Privacy policy

1. Controller

The controller within the meaning of the GDPR is Alexander Birkner, Wallenbrücker Straße 11b, 32139 Spenge, Germany (full address in the legal notice), email: hello@birkner.io. A data protection officer is not legally required and has not been appointed.

2. Consent management (consent banner)

On your first visit a banner appears in which you decide whether, in addition to technically necessary processes, the spam protection Cloudflare Turnstile may be loaded. The options "Accept all" and "Necessary only" are equally accessible. Your decision is stored in a first-party cookie named birkner-consent (lifetime 6 months; content: version, timestamp and selected categories). The legal basis for setting this cookie is § 25 (2) no. 2 TDDDG; for documenting your consent Art. 6 (1) (c) GDPR in conjunction with Art. 7 (1) GDPR.

You can change or withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future:

Open cookie settings

3. Hosting and server log files (Cloudflare)

This website runs on the "Cloudflare Workers" platform. The provider is Cloudflare, Inc., 101 Townsend St., San Francisco, CA 94107, USA; the contracting party for customers in the EU is Cloudflare Germany GmbH, Rosental 7, 80331 Munich, Germany. Cloudflare also provides the content delivery network and protection against attacks (e.g. DDoS). When you access the site the following data is processed: IP address, date and time of the request, requested URL, amount of data transferred, HTTP status code, referrer URL, browser type and operating system.

The purpose is delivering the website, ensuring stability and security, and defending against attacks. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR; my legitimate interest lies in the secure and performant operation of the website. I do not evaluate log files myself. A data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR is in place with Cloudflare. Cloudflare is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework; the EU Commission's standard contractual clauses apply in addition. Further information: cloudflare.com/privacypolicy.

4. Contact form

If you write to me via the contact form, I process the data you enter (name, email address, optionally company and topic, your message) as well as your IP address and the time of submission. The purpose is handling your request and, where applicable, initiating an engagement.

The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR (pre-contractual measures) and otherwise Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR (legitimate interest in answering enquiries and preventing abuse).

The message is delivered directly through Cloudflare Workers' e-mail feature (Cloudflare Email Routing) to my hello@birkner.io mailbox, from where it is forwarded server-side to a private mailbox I manage. No additional e-mail delivery provider is involved; the information on Cloudflare as a processor in section 3 applies.

Your data is deleted as soon as your request has been fully dealt with and no contractual relationship arises, at the latest after twelve months. If a contract is concluded, I retain the correspondence within the scope of commercial and tax retention obligations (§ 147 AO, § 257 HGB: six or ten years). As an alternative to the form you can always email me directly.

5. Spam protection with Cloudflare Turnstile (only with consent)

To protect the contact form from automated requests I use Cloudflare Turnstile (provider see section 3). Turnstile is loaded only if you have agreed in the consent banner or directly in the form. When loaded, a connection to Cloudflare servers is established; your IP address, browser and device information as well as interaction data are processed and data may be stored in your browser. The result of the check is transmitted to my server as a token and verified there against the Cloudflare API. Turnstile does not create usage profiles and is not used for advertising purposes.

The legal basis is your consent pursuant to Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR and § 25 (1) TDDDG. You can withdraw your consent at any time via the cookie settings (section 2); the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal remains unaffected. Without consent the form cannot be submitted – in that case please use the email address in the legal notice. For the transfer to the USA, section 3 applies.

6. Colour scheme (local storage)

If you pick a colour scheme via the palette icon, this choice is stored in your browser's local storage under the key birkner-theme so that it persists on your next visit. Storage happens only upon your explicit action and is necessary for the function you requested (§ 25 (2) no. 2 TDDDG). Nothing is transmitted to me or third parties; you can delete the entry at any time via your browser settings.

7. No analytics, tracking or advertising services

This website uses no web analytics services, no advertising networks, no social media plugins and no tracking pixels. Fonts are served from my own server; no connections to Google Fonts or comparable services are established.

8. Links to external websites

This website links to my profiles on GitHub (GitHub, Inc., USA) and LinkedIn (LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company, Ireland). No data is transferred to these providers when you access this website. Only when you click a link do you leave my website; from that point the privacy policy of the respective provider applies.

9. Data security

The transmission between your browser and this website is encrypted end-to-end via TLS (HTTPS). In addition, I employ technical and organisational measures to protect your data against loss, manipulation and unauthorised access.

10. Recipients and third-country transfers

The recipient of personal data is the processor named in this policy, Cloudflare. Transfers to third countries (USA) take place exclusively on the basis of an adequacy decision (EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework) or the standard contractual clauses pursuant to Art. 46 (2) (c) GDPR. No disclosure for other purposes takes place unless I am legally obliged to do so.

11. Your rights

You have the following rights vis-à-vis me as the controller:

• Access to the personal data processed (Art. 15 GDPR)
• Rectification of inaccurate or incomplete data (Art. 16 GDPR)
• Erasure (Art. 17 GDPR) and restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR)
• Data portability (Art. 20 GDPR)
• Withdrawal of consent with effect for the future (Art. 7 (3) GDPR)
• Objection to processing based on Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR on grounds relating to your particular situation (Art. 21 GDPR)
• Lodging a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR), e.g. the State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information of North Rhine-Westphalia, Kavalleriestr. 2–4, 40213 Düsseldorf, Germany, ldi.nrw.de

To exercise your rights an informal email to hello@birkner.io is sufficient.

12. No automated decision-making

No automated decision-making including profiling within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR takes place.

13. Changes to this privacy policy

I adapt this privacy policy whenever the legal situation or the services used change. The version published on this page applies.