Data protection

Data Protection Policy

1. General information on data protection

The protection of your personal data is important to us. Pursuant to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (Art. 13 GDPR), we are obliged to inform you about the purpose for which we collect, store or forward data, and about your rights to data protection. The content and scope of the data we process is essentially based on the data you make available to us or the data that are required for our business relationship or communication.

2. Who is responsible for data processing, and who can I contact?

You can find the parties responsible and the competent supervisory authority in the legal notice of this website.

3. Which data are processed and what are the sources of these data?

We process personal data that we receive from you, from a partner commissioned by you or from one of our business partners in the context of our business relationship. In addition, we process data that we have legitimately obtained from publicly accessible sources (e.g., commercial register, address directory, media, trade fair participants).

Personal data include your personal details (e.g., title, name, country, address, email address and telephone number, delivery addresses, order and invoice data, information on creditworthiness, documentation data, reports of trade fair talks, etc.).

4. What are the purposes and legal basis for our data processing?

We process personal data only in the context of our business activity. Beyond this, data processing takes places only based on legal requirements, based on a contractual relationship or a relationship of mutual trust preceding conclusion of a contract, based on your consent or if you contact us (e.g., at trade fairs, by email, by post, by telephone or via this website/online shop).

Personal data are processed especially in the following business processes or procedures:

Visits to the website and the online shop
Initiation of contact
Visitor registration, WLAN guest access
Job applications
Trade fairs, events and product training
Advice given by our employees or by trade partners
Order processing, delivery, invoicing
Based on legal obligations (customs and compliance screening, reporting of accidents)
Temporary work, training, vacation assistant programs
Quality inspections and quality certificates, complaints
Service accounting of subcontractors

In the context of our business relationship, you must provide the personal data required to initiate and maintain the business relationship, and those that we are obligated to collect by law. If you do not provide us with these data, we will, as a rule, have to reject your requests or your contact query, the conclusion of the contract, or the performance of your order, or have to end an existing contractual relationship.

If you have granted us your consent to processing your personal data, then the data are processed only according to the purposes set out in the declaration of consent and in the scope agreed therein. Once granted, you can revoke your consent at any time with future effect without stating reasons to extent permitted by law. Please be advised that legislation classifies job applications as a pre-contractual business relationship, and that application documents are stored for 6 months after conclusion of the application process.

In addition to this, we reserve the right to store your first and last names, your mailing address and - if we have received this additional information from you in the context of a contractual relationship - your title, academic degree and your professional, industrial or business designation in compiled lists and use these for our own advertising purposes, e.g. for sending interesting offers and information on our products by mail. You can object to the storage and use of your data for these purposes at any time by giving notice to the address stated in the mail.

If we provide products and/or services in advance, e.g. in case of a purchase on account, we reserve the right to obtain information on your identity and creditworthiness from service companies specializing in this field (credit agencies) to protect our justified interests.

When we deliver goods or refund costs, we are obliged to check the account holder or recipient of the goods against sanctions lists (compliance screening).

No automated decision making (including profiling) will be performed in addition to this.

5. Who is the recipient of my data?

We only transfer your data to third parties if this is permitted by law, if you have provided consent or if the transfer is required for the fulfilment of our business purposes.

If possible, the data are anonymized or pseudonymized for this purpose.

Within our group of companies, only those offices or employees will receive your data, which/who require them to meet our contractual, legal and supervisory obligations or for the protection of justified interests.

In addition to this, we transfer your data to third-party data processors commissioned by us:

IT and hosting service providers
Security services, visitor registration and registration in general
Credit institutions and payment providers to settle the payment transactions if orders have been placed
Back office service providers for handling advertising mailings
Suppliers for the processing of product and sample orders
Laboratories and institutes for testing of products
Forwarding agents, logistics companies
Marketing partners if they require your data to carry out your order
Agencies for surveys, marketing measures and organization of events.

Furthermore, data are transferred to public agencies and institutions (tax authorities, other authorities, customs offices), if there is a legal or supervisory obligation to do so.

All third-party data processors and marketing or trade partners are obligated by contract to process your data only in the context of the provision of products and services and pursuant to the applicable data protection regulations.

6. How long will my data be stored?

We store your data only as long as is required for processing the business transaction or compliance with documentation obligations. Legal requirements stipulate that trade letters be stored for at least 6 years, but for at least 10 years if their content is relevant for tax purposes. Our IT systems are also equipped with comprehensive data backup facilities that do not permit premature erasure. In this case, access to data is restricted after the expiry of the allowed storage period. Job application documents are saved or stored for 6 months after the position has been filled, but if the application is made through an employment agency, master data must be stored for a longer time.

