TERMS OF USE & PRIVACY STATEMENT

I. TERMS OF USE

(1) Operators and users

The non-profit organisations involved, Goethe-Institut e.V., DAAD e.V. and Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, have signed a co-operation agreement on the project Alumniportal Deutschland. In the following, the latter will be referred to as "Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation". These conditions of use apply between the operators - the Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation, Alumniportal Deutschland c/o Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst e.V. (DAAD), D-53175 Bonn - and the registered user - persons registered in the Alumniportal Deutschland. The registered users are

  • mainly "Germany-Alumni", i.e. persons who have stayed in Germany for at least 3 months for training purposes or who have been employed in Germany for several years
  • and representatives of universities, organisations / companies wishing to get in touch with "Germany-Alumni".

These conditions of use may be subject to changes. Please carefully read the conditions of use. They contain important information, mutual rights and duties, etc.

(2) Subject of the contract

The central content of the Alumniportal Deutschland programme is an Internet platform under the URL "" and "community.alumniportal-deutschland.org" with which Deutschland-Alumni can, for example, link up in a network, find one another (again), exchange views and experience and communicate via messages, discussion forums and other channels.
As operators, we undertake to ensure that the operating of the platform is free of any disturbances, although we cannot guarantee this. Circumstances may result in system availability being restricted by maintenance work or other influence.

(3) Establishing contact

As registered users, you declare that you agree that your data, e.g. your email, is used for the purpose of establishing contact by the organisations Goethe-Institut, DAAD and AvH. Establishing contact (with the provison of a possible revocation at any time) may be both in the form of messages personally addressed to the users and in the form of general information / newsletters.

(4) Inadmissible user names

We reserve the right to reject user names that are unlawful, insulting, glorify violence, are of a discriminatory nature or pornographic or are in any other way irreconcilable with the following user conditions and may be suitable to blemish the reputation of the Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation or its co-operation partners.

(5) Rights and duties of the user

Users of the Alumniportal Deutschland commit themselves to observing copyrights. Only such contents and statements may be published in the Alumniportal Deutschland that do not violate the rights of others (in particular copyrights and generally with regard to the law of industrial property and copyright protection).

Users of the Alumniportal Deutschland are responsible for their activities within the entire platform. In all circumstances, the personal password to activate and use the user's account has to be kept secret from third parties. If you should have any cause to assume that third parties have learnt of your password, it is your duty to immediately change it. (You can change your password in your personal profile area.)

User activities aimed at complicating the functionality of the platform or making the portal unusable are forbidden and may result in civil or criminal prosecution. In particular, measures are also forbidden that may influence the portal's physical and logical structure.
You may not use the Alumniportal Deutschland for commercial purposes. This also means that advertising via the mailing of contents that the recipients obtain without having requested them (spamming) is not permitted.

On the Alumniportal Deutschland , it is generally not permissible to register for more than one user account, register for a user account in the name of another person, register in the name of a group or a legal person for a user account or present oneself as another person and disseminate false statements on oneself and other people.

Furthermore, all Alumniportal Deutschland users are obliged not to violate any legal regulations with their contents and activities (valid law of the German Federal Republic). For example, the platform may not be used for illegal purposes.

It is also forbidden to publish, transmit or disseminate contents / statements that are illegal, especially those that are insulting, glorify violence or are of a discriminatory or pornographic nature or have other contents that are contrary to morality. This also comprises contents that are accessible via links set by the users. Furthermore, the use of offensive contents, ambiguous terms and other representations is forbidden whose illegality is suspected but cannot be conclusively determined.

For example, the following are forbidden activities:

  • contents that are morally harmful for adolescents,
  • any presentation of violence against human beings or animals,
  • contents violating human dignity,
  • religiously or politically extreme contents and racist contents or contents inciting the people for religious, national or racial reasons or those glorifying violence,
  • gambling,
  • obscene contents,
  • entering photos and videos without permission by the photographer and the person shown on them.

If it suspects such contents or references, the Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation reserves the right to remove them without any prior announcement or explanation.

(6) Rights and duties of the operator

With the Alumniportal Deutschland, the Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation is merely providing the users a platform with which they can communicate with other alumni and further third parties.
To this end, it provides the technical applications for a general establishing of contacts. This service does not give rise to any claims to the substantiating of contacts, and the Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation and its co-operation partners are not responsible for the development of contacts.

