Data Privacy

Privacy statement

As of 2025-11-12

Data protection and data security of users of our website and those interested in our study are of great importance. Transparency regarding the processing of your personal data as well as the protection of your data are therefore particularly important to us.
With this statement, we give you an overview of how data about you is collected and processed when you use our website and what you can do yourself to better protect your data.

University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH)
Lübeck Campus
Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23538 Lübeck
Telephone (head office): +49 451 500-0
E-mail: info@uksh.de

University of Lübeck
Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23562 Lübeck
Telephone (head office): +49 451 3101-0
E-mail: info@uni-luebeck.de

University Hospital (UK) Tübingen
Hoppe-Seyler-Strasse 3, 72076 Tübingen
Telephone (head office): +49 7071 29-0
E-mail: service@med.uni-tuebingen.de

Responsible for processing:
Contact person and study director UKSH Lübeck:
Prof. Dr. med. Vinodh Kakkassery
Department of Ophthalmology
Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23538 Lübeck
Telephone: +49 451 500-43911
E-mail: vinodh.kakkassery@uni-luebeck.de

Data Protection Officer UKSH Lübeck:
Dr. Stefan Reuschke
Ratzeburger Allee 160, 23538 Lübeck
Telephone: +49 452 500-14180
E-mail: stefan.reuschke@uksh.de

Lübeck University Data Protection Officer:
x-tention Information Technology GmbH
Margot-Becke-Ring 37, 69124 Heidelberg
Telephone: +49 451 3101 1903
E-mail: datenschutz@uni-luebeck.de

Contact person and study director UK Tübingen:
Prof. Dr. nat. Falko Fend
Department of Pathology and Neuropathology
Liebermeierstr. 8, 72076 Tübingen
Telephone: +49 7071 29-82266
E-mail: falko.fend@med.uni-tuebingen.de

Fundamentals

What is personal data
Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. The decisive factor is therefore whether a personal reference can be made from the collected data. This includes information such as your name, address, telephone number, email address. Information that is not directly linked to your real identity — such as favorite websites or the number of users of a page — is not personal data.
Contact — How do we collect or process data about you
You can visit our site without giving any information about yourself. Personal data is only collected if you voluntarily provide it to us as part of your visit to our website when contacting us by email, telephone or post. Your name, address, email address and concerns as well as the processing of your request will be made exclusively to and by our employees of the DECODE VRL study working group.
Should you wish to contact us via e-mail, we would like to point out that the complete confidentiality of the information transmitted by email is not guaranteed. The content of emails can potentially be viewed by third parties.
Therefore, please do not send any confidential or sensitive information (e.g. diagnoses, findings, medications, or family history details) via email.
For the transmission of confidential content, we recommend that you send it by post or contact us personally. Should you nevertheless voluntarily send us an e-mail containing personal or sensitive data, we will process this exclusively to process your request, but for data protection reasons, we will generally answer sensitive content not by email, but via a secure communication channel.
How do we use and share information about you
If you send us a message as mentioned above in writing or by telephone, your personal data will only be collected to the extent necessary to answer your request. The disclosure of this data by the user is therefore on an expressly voluntary basis.
Your personal data will not be passed on or otherwise transmitted to third parties within the DECODE VRL study, unless this is necessary for the purpose of processing your request or you have given your express consent.
How long will your data be stored
In principle, we store all information that you provide to us until your inquiries have been completed. Should you no longer wish us to use your data beforehand, we will of course comply with this request immediately. You can contact us by email at any time and request that your personal data be deleted.
When will your data be deleted
The stored personal data will be deleted when knowledge of the data is no longer required to fulfill the purpose for which it was stored or when you exercise your right to delete it in accordance with Article 17 GDPR.
Legal basis for data processing
When you contact us, we assume implied consent to process your data.

Specific information about the website decode-vlr.de

usage data
Our legitimate interest in processing the data in accordance with Article 6 (1) (f) GDPR results from the purposes set out above. When you visit our websites, you transfer data to our web server via your Internet browser (for technical reasons). These include, in particular, the following:
Date and time of retrieval of one of our web pages
Your browser type
The browser settings
The operating system used
The last page you visited
The amount of data transferred and the access status (file transferred, file not found, etc.)
your IP address
For reasons of technical security, in particular to prevent attempts to attack our web server, we store this data for a short time. Based on this data, it is not possible for us to draw conclusions about individual persons. When accessed, the data is anonymized by shortening the IP address at domain level, so that it is no longer possible to establish a connection to the individual user.
The data is also processed anonymously for statistical purposes; there is no comparison with other data sets or transfer to third parties.

Processing security
For security reasons and to protect the transmission of confidential content, such as orders or inquiries that you send to us as the site operator, this site uses SSL or TLS encryption. You can recognize an encrypted connection when the browser's address line changes from “http://” to “https://” and by the lock icon in your browser line.
If SSL or TLS encryption is activated, the data that you submit to us cannot be read by third parties.

Technology partners and tracking
We are working with the following technology partners to provide you with information about the DECODE study on the Internet. The most reliable presentation of our website is our legitimate interest and forms the basis for data use in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO. If you have given your consent (via consent banner), processing is carried out exclusively on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO and § 25 para. 1 TDDDG, insofar as the consent includes the storage of cookies or access to information on the user's device (e.g. device fingerprinting) within the meaning of the TDDDG. The consent can be withdrawn at any time. Data transmission to the USA is based on the “EU-US Data Privacy Framework” (DPF) or the standard contractual clauses of the EU Commission (SCC: Standard Contract Clauses).
We have concluded an order processing contract (AVV) with our host. This is a contract required by data protection law, which ensures that it only processes the personal data of our website visitors in accordance with our instructions and in compliance with the GDPR.

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