Data protection

Data protection

Overview

This website is operated by Ahorn AG. HORIZONT International is a brand of Ahorn AG, and is known in public primarily as Ahorn Gruppe.

The protection of your personal data is an important matter to us. We therefore provide information in the following on the collection, storage and use of your personal data. We wish to point out that this declaration applies exclusively to our own online offer. Insofar as links point to websites of other providers, we Ahorn Gruppe shall not assume any responsibility or liability for their contents or the adherence to data protection regulations of these providers.

Privacy policy explained in detail

What data do we collect about you when visiting our website?

We inform you when we collect, process, or use your personal data. You decide which personal data we obtain from you and how we may process and use it. We only record your data if you voluntarily decide to enter it or give your consent.

Anonymous Internet browsing

In principle, you can use our website without revealing your personal data. However, we automatically capture technical information about you transmitted by your browser to our servers when visiting our website. Our servers collect personal data about you while browsing our website only to the extent that is technically necessary. The legal basis for processing data is provided by Article 6(1)(f) EU GDPR.

We collect the following data about your visit:

Number of visits, activities and maximal activities per visit, average visiting time (in seconds), leaving rate, device model (e. g. Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy S7), screen resolutions, version and type of operating system (e. g. Windows 10, Mac 10.13), Browser (z. B. Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mobile Safari), browser type (e. g. Internet Explorer 11.0, Chrome 65.0, Firefox 59.0), operating system family (e. g. Windows, Mac), country, continent, duration of visit, sites per visit, recurring visits, visits according to local time, server time and weekdays.

We collect the following browsing behaviour: 

Page views, downloads, referral sources, search phrases and keywords (e. g. cremation or burial, Germany’s largest undertaker, Ahorn AG, sale of funeral home), average generation time, URL pages, entry pages, referral traffic (i. e. direct access, search engines, websites), search engines (e. g. Google, Bing), social networks, sending of forms, clicks on download links or videos played. These data will not be used in a personalized form and are collected for statistical purposes only. The individual user remains anonymous. We therefore collect your IP address only in an abbreviated form. We do not link the collected user data with data generated from other sources.

Contact forms

In principle, the following applies: In order to help Ahorn Gruppe process your request, we store and process the information you provide on the contact forms on our website. The data you send us is transmitted via the internet using SSL encryption and thus is protected against unauthorized third party access. We record your personal data only insofar it is necessary for electronic processing. Your message will be forwarded to the relevant department provided this serves the proper and duly purpose of your contractual matters. Your message will not be passed on to third parties. You may informally object to your consent at any time by sending a short email to datenschutz@ahorn-gruppe.de.

 

Newsletter

By registering for our newsletter “funeral arrangements”, you agree that Ahorn Gruppe may process and use your email address so that we can send to the indicated email address regular newsletters containing interesting products we offer and informative advertisements about funeral arrangements. Your e-mail address remains stored with us until you unsubscribe from our newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time by using the provided link in the newsletter or by sending us a short note. By unsubscribing, you object to the further use of your e-mail address.

 

Funeral instructions

If you sent your funeral instructions to us we will store them until a funeral is ordered or until you object to the data storage, but no longer than until you have reached the calculated age of 110 years. You can revoke informally to the data storage at any time.  To do so, simply send an email to datenschutz@ahorn-gruppe.de.

Cookies and online marketing measures

Cookies

We use “cookies” to use the web analystics software. “Cookies” are very small text files that are stored by your web browser. These text files use only minimal memory space on your computer. The cookies serve to simplify the use of our internet portal. They make it more effective and increase security. Cookies are harmless to your computer and do not contain viruses or other harmful programs. You can deactivate the storage of cookies in your browser, restrict it to certain websites or set your browser to notify you as soon as a cookie is sent. You can also delete cookies from your PC’s hard drive at any time. Please note that in this case you may not be able to use all the functions of our website to their full extent.

With cookies, we want to give you a positive experience and the high user-friendliness when browsing our website. Cookies allow functions such as personalized offers and analysis. In order to activate cookies please click on “accept”. On our website we use tools to optimise our online marketing measures. The legal basis for this is provided by Article 6(1)(f) EU GDPR. Please find below an explanation of the associated data processing operations.

Please note that we are using cookies from the following US providers. In the process, the personal data designated in each case in the data protection provisions are transmitted to these companies for marketing purposes.

Watching videos via Vimeo

We use the platform Vimeo to integrate and play videos. Vimeo is operated by Vimeo, Inc. with registered office at 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011.

