Privacy policy

1. Controller and data protection contact

The controller within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for this AB-Wire website is:

Represented by Michael Stütz and Thomas Schmuda von Trzebiatowski. Further provider information is available in the Legal notice

External data protection officer

When contacting the data protection officer, please identify the controller named above so that your enquiry can be assigned correctly.

2. Visiting the website and hosting

ab-wire.com is hosted by Mittwald CM Service GmbH & Co. KG, Königsberger Straße 4–6, 32339 Espelkamp, Germany. To deliver the pages and prevent disruption, the hosting provider processes connection and access data. This includes, in particular, your IP address, date and time, the address requested, the volume of data transferred, response status, browser and operating system details and, where applicable, the previously visited page.

The legal basis is Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest is to provide a reliable and secure website and to identify technical errors or abusive access. The recipient is the hosting provider responsible for operating the website.

Mittwald states that access logs are retained for 60 days with truncated IP addresses. Error logs are deleted after seven days. For protected access, the username is anonymised after one day. Logs of email sent from the web hosting environment are anonymised after one day and retained for 60 days. These periods apply to technical logs, not to the retention of enquiries in the email inbox.

3. Cookies, fonts and embedded content

The hosting provider supplies server-side statistics based on the technical access logs. These provide information about website use and technical errors. No additional identifiers are stored on your device and no visitor profiles spanning multiple visits are created. The legal basis is Article 6(1)(f) GDPR; our legitimate interest is to operate the website securely and provide it in line with users’ needs. The retention periods stated above apply to the underlying logs.

This website does not set cookies or use Local Storage or Session Storage. We do not use external analytics, advertising or tracking services. Fonts, icons, images and scripts are hosted with the website itself; no external media, maps, font providers or CAPTCHA services are embedded.

When you open product details, they are loaded within the page from our own server. This generates the technical access data described under “Visiting the website and hosting”. External links connect to the linked website only when you follow them; data processing there is governed by that website’s privacy policy.

4. Contact by form or email

To handle your enquiry, we process your email address, the content of your message and your name, if provided. Enquiries from a product view also include the selected product group. For direct emails, we also process any information and attachments you send.

If your enquiry concerns entering into or performing a contract with you, the legal basis is Article 6(1)(b) GDPR. For enquiries on behalf of a company and other matters, processing is based on Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest is to review and respond to your enquiry.

Providing your data is voluntary and is not required by law. The form requires a valid email address and a message so that we can handle and respond to your enquiry. Your name is optional. Without the required information, the form cannot be submitted.

Form data is forwarded from the web server at Mittwald to our email inbox. We use Microsoft 365 to receive, store and process emails. The provider is Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited, One Microsoft Place, South County Business Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18, Ireland. Data processed includes, in particular, sender and recipient addresses, message content, any attachments and technical communication data. No message database is created on the website. Access is limited, as necessary, to the people responsible for handling enquiries and the appointed hosting and email service providers.

Email processing with Microsoft 365

In operating Microsoft 365, Microsoft and its subcontractors may also process data outside the European Union or the European Economic Area, particularly in the USA. Microsoft describes an “EU Data Boundary” for its European enterprise services but also identifies exceptions for transfers to other countries. Processing exclusively within Europe is therefore not guaranteed here.

For international transfers, Microsoft provides safeguards including the standard contractual clauses adopted by the European Commission. Information and the published contractual documents are available in the Microsoft Data Protection Addendum (DPA) and the EU Data Boundary description. For information about the safeguards applicable to our email processing and a copy of the relevant guarantees, please use the contact address given above.

Enquiries are deleted once the matter has been resolved and the data is no longer needed. Statutory retention obligations, particularly for business correspondence, and the need to establish or defend legal claims may require longer retention. In that case, use is restricted to those purposes.

5. Protection against abusive enquiries

The form checks the origin of the request, the submitted information and a hidden control field. To limit the frequency of requests and detect duplicate messages, the server uses a secret key to generate HMAC check values from the IP address and from the combination of email address and message. These check values, counters and timestamps are stored. IP addresses, email addresses and message text are not stored in plain text in this security store. The check values are pseudonymised; they should not be regarded as anonymous in general.

Rate limiting and duplicate detection use a 15-minute window. Expired entries are removed on the next valid form request. If there is no further request, they may remain physically stored until the next cleanup, although they no longer affect the checks.

The legal basis is Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest is to protect the form and email processing against spam and overload. No external services are called for this purpose.

6. Your rights

Subject to the applicable statutory conditions, you have the following rights:

• access to information about the processing of your personal data (Article 15 GDPR),
• rectification of inaccurate data and completion of incomplete data (Article 16 GDPR),
• erasure of your data (Article 17 GDPR),
• restriction of processing (Article 18 GDPR),
• data portability where automated processing is based on consent or a contract (Article 20 GDPR).

Where processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time with future effect. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.

Objecting to processing based on legitimate interests

Where processing is based on Article 6(1)(f) GDPR, you may object at any time under Article 21 GDPR on grounds relating to your particular situation. We will stop the relevant processing unless overriding compelling legitimate grounds exist or processing serves to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

To exercise your rights, please contact info@ab-wire.com or our data protection officer named above.

7. Complaints to a supervisory authority

If you consider the processing of your data unlawful, you may lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority under Article 77 GDPR, in particular the authority at your habitual residence, place of work or the location of the alleged infringement. The competent authority for private companies based in Bavaria is the Bavarian State Office for Data Protection Supervision:

8. Automated decisions

This website does not involve automated decision-making within the meaning of Article 22 GDPR or profiling.