistently active.
- akamai_clientId: Sets a unique ID for the visitor which allows the website to determine if the user has interacted with the website’s video player. This cookie is deleted after each session.
- mm-country: This cookie stores geotargeting information. This cookie is deleted after your session.
The processing is based on our legitimate business interest to provide you with basic web services in a safe and useful way. Our website cannot function without these cookies and they can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences. Please note that our services may not be available to you if you object to the use of necessary cookies.
2.2.2 Functional cookies
These cookies enable the provision of advanced functionalities and are used for personalization. Cookies are set in response to your actions and depend on your specific service requests (e.g. pop-up message selection). In particular, we set the following cookies:
- Elementor: We use Elementor for content creation and to store performed actions on the website. This cookie is persistently active.
- _ga: We use Google Analytics for website statistics and to store and count pageviews. This cookie is deleted within 2 years.
- _gid: We use Google Analytics for website statistics and to store and count pageviews. This cookie is deleted within 1 day.
- wistia-video-progress-*: We use Wistia for video display and to store if the user has seen embedded content. This cookie is persistently active.
- wistia: We use wistia for video display and to save whether the user has seen embedded content. This cookie is persistently active.
The processing is based on the consent you have given us. You give your consent by accepting all cookies in our cookie banner or by activating the cookie type(s) you have selected. Your consent is voluntary and you can revoke it at any time with effect for the future. You can revoke your consent by reopening our cookie banner and deactivating the cookie type. If you do not give us your consent or revoke it, then this has no disadvantages for you. However, the functions explained above may not be available to you without your consent.
2.2.2.3 Targeting cookies
These cookies can be used to analyze your interests and show you relevant advertising on other websites. These cookies uniquely identify your browser and device. By integrating these cookies, we want to learn more about your interests and behavior on our websites in order to use our advertising in a targeted manner. In particular, we set the following cookies:
- Google Fonts API: We use Google Fonts for display of webfonts and to read user IP address. This cookie expires immediately.
- rc::c: We use Google reCAPTCHA for spam prevention and to read and filter requests from bots. This cookie is deleted after each session.
- rc::b: We use Google reCAPTCHA for spam prevention and to read and filter requests from bots. This cookie is deleted after each session.
- rc::a: We use Google reCAPTCHA for spam prevention and to read and filter requests from bots. This cookie is persistently active.
- Google Maps API: We use Google Maps for maps display and to read user IP address. This cookie expires immediately.
The processing is based on the consent you have given us. You give your consent by accepting all cookies in our cookie banner or by activating the cookie type(s) you have selected. Your consent is voluntary and you can revoke it at any time with effect for the future. You can revoke your consent by reopening our cookie banner and deactivating the cookie type. If you do not give us your consent or revoke it, then this has no disadvantages for you. However, the functions explained above may not be available to you without your consent.
Please note that the use of Google Analytics has been enhanced by the “AnonymizeIP” plug-in to enable anonymized collection of your IP address so that we cannot associate your data with you personally. The IP address sent by your browser as part of Google Analytics is not combined with other data by Google.
2.2.2.4 Consent
When you visit our website for the first time, you will be shown a pop-up with an explanation of cookies. Once you have clicked on “Save preferences”, you consent to us using the cookie categories and plug-ins you selected in the pop-up as described in this Cookie Policy. You can deactivate the use of cookies via your browser, but we would like to point out that our website may then no longer function properly.
2.2.2.4.1 Managing your consent settings
2.2.2.5 Managing and deleting cookies
You can manage your decision to use cookies by reopening our cookie banner or changing your browser preferences. Some computer browsers automatically accept all cookies. In this case, you may not see the cookie banner that allows you to manage your cookies individually. However, you can change your browser settings to block all cookies. You may also be able to configure your browser settings to block only certain types of cookies or to notify you when a new cookie is stored on your computer. In this case, you can accept or reject cookies individually. If this function is available to you, then you will find more detailed explanations of this in the help function of your browser. There you will also find information on how to delete all or certain cookies for which you have given us your consent. For more information on managing and deleting cookies on popular browsers, please see the following links: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Apple Safari.
