Privacy Policy

The controller within the meaning of the GDPR is:

FUCHS Enprotec GmbH
Stocktal 2
56727 Mayen
Germany

Represented by the managing directors Dr. Christian Henrich and James Horton.

Phone: +49 2651 8004-0
Email: info@fuchswater.com

The data protection officer of the controller is:

Dipl.-Jur. Georg A. Edeler
icertificate GmbH
Werner-von-Siemens-Straße 15
Industriepark Kottenforst
53340 Meckenheim
Email: kontakt@icertificate.de

You may contact our data protection officer directly at any time regarding any questions about data protection and the exercise of your rights, using the contact details above or by email to info@fuchswater.com.

We process the personal data of our users only to the extent necessary to provide a functioning website together with our content and services, or where you have given your consent.

Depending on the case, the legal basis for processing is:

• your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, and, for the setting of non-essential cookies and the loading of external services, additionally Section 25(1) TDDDG),

• the performance of a contract or pre-contractual measures (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR),

• compliance with a legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR),

• the safeguarding of our legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Personal data is deleted as soon as the purpose of storage no longer applies and no statutory retention obligations prevent deletion. Where processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time with effect for the future. The lawfulness of processing carried out prior to the withdrawal remains unaffected.

No automated decision-making in individual cases, including profiling within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR, takes place. You are not obliged to provide us with personal data; however, without the information marked as mandatory in the forms, we cannot process your inquiry or application.

Our website is hosted by an external service provider (Laravel Cloud). The application, database and storage for media files are operated in the Frankfurt am Main region (European Union). Images, documents and other media files are delivered via the object storage of the same provider; when such a file is retrieved, your IP address is technically transmitted to its servers so that the file can be delivered to your browser.

To detect errors and performance issues, we additionally use the application monitoring service of the same provider (Laravel Nightwatch). It records technical information on calls, errors and runtimes of our application. In individual cases, connection data such as the IP address may also be captured. This evaluation serves exclusively the secure and stable operation of the website.

Fonts, icons and program libraries are delivered exclusively from our own servers. We do not integrate external services such as Google Fonts or script networks; no unwanted loading of third-party content occurs simply by visiting the website.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a secure, efficient and trouble-free provision of our online offering (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). A data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR is in place with the provider.

Each time our website is accessed, technically necessary connection data transmitted by your browser is processed in order for the page to be delivered. In addition, for security and optimisation purposes, we log requested addresses that could not be found (error pages), together with the requested path, the referring page (referrer) and the browser identifier (user agent). Your IP address is not stored for this purpose.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in the stability, security and improvement of our website (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

We use cookies and comparable technologies. Technically necessary cookies (for example for session management, protection against attacks and storing your cookie selection) are required for the operation of the website and are set on the basis of our legitimate interest as well as Section 25(2) TDDDG, without requiring your consent.

We use all non-essential services solely with your prior consent. Through our consent banner, you can grant consent for the following categories individually:

• Necessary: required for the operation of the website, always active.

• Statistics: reach measurement using Google Analytics, as well as evaluation of questions submitted to our chat assistant, in order to improve our offering.

• External media: integration of external content such as videos (YouTube/Vimeo) and the location map (OpenStreetMap).

As long as you have not given your consent, no cookies from these categories will be set and none of the external services listed will be loaded. "Accept all" and "Reject" are presented as equally weighted options.

In detail, we use the following cookies and comparable storage technologies:

• fuchs_consent (necessary): stores your selection in the consent banner, retention period 180 days.

• Session cookie (necessary): assigns your requests to a session, for example when submitting forms; expires after 120 minutes of inactivity at the latest.

• XSRF-TOKEN (necessary): protects forms against cross-site request forgery, retention period for the duration of the session.

• _ga and _ga_<identifier> (statistics, only with your consent): Google Analytics cookies used to distinguish between visits, retention period of up to two years.

You can change or withdraw your selection at any time via the "Cookie settings" link in the footer of the website. The legal basis for the consent-based services is Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR in conjunction with Section 25(1) TDDDG.

If you contact us via the contact form or by email, we process the data you provide (in particular name, email address, telephone number, subject matter, chosen contact person, subject line and your message) in order to process your inquiry. Your information is stored in our system and forwarded to the responsible mailbox for a reply; you will receive an acknowledgement of receipt. To protect against automated spam entries, the form contains an additional field that is invisible to you and is only filled in by automated programs; no additional personal data is collected through this field.