Furthermore, claims to compensation for damage in the event of technical disturbances are ruled out. Our technical administration undertakes to ensure the frictionless operating of the platform, but as already mentioned in the Security notes, no guarantee is given for this.

The operators of the Alumniportal Deutschland do not carry out any checks on the publicly disseminated contents and statements of the users prior to their dissemination, transmittal or publication.

In the event of the conditions of use not being observed or a reasonable suspicion of a user having violated them, we are entitled to expel the respective user and, should this seem appropriate, immediately delete the contents that he has used or that have been addressed to him. In this case, the user is sent a warning fixing a time-limit, unless the violation is of such severe nature that a continuation of the owner and user relationship is unacceptable.

Users relieve the operators of the Alumniportal Deutschland of all claims, including damage claims, that other users or other third parties may make owing to a violation of their rights by the contents published on the Alumniportal Deutschland by the user.

The user covers all reasonable and proportionate costs arising for the operator owing to a violation of the rights of third parties, including the reasonable and proportionate costs arising from defence in court. These duties of the user do not apply if the user does not have to account for the violation of law.

(7) Creating a group on Alumniportal Deutschland / Joint responsability

As a registered user, you have the option of creating a company or institution profile in the form of a "group". As an administrator of such a group, you have the possibility to view various statistics on the use of the group (e.g. number of posts within the group). The Alumniportal-Deutschland-Kooperation also has the possibility to carry out these statistical evaluations. This circumstance establishes the legal requirements for joint responsibility in accordance with Article 26 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), since you decide together with the Alumniportal-Deutschland-Kooperation on the purposes and means of processing. As a result, the conclusion of a contract according to Article 26 GDPR between the respective group founder and the Alumniportal-Deutschland-Kooperation is required. The subject of this contract and thus the joint responsibility is exclusively the evaluation of the user activities in the group founded by the group founder. If you set up a group, the (in German only) according to Article 26 GDPR becomes part of these terms of use.

(8) Privacy

When using the Alumniportal Deutschland, we only process your personal data if this is necessary to fulfill the contractual obligations arising from these terms of use, if you have given us your consent or if a statutory provision permits this. Further information about the processing of your personal data and about your rights as a data subject when using the Alumniportal Deutschland can be found in the .

(9) Closing the accounts

You may close your account at any time, and without giving any reasons. Once the account has been deactivated, the user's data can no longer be called up. Owing to the data retained in the cache, the member's data may still be accessible for a short period for technical reasons. Should the need arise, the Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation will reserve the right to keep the data stored for the time being (e.g. to assert damage compensation claims in the case of a violation).

Note: Once you have closed your account, your data will be completely and irretrievably deleted, including entries in discussion forums, personal messages and other contributions.

(10) Liability

The Internet programme of the Alumniportal Deutschland has been compiled with the greatest possible care. No liability is assumed for the correctness, accuracy and flawlessness of the information on the part of the operator. Neither do we as operators assume any liability for the contents published by the users. Furthermore, any liability for damages is ruled out that arise directly from the use of the pages.
We are not responsible as operators for the contents of websites that have been referred to via external hyperlinks, and we can assume no guarantee or liability for the appropriateness and legality of these contents.

As users, you relieve the Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation of all claims made by third parties owing to a violation of the above-mentioned duties and / or damaging activities of the users vis-à-vis the Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation. As far as this is legally possible, the Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation cannot be held liable. (The German version of the conditions of use applies as the legally binding version.)

(11) Amendments to the conditions of usage

Alumniportal Deutschland-Cooperation reserves the right to amend these conditions of usage at any time and without stating any reasons. Registered users are informed about changes in the course of logging in.
If there are no objections to the amended version within two weeks of this notice being given, it is regarded as accepted.


These Terms of Use are available both in German and English language. In the event of any inconsistency between the German version and the English version, the German version shall prevail.

II. PRIVACY STATEMENT OF THE “ALUMNIPORTAL DEUTSCHLAND” PLATFORM

We appreciate your interest in using the “Alumniportal Deutschland” platform. The protection of personal data is of the highest priority to us.

1. Controllers

We are jointly responsible for the processing of your personal data in connection with the “Alumniportal Deutschland” platform. We have concluded an arrangement in which we determine, in a transparent manner, which controller shall fulfil which obligation under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The essence of this arrangement is as follows: The Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst e.V. [German Academic Exchange Service] shall fulfil the obligation of responding to requests of data subjects exercising their rights pursuant to Chapter 3 of the GDPR as well as the duties to provide information pursuant to Articles 13 and 14 of the GDPR.