2.2.3 Google Maps
We process your personal data to display maps. This service is provided by Google LLC.
The processing activity may include the following categories of data transferred to Google LLC in the USA:
– The technical data described in Section 3;
– your location;
– the content you access (e.g., locations); and
– The frequency of those accesses.
The processing is based on your (and our) legitimate business interest in directing you to our premises and facilitating your route planning.
The use of this service is not possible without your data and these are automatically provided when you open a sub-page on which Google Maps is integrated. We only process the personal data specified in section 3. Information on data processing by Google can be found in Google’s privacy policy at the following link: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=de.
We do not engage in automated decision-making or profiling in this context.
2.2.4 Plug-ins for social networks
We use plug-ins for social media from various social networks (e.g. Facebook). With the help of these plug-ins, content or recommended products can be shared. The plug-ins are disabled by default and therefore do not send data to other websites. By clicking on the icon of these social networks on EMDGroup.com and confirming by a second click on “OK” on the following site, you can activate plug-ins and thereby give your consent to the processing of your personal data in this context (so-called 2-click solution).
When these plug-ins are activated, your browser establishes a direct connection with the servers of the respective social networks as soon as you access the operator’s website. The content of the respective plug-in is transmitted directly from the social network to your browser and embedded in the website.
By embedding the plug-ins, the social network receives the information that you have visited the corresponding page of the operator. If you are logged in to the social network, it can assign the visit to your account. If you interact with the plug-ins, the corresponding information is transmitted directly from your browser to the social network and stored there.
Even if you are not logged into the social network, websites with active social media plug-ins can still send data to these networks. With an active plug-in, a cookie with an identifier is placed each time you access the website. Since your browser sends this cookie without being asked every time you connect to a network server, the network could basically use it to create a profile of the websites visited by the user associated with the ID. And it would then be possible to later associate that identifier with a person, for example, when a login to the social network is later made.
For the purpose and scope of the data collection and the further processing and use of the data by social networks, as well as your rights and options to protect your privacy and in particular your right to withdraw your consent, please consult the privacy statements of the respective networks.
- Facebook (provided by Facebook Inc., 1601 S. California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA): You can view Facebook’s privacy policy here:
https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info#public-info - Twitter (provided by Twitter Inc., 795 Folsom St., Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA): You can view Twitter’s privacy policy here:
https://twitter.com/privacy - LinkedIn (provided by LinkedIn Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA): You can view LinkedIn’s privacy policy here:
https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy - YouTube (provided by Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043 USA): You can view Google’s privacy policy here:
https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy/Instagram (provided by Instagram Inc., 1601 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA, 94025, USA): You can view Instagram’s privacy policy here:
https://help.instagram.com/155833707900388
2.2.5 Dream Board, Opportunity Board, and Media Board.
We use widgets from Walls.io. that, among other things, allow our social media updates to be displayed directly on the website.
When these plug-ins are used, IP address and cookie information is transmitted to Walls.io for logging to log files. Walls.io is operated by “Die Socialisten” Social Software Development GmbH in Vienna, Austria. The IP address and cookie information are sent to Walls.io’s servers in Germany and logged there for technical reasons. This logging is purely a technical necessity to enable the functionality of the social networking plug-in or widget. This data will not be shared with third parties. If you do not accept or delete the cookies, these functions of the plug-in for social networks will not be available to you.
We have no influence on the data collection and further use of the data by the social networks.
This data processing is based on our legitimate business interests.
3 Retention of data
Unless otherwise specified in this privacy policy, your personal data will be regularly deleted as soon as it is no longer required for the purpose of processing or if processing is otherwise inadmissible. This is usually the case when the data is no longer needed for our business interests or to provide the service you requested, no legal obligations to retain data apply, or you withdraw your consent.