7. What are my data protection rights?

You have a right to information free of charge regarding data that we have stored about you, as well as a right to rectification, blocking or erasure of these data, if applicable. If you have granted your consent for data processing, you can revoke your consent for future processing.

To do so, please first contact the office with which you have had the most recent contact. In addition, you can contact our Data Protection Officer.

If you believe that we violate European data protection law by processing your data, we kindly request you to contact us so that we are able to clarify your concerns. Furthermore, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority for data protection, if you believe that your personal data are being processed unlawfully.

8. How secure are my data?

We make use of state-of-the-art security measures to protect your data appropriately. Our employees, subcontractors and trade partners must observe our guidelines on information security.

9. Data protection for this website, for online services and for marketing

Storage of access data in server log files

You can visit our web pages without providing information about yourself. We merely only access data in so-called server log files, such as the name of the requested file, the date and time of retrieval, the amount of data transferred and the requesting provider. These data are evaluated only for ensuring smooth operation of the site and for improving our offerings, and they do not allow us to infer your identity.

Registration in the online shop

The use of the Freudenberg Apparel Online Shop is only possible for commercial business partners upon prior registration. The company you work for must have been entered in our ERP system before. After successful registration you will receive an email message confirming your registration. You will receive messages, offers and order-specific information via the email address you stated.

Use of data for email advertising without newsletter subscription and your right to object

If we have received your email address in connection with the sale of goods or services, we reserve the right to regularly send you offers of products similar to those you purchased from our range by email, unless you have objected to this. You can object to this use of your email address at any time via a link contained in the email and intended for this purpose.

Use of cookies

To make your visit to our website attractive and to enable the use of certain functions, we use so-called cookies on different pages. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your terminal device. Some of the cookies we use are deleted at the end of your browser session, i.e., when you shut down your browser (so-called session cookies). Other cookies remain on your terminal device and enable us to recognize your browser again on your next visit (persistent cookies). You can configure your browser so as to be notified when cookies are stored and to decide individually whether to accept them or to exclude the acceptance of cookies in certain cases or in general. If you do not accept cookies, the functionality of our website may be restricted.

More about cookies on our website: https://shop.freudenberg-apparel.com/de-en/Legal-site-terms/Cookies

Use of Google (Universal) Analytics for web analysis

This website uses Google (Universal) Analytics, a web analysis service of Google lnc. (www.google.de). Google (Universal) Analytics uses methods that allow an analysis of your use of the website, such as so-called cookies, i.e. text files that are stored on your computer. The information generated by your use of this website is usually transferred to one of Google's servers in the USA and stored there. Due to the activation of lP anonymization on this website, your lP address is abbreviated before transmission within EU Member States or in other states that are a party to the Convention on the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases is the complete lP address transmitted to one of Google's servers in the USA and abbreviated there. The anonymized lP address your browser transmits in the context of Google Analytics is not merged with other data by Google. You can prevent the collection of data generated by the cookie and referring to your use of the website (including your lP address) by Google and the processing of these data by Google by downloading and installing the browser plugin available at the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de. lnstead of the browser plugin you can click on this link in order to prevent data collection by Google Analytics on this website in the future. lf you do so, an opt-out cookie is stored on your terminal device. lf you delete your cookies, you must click on the link again. You can find further information about the cookies used on our site: https://shop.freudenberg-apparel.com/de-en/Legal-site-terms/Cookies.

10. Use of a cookiebot

This website uses the cookiebot service provided by Cybot A/S, Havnegade 39, 1058 Copenhagen, Denmark. Information on data processing through Cybot and relevant data privacy regulations can be found at: https://www.cookiebot.com/de/privacy-policy/.

lf an end user provides his or her consent on our websites, the following data are automatically recorded by Cybot:

Anonymized lP number of the end user (the last three digits are set to "0").
Date and time of consent.
Browser's user agent of the end user.
The URL from which the consent was submitted.
An anonymous, random and encrypted key.
The consent status of the end user serving as a verification of consent.

ln the end user's browser, the key and the consent status are also stored in the "CookieConsent" cookie so that the website can automatically read and comply with the end user's consent and all subsequent website requests and future end-user sessions for up to 12 months. The key is used for verifying the user’s consent and also for an option which checks whether the consent status stored in the end user's browser remains unchanged compared to the original consent which was transmitted to Cybot.

11. Adjustment of the Data Protection Policy

Please remember that we may or will have to adjust this information if required pursuant to Art. 13/14 GDPR on data processing. You can find the respective current version of this information pursuant to Art. 13/14 GDPR on our website at all times.
(Status as of October 2020)