These are the controllers responsible for the data processing:

German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
Kennedyallee 50 53175 Bonn Germany
Point of contact: datenschutz(at)alumniportal-deutschland.org

Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung [Alexander von Humboldt Foundation]:
Jean-Paul-Straße 53173 Bonn Germany
Point of contact: DanielaEleonore.Becker(at)avh.de

Goethe Institut e.V.
Oskar-von-Miller-Ring 18 80333 Munich, Germany
Point of contact: Anna.Schwellensattl(at)goethe.de

2. Data Protection Officers

You can reach our data protection officers here:

Data protection officer of the DAAD:
Dr. Gregor Scheja
Scheja und Partner Rechtsanwälte mbB
Adenauerallee 136
53113 Bonn
Germany
Phone: 0228/2272260
Point of contact: 

Data protection officer of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung:
Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
Jean-Paul-Str. 12
53173 Bonn
Germany
Data protection officer
Point of contact: Ansgar.Schuldenzucker(at)avh.de

Data protection officer of the Goethe Institut e.V.:
Goethe-Institut e.V.
Oskar-von-Miller-Ring 18
80333 München
Germany
Point of contact: datenschutz(at)goethe.de

 

3. Your rights as a data subject

In accordance with the GDPR, you are entitled to the following rights as a data subject, provided that the respective statutory requirements are met:

Access: You have the right to obtain information about your personal data processed by us.

Rectification: You can obtain the rectification of inaccurate personal data concerning you. Furthermore you can obtain the completion of incomplete personal data.

Erasure: In specific cases you can obtain the erasure of your personal data. Restriction of processing: In specific cases you can obtain restriction of processing of your personal data.

Data portability: If you provided data to us based on a contract or your consent you can demand that you receive the provided data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format or that we transmit the data directly to another controller.

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Right to object

Individual right to object

You have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, at any time to processing of personal data concerning you which is based on point (e) or (f) of Art. 6 subparagraph 1 GDPR, including profiling based on those provisions. We will then no longer process the personal data for those purposes 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.

Right to object to processing for direct marketing purposes

In some cases we process your data for direct marketing. You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data for those purposes at any time. This applies to profiling as far as it is associated with such direct marketing. If you object to the processing for direct marketing purposes, your personal data will not be processed for those purposes any longer.

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Withdrawal of consent: If you gave your consent to the processing of your personal data you can withdraw your consent at any time with future effect. The lawfulness of the processing of your personal data until your withdrawal will not be affected. In addition to the options stated under ‘enforcement of your rights’ you can explain your withdrawal according to the respective information concerning ‘exercising the right to object’ in the section ‘Services & Cookies’.

Enforcements of your rights: To exercise the aforementioned rights please contact datenschutz(at)alumniportal-deutschland.org or write a letter to one of the addresses above in Section No. 1. When doing so please make sure an unambiguous identification of yourself is possible.

Right of appeal: You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, particularly one in the member state of your habitual residence, work place or the place of the suspected violation, if you are of the view that the processing of your personal data is unlawful.

4. Details on embedded services and functionalities

4.1. Our own services
4.2. Embedding of third-party services, including cookies and similar technologies.
a) Tracking-Tools

Change your cookie settings!

b) Social Media (Plugins)

III. SECURITY ADVICE

As a social network for alumni of the organisations Goethe-Institut e.V., DAAD e.V. and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, we provide a platform with which anyone interested can get in touch with other alumni and interested parties, be contacted by them, present oneself, etc.

We undertake to protect person-related data in accordance with the relevant laws and according to these data protection regulations and will make all technical and organisational arrangements that handling of person-related data observing data protection requires.

However, we would explicitly like to draw attention to the fact that we cannot protect the data made accessible to all users against misuse.

Generally, any Internet user can register with the Alumniportal Deutschland. This also means that we have no way to check whether users are always alumni entitled to use the system. We cannot guarantee a user's true identity. It is up to users themselves to get information about another user's identity, and it is their responsibility to choose whom they wish to confirm as a contact.
Please above all note the following:
Only make data public that you feel make sense regarding the Alumniportal Deutschland. Please take care to choose such data according to what you really wish to reveal about yourself. Data like your private telephone number, address, etc. should only be accessible to the contacts that you have confirmed, and not to all users.

Update: 6 May 2021

Code of Conduct

You will find our Code of Conduct following the link below