For more information on how long we store cookies, please see above.
Your IP address, which is collected when you visit our website, is stored for a period of 7 days, unless a duly justified incident requires a longer storage period (e.g. a hacker attack).
In certain circumstances, your data must be stored for longer, e.g. if a so-called “legal hold” or “litigation hold” (i.e. a ban on deleting data for the duration of the proceedings) is ordered in connection with official or legal proceedings. Data that does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about your person may be stored permanently.
4 Recipients of personal data
We may share your personal data with third parties, e.g. our service providers, financial institutions for payment processing, lawyers and auditors, etc., to the extent necessary to achieve our business objectives and provide our services. To this end, we enter into appropriate data protection agreements with these parties to the extent required by law and, in this context, we ensure that these recipients agree to the technical and organizational measures to adequately protect your personal data.
We may also transfer personal data to Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and its group companies.
5 Data transfer to third countries
If such data transfer involves the transfer of your personal data to countries outside the EU / EEA that do not provide an adequate level of protection of personal data compared to the EU, we ensure this level of data protection by entering into standard contractual clauses with these recipients if such transfer is not justified by an adequacy decision. This ensures that your data protection rights are protected. You can download a copy of these standard contractual clauses at the following URL: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/international-dimension-data-protection/standard-contractual-clauses-scc_en
6 Automated decision making
We do not generally use automated decision making (including profiling) as defined in Article 22 of the GDPR. If we do use automated decision making or profiling, you will be informed about this in a separate privacy notice.
7 Obligation to provide personal data
In general, you are under no contractual or legal obligation to provide personal data for the above purposes, however, your decision not to provide your data may reduce features and functionalities, make it impossible to use our information or services offered in this context, access to our services may be denied and/or you may be excluded from our business activities, to the extent that your personal data is essential in this context.
The information required to register or contact us on our website will be marked as mandatory in the relevant area (e.g. a contact form) of the website; if you do not provide mandatory information, we will not be able to enable you to use the relevant functionality.
8 Your data protection rights
You (may) have the following data protection rights:
– Right of access: you have the right to obtain information about the processing of your personal data and a copy of that data.
– Right to rectification: you have the right to request that we rectify inappropriate, incomplete and inaccurate personal data.
– Right to erasure: In certain circumstances, you have the right to request that we erase your personal data.
– Right to restriction of processing: if certain conditions are met, you may request that we restrict the processing of your personal data.
– Right to data transfer: you may have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and to request that this data be transferred to another controller if this is appropriate in the specific circumstances.
– Right to object: you may have the right to object to the processing of your personal data by us, in particular if the processing of your personal data is based on (i) the need to perform a task carried out in the public interest or (ii) legitimate interests. We will then stop processing your personal data unless we are further permitted to do so by law.
– Right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority: you may have the right to lodge a complaint against the processing of your personal data with a supervisory authority if you consider that the processing of your personal data violates data protection rules.
8.1 Exercising your data protection rights
You can exercise your data protection rights by submitting a request in our Data Privacy Portal. We take our responsibility to protect your rights very seriously. Our data protection experts will review your request and respond to it as soon as possible.
8.2 Revocation of consent
If you have given us consent to process your personal data, you can revoke this consent – depending on the specifications of the respective processing activity – with effect for the future. We will then stop processing your personal data, unless we are permitted to do so by law. Please note that your revocation will only have effect for future processing activities and will not render data processing activities that we have carried out prior to the revocation unlawful.
To withdraw your consent, you may send an email to: info@future-insight.org. If you revoke your consent, you may no longer be able to use the services affected by the revocation. Beyond that, you will not suffer any further disadvantages as a result.
If you do not relate your revocation to a specific processing operation, we will assume that you revoke your consent for any processing of your personal data based on your consent.
This Privacy Policy is current and dated October 12, 2022. We reserve the right to change the Privacy Policy at any time with effect for the future, in particular to adapt it in relation to a further development of the website or the implementation of new technologies.