Legal
Privacy policy
Which data is processed when you visit this website, for what purpose, on what legal basis and for how long: information under Article 13 GDPR.
1. Controller
Bits and Friends GmbH, Brebacher Weg 55, 12683 Berlin, Deutschland. Represented by: Matthias Barth (Geschäftsführer). Email: impressum@bitsandfriends.com (legal enquiries) or Zum Kontaktformular (enquiries via the form). Commercial register: Amtsgericht Lübeck, HRB 26202 HL. VAT identification number: DE335476969.
2. Audience measurement on our own server
This website counts its own page views. For this, the open source software Umami runs on the same server that delivers the site. No data is transferred to third parties; there are no advertising networks, no profiles and no sharing with other providers.
Stored per visit: the address called, the referring page, date and time, screen size, language and browser identifier. Your browser identifier is stored only as a checksum together with a random string we assign – neither your address nor your device can be derived from it.
Your IP address is <strong>not stored</strong>. It is evaluated at the moment of the visit to determine three things: the country, region and place the visit comes from, and the owner of the address range – the network the visit comes from. It is then discarded. Only those details remain stored. For private connections the network names the telephone or cable provider; only where an organisation holds its own address range does the organisation itself become visible.
For country and place the server reads a geodata database shipped with the measurement software. For the network it reads a publicly available, public-domain table of address ranges. Both sit on our own server. <strong>No visitor data is transferred to third parties.</strong>
In addition, the measurement records which elements are used: clicked links and buttons with their label, expanded and collapsed question boxes with their heading, scroll milestones reached, sections of the page seen, changes of language and appearance, and the start and submission of the contact form. For the assistant, only the fact that a question was asked and its length are recorded – the text you type is not transmitted. Mouse movements, session recordings and entered text are not captured.
To attribute a page view to a visit, this software sets a cookie named umami.session. It contains a random string, is intended for this website (first-party cookie) and expires with the visit. It serves counting only, not recognition across other websites.
The legal basis is your consent under Article 6(1)(a) GDPR and section 25(1) TDDDG. On your first visit a panel appears at the bottom with two identically styled buttons: "Agree" and "Decline". Without your consent the tracking script is not loaded, no request reaches the measurement endpoint and no cookie is set.
Your choice is stored locally in your browser (key barth-statistik) so that the panel does not appear on every visit. This entry is technically necessary and is not transmitted. You can change your decision at any time by clearing the site data in your browser – the panel will then ask again on your next visit.
If your browser sends the "Do Not Track" signal, no panel appears and nothing is counted. We honour that signal; it takes precedence over an earlier consent.
You can see the figures under <a href="/en/statistics/">Statistics</a>. They are openly visible so that it is traceable what is recorded.
3. Local storage of appearance
Your chosen appearance (light or dark) is stored only locally in your browser and never leaves your device. Fonts and images are served from this server; no third-party content is loaded.
4. Chat on this website
The chat answers questions about the services. It runs entirely in your browser: your question is matched to a stored answer on your device. Your question is not transmitted to us, not stored and not logged. No language model and no external service is involved – the answers are plain text on the website and are merely selected.
The chat sets no cookie. It is voluntary; everything it says is also on the pages of this website without it.
5. Server logs
When you access this website, the hosting server processes technically necessary data: shortened IP address, date and time, requested file, transferred volume, browser identifier. The legal basis is Article 6(1)(f) GDPR (secure, stable operation). Logs are not deleted by calendar date but overwritten by size: the web server keeps at most three files of 10 MB each, then the oldest is replaced. In total no more than 30 MB of log data is held at any time.
6. Contact form and email
If you use the contact form, I process the details you enter: name, email address, optionally company, phone number and topic, and your message. These details are transmitted to me by email only and are not stored in a database. The legal basis is Article 6(1)(b) GDPR (handling your enquiry) and Article 6(1)(f) GDPR (legitimate interest in responding).
The recipient is the mail server of Bits & Friends GmbH within the European Union. A data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR is in place with the operator. Messages are deleted once the correspondence is complete, at the latest after six months, unless statutory retention obligations apply.
7. Spam protection
To protect against automated submissions the form uses a field invisible to humans, a timing check and a limit on requests per IP address. The IP address is processed briefly in the memory of the form service and is not stored permanently. No third-party human-verification service is used.
8. Your rights
- Access to the data processed (Article 15 GDPR)
- Rectification of inaccurate data (Article 16 GDPR)
- Erasure (Article 17 GDPR)
- Restriction of processing (Article 18 GDPR)
- Data portability (Article 20 GDPR)
- Objection to processing (Article 21 GDPR)
- Complaint with a supervisory authority (Article 77 GDPR)
The competent authority is the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information: Bits & Friends GmbH is based in Berlin.
9. No automated decision-making
There is no automated decision-making and no profiling.
10. Version
October 2026. Version 7 – country, place and network are additionally determined from the IP address; the address itself is still not stored.