Data protection

The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) attaches great importance to protecting your personal data. We want users to know when the BMEL processes personal data, what data are processed and for what purposes.

The BMEL provides content on the Internet in order to inform the public about the Ministry's activities. We process personal data only to the extent necessary. What personal data are processed and for what purposes they are processed and on which legal basis depends on the kind of service you would like to use.

We have taken technical and organisational measures to ensure that data protection legislation is observed by ourselves and by our external service providers.

The processing of personal data at the BMEL is governed by the European General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) and the Federal Data Protection Act (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz/BDSG). 

 

Legal bases 

Controller and data protection officer

The agency responsible for the processing of personal data is the 

Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture 
Phone: +49-(0)30 18 529 - 0 
Fax: +49-(0)30 18 529 - 4262 
E-Mail: poststelle(at)bmel.bund.de

Addresses

Bonn Office  

Visitor's address: 
Rochusstraße 1, D-53123 Bonn; 
Postal address: 
PO Box 14 02 70, D-53107 Bonn

Berlin Office  

Visitor's address:  
Wilhelmstraße 54, D-10117 Berlin 
Postal address: 11055 Berlin

If you have any specific questions regarding the protection of your personal data, please contact the Data Protection Officer at the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture 

PO Box 14 02 70 
53107 Bonn, Germany 
E-mail: bds(at)bmel.bund.de
 

Personal data  
 

Personal data comprise any information related to an identified or identifiable natural person. Natural persons are considered identifiable if they can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by linking them to an identifier such as e.g. to a name, identification number, location data, or online identifier.

The statutory basis for the processing of personal data 
 

The BMEL processes personal data when it carries out the tasks of public interest that are assigned to it. These duties include in particular public relations activities, involving inter alia making information available to the public on this website. The legal basis for processing in this case is Article 6 (1) (e) of the EU GDPR in conjunction with Section 3 of the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG). 
Insofar as the processing of personal data is required in order to fulfil a legal obligation, this is based on Article 6 (1) (c) of the EU GDPR in conjunction with the relevant legal provision under which the legal obligation arises. 
Insofar as we obtain the consent of the data subject to process his or her personal data, Article 6 (1) (a) of the EU GDPR serves as a legal basis.

Article 6 (1) (b) of the EU GDPR is the legal basis for processing personal data that are required to perform a contract to which the data subject is a party. The same applies to processing operations needed to carry out pre-contractual measures. 
If vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person make it necessary to process personal data, the legal basis for doing so is Art. 6 (1) (d) of the EU GDPR. 
Automated decision-making does not take place. 
 

Data processing related to visiting this website  

Data compilation 

Every time you visit our website and retrieve a file, data on this process are temporarily stored in a log file. 
Specifically, the following data are stored on each access/retrieval:  

• date and time of the retrieval (time stamp) as well as the IP address of the device or server requesting access; 
• details of the request and target address (protocol version, HTTP method, referrer, user-agent string); 
• name of the accessed file and amount of data transferred (requested URL incl. query string, size in bytes); and 
• message whether the request was successful (HTTP status code). 
   

We are obliged under Article 6 (1) (e) GDPR, in conjunction with Section 5 Federal Office for Information Security Act, to store data that is necessary to protect the Ministry’s internet infrastructure and the federal communications technology system from attack; data must be stored beyond the time of your visit. These data are analysed and may be used for legal and criminal proceedings in the event of an attack on the communications technology system. The data will be deleted as soon as they are no longer needed for the intended purpose.  

Data collected from visits to the Ministry’s web resources and stored on log files are transmitted to third parties only to evaluate the use of our website and tailor our services to meet people’s needs (see “web analytics” below), and only when required by law, or if attacks on the federal communications technology system make it necessary to forward such data for purposes of legal action or criminal prosecution. Data will not be transferred for any other reason. The Ministry does not amalgamate these data with data from other sources. 

Processing of personal data regarding social media use 

The Ministry is active on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.  

We expressly point out that these networks store the personal data of their users (e.g. personal information, IP address etc.) in accordance with their data usage guidelines and use them for business purposes. The Ministry has no influence on the collection and use of data by social networks. We are unable to ascertain the extent, the location and the duration of the data capture, the extent to which the networks meet obligations to delete data, what evaluations of and links to the data are made, and to whom data are forwarded. For information about the type of data processed by Twitter and for what purposes, consult their Privacy Policy (in German). For information about the type of data processed by Instagram and for what purposes, consult their Privacy Policy (in German). For information about the type of data processed by YouTube and for what purposes, consult their Privacy Policy (in German). . 

Your rights 

You have the following rights vis-à-vis the BMEL with regard to the personal data concerning your person:  

• Right of access, Article 15 of the EU GDPR and Section 34 of the BDSG 
  The right of access confers on the data subject a comprehensive right of access to the data concerning his or her person and to certain other criteria, such as the purposes for which it is processed and the duration for which it will be stored. The derogations from this right set out in Section 34 of the BDSG apply. 
• Right to rectification, Art. 16 of the EU GDPR 
  The right to rectification includes the possibility for the data subject to have inaccurate personal data concerning him or her corrected.
• Right to erasure, Art. 17 of the EU GDPR and Section 35 of the BDSG 
  The right to erasure includes the possibility for the data subject to have data deleted by the controller. However, this is only possible if the personal data concerning his or her person are no longer needed, have been processed unlawfully or if the relevant consent has been revoked. The derogations from this right set out in Section 35 of the BDSG apply.
• Right to restriction of processing, Art. 18 of the EU GDPR 
  The right to restrict processing includes the possibility for the data subject to prevent further processing of personal data concerning his or her person for the time being. A restriction particularly occurs pending verification of the exercise of other rights of the data subjects. 
• Right to data portability, Article 20 of the EU GDPR 
  The right to data portability enables data subjects to receive the personal data concerning him or her in a commonly used and machine-readable format from the controller and the right to have those data transmitted to another controller, as appropriate. According to the second sentence of Article 20 (3), however, this right does not apply if the data processing serves the discharge of public tasks. 
• Right to object to processing, Article 21 (1) of the EU GDPR and Section 36 of the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG) 
  The right to object enables data subjects to object, on grounds relating to his or her particular situation, to the further processing of personal data concerning him or her where justified by the discharge of public tasks or public and private interests. The derogations from this right set out in Section 36 of the BDSG apply. 
• Right to revoke consent 
  If personal data are processed on the basis of consent, data subjects may revoke such consent at any time for the purpose for which it was given. The lawfulness of the processing undertaken on the basis of this consent remains unaffected until receipt of the withdrawal. 
   

You can assert the aforementioned rights in writing using the contact details above, set out in the section entitled “Controller and data protection officer”.

Pursuant to Art. 77 of the EU GDPR, you also have the right to appeal to the supervisory authority for data protection if you believe that we have failed to comply with provisions of data protection law when processing your personal data.

If you wish to lodge a complaint you can turn to the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI) for instance. 
 

Contact details of the BfDI 

Der Bundesbeauftragte für den 
Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit 
Graurheindorfer Str. 153 
53117 Bonn 
E-Mail: poststelle(at)bfdi.bund.de