To send our emails, we use the mail server of a German hosting provider, with whom a data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR is in place.

The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR, insofar as your inquiry relates to the conclusion or performance of a contract, and otherwise our legitimate interest in responding to your inquiry (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). The data is deleted as soon as it is no longer required to achieve the purpose and no retention obligations prevent deletion.

You can apply for advertised positions or submit an unsolicited application via our website. We process the data you submit (in particular name, contact details, earliest possible starting date, salary expectations, your message, and uploaded documents such as your CV and attachments) exclusively for the purpose of conducting the application process.

Uploaded application documents are stored on a secure storage system that is not publicly accessible and is only available to authorised personnel. The legal basis is Section 26(1) of the German Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) in conjunction with Art. 88 GDPR (initiation of an employment relationship) as well as, where you have given your consent (for example for inclusion in an applicant pool), Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR. If no employment relationship is established, your application data will generally be deleted no later than six months after conclusion of the process, unless you have agreed to a longer retention period or statutory retention obligations apply.

On our website we offer an AI-powered chat assistant that answers questions about our products, applications and markets. The messages you enter, together with the context arising during the course of the conversation, are transmitted to specialised AI service providers and processed there in order to generate a response. We use Anthropic (Anthropic PBC, USA) as our primary provider and, in the event of failure or overload, OpenAI (OpenAI, L.L.C., USA). To identify suitable content, your query is additionally converted into a numerical representation (embedding) and transmitted to OpenAI for this purpose. Under the providers' terms of use, content submitted via their API is not used to train the models; for OpenAI, we have additionally disabled storage of requests.

Please do not enter sensitive personal data in the chat. To prevent misuse, we limit the number of requests per unit of time and process your IP address for this purpose only transiently, without permanent storage. The conversation history visible in the chat window exists only temporarily in your browser and ends when you close the page. Each conversation is assigned a random, session-based identifier that serves only to group related questions together and is not linked to your identity.

In order to identify which questions our assistant is not able to answer well, we evaluate the use of the chat. We distinguish between two cases:

• Without your consent, we store only anonymous technical metrics for each query: the language, the time, the number of knowledge sources found, and a metric indicating how well the question was covered in terms of content. In this case, the wording of your question and the answer is not stored. No personal reference exists in this process.

• With your consent to the "Statistics" category, we additionally store the wording of your question and the answer. Email addresses and phone numbers are automatically removed prior to storage. From recurring questions, we derive, in aggregated form, topics and suggestions for our help pages.

Stored conversation data is automatically deleted after 90 days. The legal basis for responding to your questions and for the anonymous quality measurement is our legitimate interest in providing modern, helpful user information and in improving our offering (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR); the legal basis for storing the wording is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). The AI providers named above act as processors located in a third country (USA). The transfer is safeguarded by appropriate safeguards pursuant to Art. 46 GDPR, in particular the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

To display the locations of our network, we use map material from OpenStreetMap, provided by the OpenStreetMap Foundation (United Kingdom). The map is only loaded after you have given your consent to the "External media" category. When the map tiles are loaded, your IP address is transmitted to the provider, which is technically necessary in order to deliver the map to your browser. The transfer to the provider based in the United Kingdom takes place solely on the basis of your explicit consent. The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, Section 25(1) TDDDG).

In some places we embed videos from the providers YouTube (Google Ireland Limited, Ireland, or Google LLC, USA) and Vimeo (Vimeo.com, Inc., USA). This content is only loaded after you have given your consent to the "External media" category and clicked an additional time on the respective preview. Only then is a connection established to the provider's servers, and your IP address and, where applicable, further data is transmitted to it. For YouTube, we use the enhanced privacy mode (youtube-nocookie).

The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, Section 25(1) TDDDG). Insofar as data is transferred to the USA in this context, this is based on appropriate safeguards pursuant to Art. 46 GDPR or, for certified recipients, on the adequacy decision on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. For further details on data processing, please refer to the respective providers' privacy notices.

For statistical analysis of the use of our website and to improve our offering, we use Google Analytics 4, a web analytics service provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland.

Google Analytics is only loaded if you have previously given your consent to the "Statistics" category. Without your consent, no analytics script is loaded, no analytics cookies are set, and no connection to Google is established.

