Art History Online – The Städel Course on Modern Art Art History Online – The Städel Course on Modern Art Grimme Online Award nominiert 2017

Our privacy policy

We gather, process and use your personal information only with your permission or when a statutory provision permits it. We will only gather, process and use such personal information as is required for the provision and utilisation of our services or that is voluntarily provided by you.
The following notes explain how we handle your data. We reserve the right to amend their content from time to time. It is therefore recommended that you review our notes on the processing of data at regular intervals. If you have questions about our handling of your data, you may contact our data protection officer, Jan-Alexander Fortmeyer, at ra[at]fortmeyer.de.

2) Each time a user accesses the online course, data relating to this activity are temporarily stored in a protocol file and processed. Specifically, the following data are stored relating to each sign-on/sign-off:

  • IP address/DNS name, date and time,
  • name of page/file accessed,
  • amount of data transmitted,
  • operating system in use,
  • browser in use,
  • report on whether the sign-in/sign-off was successful.

These data are analysed solely for statistical purposes and for improving the course. They are not used or shared with third parties except in those instances specifically listed here.

When calling up individual pages, so-called “cookies” are used to facilitate navigation. These session cookies contain no data directly relating to the user and are deleted after the close of the session.

3) Use of Google Analytics

This online course uses Google Analytics, a Web analysis service of Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses so-called “cookies”, i.e. text files that are stored on your computer and that make it possible to analyse your use of the website. The cookie-generated information about your use of this website is as a rule transferred to a Google server in the United States and stored there. On behalf of the operator of this website Google will use this information to evaluate your use of the website so as to compile reports about website activities and to provide additional services relating to the use of the website and the Internet to the website operator.

For the protection of your personal information, IP anonymisation was activated for Google Analytics in the online course. With IP anonymisation activated, your IP address is abbreviated before it is communicated to a server within member states of the European Union or other member countries of the European Economic Area. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the United States and abbreviated there. Google will not combine the IP address transmitted by your browser in the interests of Google Analytics with other data.

In the event that we have additional personal data about the user of the online course, we will not combine this with website tracking data or other non-personal data.

4) Deactivation of Website Tracking by Website Users

You can prevent the storage of all cookies with an appropriate setting of your browser software. We would point out, however, that in that case you will not be able to use major functions of the online course. Moreover, you can prevent transmission of the data generated by cookies and relating to your use of the website (including your IP address) to Google, as well as Google’s processing of these data, by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available at the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de.

5) Use of the Advertising Functions of Google Analytics

In addition to the standard configuration of Google Analytics, in this online course functions of Google Analytics are also deployed that support interest-related advertising and advertising based on users’ surfing activity. In this Google Analytics uses a third-provider cookie from DoubleClick in order to evaluate data about users’ surfing activity at various websites. With these data it is possible to draw statistical conclusions about demographic data and website users’ areas of interest. We expressly point out that we cannot review any data about individual users and cannot trace statistical data we employ back to specific users. Some of the course’s participants will see our advertisements on other websites after their visit. This form of advertisement coupling is called remarketing or retargeting. If you would like to controvert the coupling of these advertisements, we recommend that you make use of one of the possibilities listed above for the deactivation of website tracking by website users. Google also offers you the possibility of controlling cookies for advertising purposes yourself:
http://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/technologies/ads/.

6) Single Sign-On and AuthO

As a registered user you can easily log in to the online course with log-in services (so-called single sign-on) from Facebook, Twitter, etc. These services authenticate your identity and make a cross-platform log-in easier.

For this purpose the online course uses AuthO, a provider of services relating to user identification and authorisation. Personal information cannot be used by this provider for other purposes. AuthO is based in Bellevue, Washington, USA. We use a terminal in the EU to process the data. As a safeguard against failure, however, the data are replicated by multiple computer centres. You can find AuthO’s privacy policy at https://auth0.com/privacy.

7) Firebase

Firebase is a real-time databank used in the online course to store the user’s progress (current position in the timeline and in the learning path, last position in the videos and progress in the tasks). The user data transmitted to Firebase for this purpose are anonymous. Firebase is a Google offshoot based in San Francisco. You can find Firebase’s privacy policy at https://www.firebase.com/terms/privacy-policy.html.

8) IBM Bluemix

IBM Bluemix is a cloud platform as service (PaaS) developed by IBM. In it users’ personal information like name and e-mail address are processed. IBM is headquartered in Armonk, New York. The processing of data is carried out in the EU, namely in a computer centre in London.

9) Cloudant

Cloudant is a managed NoSQL databank in which, in addition to all the course contents, the logs of newsletter registrations and the generation of certificates with names and e-mail addresses of course participants are stored. Cloudant is a subsidiary of IBM based in Boston, Massachusetts. The storage and processing of the data are carried out in the EU, namely in a computer centre in Amsterdam.

Copyright notices:

All photographs and film files placed on our website are protected by copyright. The reproductions of artworks in the public domain for which the copyright term has lapsed are also protected as such. The same is true of the texts, recordings, etc. presented on our website. None of these materials protected by copyright can be copied, reproduced, distributed or used in any copyright-relevant manner without our permission. In certain cases it will also be necessary to obtain permissions through syndicators, picture agencies, etc. For that reason, please contact us if you wish to use protected material. Infractions of copyright will be prosecuted by us and by third-party rights holders.