Privacy Statement

Data Protection

The aim of data protection, and also our objective at Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG, is to ensure that personal data is handled in such a way that every data subject’s right to privacy is protected.

In order to achieve this objective, all functions responsible for the processing of personal data must observe applicable EU legislation (EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR)) and all national data protection laws.

Personal data may only be collected and processed subject to the EU GDPR or other applicable laws. The essential underlying principles of the EU GDPR are:

• Lawfulness of processing, fairness of processing, transparency
• Purpose limitation
• Data minimization
• Accuracy of data processing
• Storage limitation and erasure concepts
• Integrity and confidentiality

Other central objectives of Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG are to act responsibly when handling personal data, but also to use IT systems and applications in a risk-conscious manner.

Information duties of the controller and rights of the data subject

Name and contact details of the controller and, if applicable, the controller’s deputy

The controller responsible for data processing on this website is:

Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG
Reinhold-Würth-Straße 12–17
74653 Künzelsau-Gaisbach
Phone: +49 7940 15-0
Email: info@wuerth.com

The controller is the natural person or legal entity which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data (e.g. names, email addresses, etc.).
 

Contact details of the data protection officer

You can contact our data protection officer at datenschutz@wuerth.com.
 

Purpose of data collection, processing or use

Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG is Germany's leading specialist in the sale of assembly and fastening materials.

The collection, processing or use of personal data serves this corporate purpose or supporting secondary purposes, such as customer service.
 

Groups of people concerned and related data or data categories

The groups of people concerned are

• current employees,
• former employees,
• applicants,
• potential customers,
• customers,
• suppliers,
• service providers and
• other business partners.
   

The relevant data includes all personal data that is necessary for the fulfillment of the purpose concerned. A detailed presentation of the types of personal data that are being processed is given in the following.
 

Legal grounds

The processing of personal data is only lawful if permitted by law, i.e. if there is a legal basis for the processing activity or the data subject has consented to the processing.

Personal data is only processed in our company in accordance with statutory provisions. These generally include,

• when consent to the processing of personal data has been given (Article 6 (1a) EU GDPR),
• when personal data has to be processed for the performance or initiation of a contract (Article 6 (1b) EU GDPR),
• when personal data has to be processed to comply with legal requirements (Art. 6 (1c) EU GDPR),
• when personal data is processed on the basis of a legitimate interest or a legitimate interest of a third party (Article 6 (1f) EU GDPR).
   

Special legal basis of data processing for contracts

Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG supplies almost exclusively to professionals. Unless agreed otherwise in individual cases, the legal bases we rely on when processing your personal data for the performance of a contract are as follows:

1. If you are a registered businessperson within the meaning of the German Commercial Code (HGB) or a freelancer, processing your personal data is necessary for the performance of the contract or for the preparatory steps to enter into a contract (Art. 6 (1b) EU GDPR); or

2. If you are an employee of a company, e.g. a purchasing agent, processing your personal data is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG (Art. 6 (1f) EU GDPR). The bases of the legitimate interests of Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG—the sale of its goods and services—include, but are not limited to, the freedom to conduct a business and choose an occupation within the EU.

To improve legibility, the legal bases given above shall be referred to only as “data processing for the performance of a contract” in the following.
 

Potential recipients of personal data

The potential recipients of personal data include

• public authorities if legally required,
• service providers and other business partners as far as this is necessary for the purpose in question and allowed or required by a legal provision, or if the data subject has given his/her consent.
   

Planned data transfer to third countries or international organizations

If the transfer of data to third countries (non-EU countries) or international organizations is required, personal data shall be transferred solely for the purpose of concluding or complying with a contract in compliance with all applicable data protection requirements, provided the interests or rights and freedoms of the data subject do not override these legitimate interests. Should we transfer your data to a third country or an international organization in individual cases, we will provide you with all required information.
 

Time limit for the erasure of data

Personal data will be deleted in accordance with the legal or contractually established regulations on the disposal of data and considering any legal or contractually established retention periods. Most of these legal requirements are based on the German Commercial Code (HGB) and the German Fiscal Code (AO). The retention and documentation periods set out in these codes require data controllers to retain data for up to ten years after the end of a business relationship or pre-contractual legal transaction.

Other legal provisions may impose even longer retention periods on data controllers, for instance for the retention of evidence in accordance with statutory limitation periods. The general limitation period is three years. Special limitation periods of up to 30 years or longer may, however, apply in certain situations. Personal data, which is not subject to a legal or contractual retention period or erasure obligation, must be deleted immediately after it is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was collected or otherwise processed.
 

Your rights as a data subject (Art. 12 et seq. EU GDPR)

The data subject has various data protection rights. These rights are explained below. The contact details set out above can be used to exercise these rights.
 