On some of our websites we use plugins from Vimeo. When calling up a page with such a plugin, a connection is made to the Vimeo servers and the plugin is displayed. Information is then transmitted to the Vimeo server detailing which of our websites you have visited. If you are logged into your Vimeo account, Vimeo assigns this information to your personal user account. When using the plugin, e.g. by clicking the start button of a video, this information is also assigned to your user account. You can prevent this assignment by logging out of your Vimeo user account before using our website and deleting the corresponding cookies from Vimeo.

You can find more information about data processing and privacy by Vimeo under https://vimeo.com/privacy.

 

Google Maps

We use integrated maps from the “Google Maps” service on many of our websites. Google Maps is operated by the company Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. To make these maps available to you, your IP address must be sent to Google. Google also collects usage data and surfing behaviour. The privacy policy can be found under this link: https://policies.google.com/privacy.

With your consent to this data transfer, you must be aware that there is a level of data protection in the U.S. that is not equivalent to the level of protection provided by the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For example, U.S. surveillance programs and intervention powers of authorities are not limited to what is absolutely necessary. Moreover, you cannot resort to any legal recourse in the event of misuse of your data.

You can adjust your settings at any time using the Privacy button on the right side of the screen.

Web analystics software tool “Matomo”

We use the web analytics software “Matomo” on our website. Matomo stores information about your use of this website. For this purpose, Matomo uses cookies which are stored on your computer (information about cookies can be found below in this privacy policy). The information stored in these cookies is evaluated on our server in Germany. In this way, we obtain information about your user behaviour on our website (including your abbreviated IP address), which is stored in order to analyse usage data. We use this data exclusively to optimize our online presence. Your IP address is immediately anonymised before it is saved. For this purpose, we use Matomo’s anonymization IP plugin”.

We do not link the user data collected with data generated from other sources and do not pass it on to third parties.

You can find more information about Matomo under https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matomo or on Matomo’s website: https://matomo.org. Please note: If you delete the cookies on your computer (see below under Cookies), the "opt-out cookie" from Matomo would also be deleted. This would reactivate Matomo, if applicable. You would have to repeat the deactivation in this case.

How long is my data kept?

We store personal data for as long as it is necessary to provide the service you requested or to which you consented. We delete stored data via an automated procedure when the legal or contractual retention period has expired or if the data is no longer required.

Security and protection measures

Technical measures:

We use technical and organizational security measures to protect your data from accidental or intentional manipulation, loss, destruction or access by unauthorized persons. The mail server and also the web server are located in our head office and are protected by a firewall that complies with the latest technical standards.

Confidentiality Obligations

All employees of the Ahorn Gruppe are bound to data secrecy. In addition, our data protection officer is bound to professional secrecy. You can contact our data protection officer to submit information, suggestions, complaints, objections and revocations regarding data protection matters.

Do you have any questions regarding Ahorn Gruppe’s data protection policy?

You have the right to check all of your personal data stored with us and correct it if necessary. We correct and complete stored information as soon as we become aware of any change.

Please contact our data protection officer if you have any questions regarding the processing, transmission and use of your data. You can also submit your requests for information, suggestions or complaints to the data protection officer.

Data protection officer:

Ahorn Gruppe
Julia Meinke
Telefon +49 30 25 87- 976
Telefax +49 30 25 87- 8976
email datenschutz@ahorn-gruppe.de

Please note: We use service providers for certain purposes. It may also be that no service provider is involved in your contract(s).

Dienstleisterliste und Konzernunternehmen (PDF)

implementation of the EU German Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR)

After a two-year transitional period, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) came into force as applicable law in Germany on 25 May 2018. It contains regulations on the processing of personal data by private companies and public entities. In addition to the free movement of data within the European Union, the protection of personal data is of primary significance.

We take the protection of privacy and security of data processing very seriously in order to ensure the trust of our customers. For this purpose and in the light of the new requirements, we already started very early to review our business procedures, data processing processes and systems and adapt them where necessary.

The new provisions of the EU GDPR grant and provide greater transparency and comprehensive rights to the data subject. In order to meet these requirements, our website gives you with the necessary information regarding the processing of your personal data.

Information purusant to article 13 EU German Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR)

The EU German Data Protection Regulation stipulates in article 13 that we provide you with certain information at the time we collect your personal data. You can download detailed information about the use of your data using the information sheet below.

Information sheet for data processing

Information sheet for interested parties, relatives, customers (PDF)
Information sheet for business partners, carers, authorized representatives and other contact persons (PDF)

Company data protection officer:

Datenschutzbeauftragte der Ahorn Gruppe
Julia Meinke | +49 (30) 2587 - 967 | datenschutz(at)ahorn-gruppe.de