The data collected includes in particular the pages accessed and the time spent on them, the time and duration of the visit, the previously visited page (referrer), information on device, operating system, browser and screen resolution, the approximate geographic origin based on the truncated IP address, and a random, pseudonymous identifier used to recognise your browser on subsequent visits. IP anonymisation is enabled, and your IP address is truncated before any further processing.

Beyond basic page measurement, we record a limited number of events to identify which content is helpful: submission of a contact inquiry, submission of a job application, downloading a document, use of the chat assistant, and clicks on phone numbers and email addresses. Only the fact that the respective action took place is transmitted to Google, not its content; names, email addresses, message text or application documents are not transmitted to Google.

We use Google Analytics without linking it to advertising services: there is no linkage with Google Ads, no remarketing or advertising functions, and no use of the "Google Signals" feature. We have limited the retention period for user and event data in Google Analytics to 14 months.

Our contractual partner is Google Ireland Limited. A transfer of data to Google LLC in the USA cannot be ruled out. Google LLC is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, for which an adequacy decision by the European Commission exists; in addition, Google has entered into Standard Contractual Clauses pursuant to Art. 46 GDPR. A data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR is in place with Google.

The legal basis is exclusively your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR, Section 25(1) TDDDG). You may withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future via the "Cookie settings" link in the footer of the website. Alternatively, you can prevent data collection by Google Analytics using the browser add-on offered by Google: tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Further information on how Google handles user data can be found in Google's privacy policy at policies.google.com/privacy.

Data sheets, brochures and other documents can be downloaded without registration and without providing personal data. When retrieving them, the information described above regarding the delivery of media files applies.

On our website, you will find links to our profiles on LinkedIn and Instagram. These are simple links without embedded content or plugins; no data is transmitted to the providers until you click on the link and access the respective platform. From that point on, the platform's own privacy policy applies.

To maintain the website, we operate a password-protected administration area that is not publicly accessible. Only accounts of persons authorised by us (name, email address, role) and a log of content changes made are processed there. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in the traceable and secure maintenance of our website (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR), and, for employees, in conjunction with Section 26(1) BDSG. Visitors to the website are not affected by this processing.

Your data is only disclosed insofar as this is necessary to fulfil the purposes described above. Recipients are:

• our hosting and infrastructure provider, including media storage and application monitoring (operated within the EU),

• the provider of our mail server (Germany),

• the AI providers Anthropic and OpenAI, for responding to chat inquiries (USA),

• Google Analytics, only where consent to statistics has been given (Ireland/USA),

• providers of external media (OpenStreetMap, YouTube, Vimeo), only where consent to external media has been given,

• in individual cases, authorities and courts, insofar as we are legally obliged to do so.

Data processing agreements pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR are in place with all processors. Transfers to third countries take place only on the basis of an adequacy decision or appropriate safeguards pursuant to Art. 46 GDPR, in particular the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses. A copy of these safeguards can be requested using the contact details provided above.

• Error log of requested addresses that could not be found: until resolved, for a maximum of the evaluation period; without IP address.

• Contact inquiries: until your matter has been finally processed, beyond that only within the scope of statutory retention obligations.

• Job applications: generally up to six months after conclusion of the process.

• Chat evaluation: automatic deletion after 90 days.

• Consent cookie: 180 days.

• Google Analytics data: 14 months.

With regard to personal data concerning you, you have the following rights:

• right of access (Art. 15 GDPR),

• right to rectification (Art. 16 GDPR),

• right to erasure (Art. 17 GDPR),

• right to restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR),

• right to data portability (Art. 20 GDPR),

• right to withdraw consent given, with effect for the future (Art. 7(3) GDPR).

To exercise your rights, an informal notification to the controller named above or to our data protection officer is sufficient.

Insofar as we process personal data on the basis of legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR), you have the right to object at any time to such processing for reasons arising from your particular situation (Art. 21 GDPR). We will then no longer process the affected data, unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing serves the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Without prejudice to any other administrative or judicial remedy, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority if you consider that the processing of your personal data infringes the GDPR. The supervisory authority responsible for us is:

Der Landesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit Rheinland-Pfalz
Hintere Bleiche 34
55116 Mainz

For security reasons and to protect the transmission of confidential content, this website uses SSL or TLS encryption. You can recognise an encrypted connection by the fact that the browser's address bar begins with "https://".

This privacy policy is dated July 2026 and is currently in effect. Due to the further development of our website and our offerings, or as a result of changes to statutory or regulatory requirements, it may become necessary to amend this privacy policy. The current version can always be accessed on this page.