Right of Access (Art. 15 EU GDPR), Right to Rectification (Art. 16 EU GDPR), Right to Erasure (Art. 17 EU GDPR), and Right to Restriction of Processing (Art. 18 EU GDPR).

Subject to the applicable legal regulations, you have the right to obtain information, at any time, free of charge, about all your personal data stored by the data controller, its origin, recipients and purpose of storage as well as, where applicable, the right to rectification, erasure or restricted processing of your data.
 

Right to object (Art. 21 EU GDPR)

Every data subject has the right to object to the processing of their personal data on the basis of Art. 6 (1f) EU GDPR or for direct marketing purposes. Upon receiving an objection to the processing of your personal data, we will carefully review your objection in each individual case. If your objection to the processing of your personal data requires us to delete your data, we will delete your data in accordance with statutory retention requirements. The objection shall not affect the admissibility of the processing carried out up to the objection.
 

Obligation to disclose data

Every data subject has the right to know whether the provision of personal data is a statutory or contractual requirement, or a requirement necessary to enter into a contract, as well as whether the data subject is obliged to provide the personal data and what the possible consequences of failure to provide such data would be.
 

Right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority

The data subject has the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority if the data subject believes that the processing of personal data relating to him or her infringes his or her rights. The responsible supervisory authority for data protection issues is the data protection officer responsible for the federal state in which our company has its registered office. The data subject may also lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for the data subject’s habitual place of residence or place of the alleged infringement. A list of data protection officers and their contact details can be found at the following link: https://www.bfdi.bund.de/DE/Service/Anschriften/Laender/Laender-node.html;jsessionid=56BD747C1AAA8A959917F12D79B92695.intranet242.
 

Right to data portability

You have the right to have data which we process automatically on the basis of your consent or to perform a contract provided to you or to a third party in a commonly used, machine-readable format. If you request the direct transmission of the data to another controller, this will only be done if it is technically feasible.
 

Revocation of your consent to data processing

Many data processing operations can only be performed with your consent. You can revoke your consent at any time. All you need to do is send an informal e-mail to this effect to one of the email addresses given above. The withdrawal of consent shall not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal.
 

Use of your data for (direct) marketing purposes

Irrespective of your subscription to our newsletter, we may use your data, and especially your email address, for (direct) marketing purposes. We are only using your data if you have not objected to the use of your data for this purpose. We would like to inform you in this statement, and every other contact, that you can object to the use of your data for (direct) marketing purposes at any time and without incurring any additional costs other than the usual transmission costs at basic rates.
 

SSL/TLS encryption

This website uses SSL or TLS encryption for security reasons and to protect the transmission of confidential content, such as orders or requests that you send to us as the site operator. You can recognize an encrypted connection when you see that the address bar of your browser changes from “http://” to “https://” and when the lock symbol appears in your address bar.

When SSL and/or TSL encryption is activated, the data that you transfer to us cannot be read by third parties.

Cookies

Some of the websites of Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG use so-called cookies. Cookies help make our website more user-friendly, effective and secure. Cookies are small text files, which are placed on your computer and stored by your internet browser.

You can adjust your browser settings to make sure you are informed about the use of cookies and just allow cookies in individual cases, accept cookies only for certain applications or generally refuse cookies and activate the automatic deletion of cookies when closing your internet browser. When cookies are deactivated, some of the functions available on this website may no longer work properly.

We process cookies for the performance of contracts, wherever they are necessary for electronic communication processes or the provision of our services (e.g. shopping cart function). Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG uses these cookies primarily to process your orders in the online shop. The storage of any other cookies (e.g. cookies to analyze your browsing behavior) is treated separately in this Privacy Statement and processing is subject to your prior consent.

For an overview of active cookies, please refer to this page: Cookie Policy. Cookie settings can be changed on this page at any time.

"Do Not Track" settings

You can also control the storage of cookies by adjusting the "Do Not Track" (DNT) settings in your internet browser. Depending on the browser, DNT is available as a setting in the program settings or as a plug-in or add-on. By enabling this setting, the browser signals that you do not wish for your browsing behavior to be tracked by these tools without your express consent. If the setting is enabled, the tracking features of our tools will be anonymized. Please note that different internet browsers may require different settings to enable DNT.

Server log files

When visiting our website, we process information in so-called server log files, which your browser transmits to us automatically. The purpose of the processing is the correct displaying of our internet presence and ensuring the secure operation of our website.

Categories of processed data

The following categories of personal data are processed for the abovementioned purposes:

• Type and version of browser
• Operating system used
• Referrer URL
• Host name of the accessing device
• Time of the server request
• IP address

This data is not combined with other data sources.

Legal basis

Data is processed on the lawful basis set out in Article 6 (1f) EU GDPR. As the website operator, we have a legitimate interest in a correct presentation of our internet presence and in ensuring the website’s secure operation.

Retention periods

The data processed in connection with the collection of server log files is stored as long as required for their specific purposes.

Contact form

When you send us an inquiry through the contact form, your data from the inquiry form, including any contact data provided by you, will be stored by us in order to process your inquiry and answer any follow-up questions.

Categories of personal data

The following categories of personal data are processed when an inquiry is sent through the contact form:

• Your request
• Customer number
• Name
• Email address
• Phone number
• Your message

Legal basis

The data that you entered in the contact form is processed on the basis of our legitimate interest in providing our customers with a simple way of communicating with us and improving our customer service (Art. 6 (1f) EU GDPR) as well as for the performance of a contract. You can add voluntary information to the required mandatory information. The legal basis for the processing of such data is your consent in accordance with Art. 6 (1a) EU GDPR. Processing the data contained in your voluntary information serves to improve our service and provide you with a more extensive customer experience. You can withdraw your consent to the processing of the data you have provided voluntarily at any time. The contact details set out above can be used to revoke your consent.

Retention periods

We will store the data you have entered in the contact form until you request the erasure of the data or the purpose of the data storage is no longer applicable (e.g. after your inquiry has been processed). Statutory retentions periods may apply.

Würth web analytics

This website uses features from Würth’s web analytics service based on the open-source software Matomo/Piwik. Würth’s web analytics tool uses "Cookies". Cookies are text files stored on your computer that make it possible to analyze how you use the website. The information generated by cookies regarding the use of our website is stored on our server.

Würth web analytics and personalization

Legal basis

Würth web analytics is used for the statistical analysis of our website on the basis of your consent in compliance with Art. 6 (1a) EU GDPR.

You can prevent the storage of cookies by not consenting to the use of cookies. However, please note that by doing so, you may not be able to use all of the features on this website.

If you do not agree to your data being stored and used, you can withdraw your consent to the storage and processing of your data here. Your opt-out decision will be stored in a cookie. If you delete your cookies, this will also delete your opt-out cookie. The next time you visit our site, you will be asked again whether cookies may be used for web analytics purposes.

IP anonymization

We have enabled the IP anonymization function for this tool. This means that Würth truncates your IP address. We use this information to evaluate your use of the website, compile reports on website activity, and provide other services related to the use of the website.

YouTube

We have embedded YouTube videos in our online services, which are stored on www.youtube.com and can be played directly from our website. These features are provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, 4 Barrow St, Dublin, D04 E5W5, Ireland. The use of YouTube may result in the transmission of personal data to the servers of Google LLC. in the USA. Google LLC. has concluded standard contractual clauses, as published by the European Commission, with us for the transmission of personal data to Google LLC. based in the USA. These standard contractual clauses can be viewed here: https://privacy.google.com/businesses/processorterms/.

The YouTube videos on our website are all embedded in “privacy-enhanced mode”, i.e. no user data about you is sent to YouTube as long as you do not interact with these videos. No data is transferred until you play a video. We have no influence over this data transfer. Before any data is transmitted, you will be notified again that your data will be transferred to YouTube when you play a video. Your data will be transferred to YouTube regardless of whether you are signed into a YouTube user account or not. If you are signed into your Google account, your data will be linked directly to your account.

If you do not wish to be linked to your YouTube profile, you have to log out of your Google account before playing a video. YouTube stores your data as a user profile and uses that information for the purposes of advertising, market research and/or designing its website to meet users’ needs. You have the right to object to the creation of these user profiles; to do so, please send your request to YouTube.

Data is processed by Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG on the basis of your consent in accordance with Art. 6 (1a) EU GDPR. You can revoke your consent at any time. Your withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on your consent before its withdrawal.

For more information on YouTube and Google’s privacy policy, please visit:

https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/ (Google privacy policy)

https://policies.google.com/terms?hl=en#toc-software (Terms of Google services)

https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=GB&template=terms&hl=en (YouTube Terms of Service)

The privacy statement of Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG does not apply to applications, products, services, websites or social media functions of third-party providers that can be reached through links we offer for information purposes. When using these links, you leave the website of Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG, resulting in the possibility that information about you may be collected or passed on by third parties. Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG has no influence whatsoever over the websites of third parties and makes no recommendations or warranties regarding these websites or their data protection practices. We therefore encourage you to read and review the privacy policies of any websites you interact with very closely before allowing them to collect, process and use your personal data.