Data Privacy Statement

As at: 01.07.2021

In the following Data Privacy Statement, CLAAS KGaA mbH ("CLAAS") provides information about how your personal data is processed on this website.

A. General Data Privacy Statement

I. Controller's name and contact details

The controller is:

CLAAS KGaA mbH
Mühlenwinkel 1
D-33428 Harsewinkel, Germany
Germany
infoclaas@claas.com

II. Contact details of the data protection officer

The group's data protection officer can be contacted as follows: CLAAS KGaA mbH
Data Protection Officer
Mühlenwinkel 1
D-33428 Harsewinkel, Germany
Germany
group.dpo@claas.com

III. Storage period

CLAAS stores your personal data only for as long as necessary in order to fulfil the purpose for which it is collected and processed. Where necessary, CLAAS shall store your data for the duration of the business relationship. This includes, but is not limited to, the initiation and execution of the contract.

Furthermore, CLAAS stores your personal data if and as long as this is required to fulfil contractual or legal obligations. We thus process your data to fulfil commercial or fiscal verification and retention obligations. The stipulated retention and documentation periods are six years in accordance with the commercial requirements under Section 257 of the German Commercial Code (HGB) and up to ten years under the fiscal requirements pursuant to Section 147 of the Fiscal Code of Germany (AO), provided the data is no longer required for tax purposes (e.g. because a company audit is ongoing). The periods start at the end of the calendar year in which the record was created.

If the data is no longer required to fulfil contractual or legal obligations, it will be regularly erased, unless you have given CLAAS consent to process your data and/or further processing is required based on CLAAS' legitimate interests, for example to win back customers and defend against legal claims in legal disputes. In the case of data processed to defend against legal claims in legal disputes, the storage period shall also be based on the legal limitation periods. In accordance with Sections 195 et seq. of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, BGB), these are up to 30 years, with the regular limitation period lasting three years, starting at the end of the calendar year in which the claim arises. In this case, processing shall be limited, i.e. limited to the minimum scope required for the claim and blocked for other purposes.

The provision above does not apply insofar as the Separate Data Privacy Statement specifies otherwise.

IV. Categories of recipients

• Carefully selected service providers. Service providers we engage, who support us in the performance of the business relationship, are granted access to the data. These companies operate in the following categories: Hosting providers, data management, software as a service, e-mail services, IT services (e.g. maintenance and support, data migration), consulting, service providers in the first, second and third level support, call centre services, customer administration, lettershops, marketing, media technology, telecommunications, customer relations management and lead management, tracking service providers, web agencies, compliance, disposal services (e.g. document shredders), companies who perform analyses for us, financial service providers, shipping and logistics services, printing services, technology service providers (e.g. for hardware and accessory parts). If any additional categories of service providers are employed, please refer to the relevant Separate Data Privacy Statement.
• Transfer to third parties. We shall also transfer your data to third parties if this is permitted by legal or contractual provisions and/or you have given your consent. On this condition, the data can be transferred to the following categories of recipients: Public bodies and institutions (such as the public prosecutor's office, police, tax authority, data protection supervisory authority) to process official requests, provided that this is in your interest or we are legally obligated to do so. The legal basis for this is Article 6(1f) or 6(1c) GDPR.
• Data transfer within the CLAAS Group. We shall transfer your data to other companies within the CLAAS Group or grant them access to your data. Insofar as this is required for administrative purposes, this shall be based on our legitimate interest in internal administrative purposes and group reporting. The legal basis for this is Article 6(1f) GDPR. If this is required to prepare for an agreement initiated by you or to fulfil contract-related obligations, or if you have given your consent, the legal basis is Article 6(1b) or 6(1a) GDPR. If we are legally entitled to do this, the legal basis arises from Article 6(1c) GDPR. We refer to the Separate Data Privacy Statement for any data transfer to third parties beyond the scope described here.
• Third parties with whom we have an ongoing business relationship. If this is required to prepare for an agreement or to fulfil contract-related obligations, or if you have given your consent, the legal basis is Article 6(1b) or 6(1a) GDPR. If we are legally required to do this, the legal basis arises from Article 6(1c) GDPR.

V. Transfer to third countries

If we transfer your personal data ourselves or via service providers to countries based outside the European Union, we shall comply with the relevant particular requirements of Article 44 et seq. GDPR and our service providers shall also undertake to comply with these regulations. We shall therefore only transfer your data to countries based outside the European Union subject to the level of security guaranteed by the GDPR. This level of security is guaranteed in particular on the basis of an adequacy decision by the European Commission or with suitable guarantees in accordance with Article 46 GDPR.

Data is transferred to third countries (countries outside the EU or the European Economic Area – EEA) if, for example, this

• is required to fulfil a contract to which you are a contractual party or if this is required to respond to your requests;
• is required to safeguard our legitimate interests;
• is stipulated by law or you have given your consent;
• takes place as part of contract processing when involving service providers.

If there is no European Commission decision for the country in question as to a level of data protection that is appropriate for European data protection requirements, we shall enter into corresponding contracts to ensure that your rights and freedoms are suitably protected. An agreement of this kind ensures that a suitable level of data protection exists at the data recipient, especially with the agreement on the European Union's standard contractual clauses with the recipient. Otherwise, we can also perform a data transfer based on your express consent. You can withdraw your consent with future effect at any time, see Section A.VII. We will be happy to provide you with more detailed information free of charge on request. Please use the aforementioned contact details for this purpose.

Where we permit the recipient to process data without a suitable level of data protection based on your consent alone, please note the following risks: There may not be sufficient measures in place to protect your personal data appropriately; there is no data protection supervisory authority; the implementation of your data protection rights of the data subject is impeded or has been disregarded; there is no control over the further processing of data by and transmission of data to third parties.

Any further information required can be found in our Separate Data Privacy Statement.

VI. Obligation to provide personal data

Unless specified otherwise in the Separate Data Privacy Statement, you are not legally or contractually required to provide your data.

VII. Rights of the data subject

In accordance with Article 15 GDPR, you have the right to obtain information about the data that we hold that relates to you. If incorrect personal data has been processed, you have the right to rectification of your data in accordance with Article 16 GDPR. If the legal requirements apply, you can request erasure or restriction of processing and submit an objection to data processing (Articles 17, 18 and 21 GDPR). In accordance with Article 20 GDPR, you can exercise the right to data portability for data that is automatically processed on the basis of your consent or under a contract.

Your objection can be submitted in any form and should be addressed to the following where possible:

privacy@claas.com

You can exercise your rights vis-à-vis CLAAS using the contact details provided under Section A. II.

If you believe that data is being processed in violation of data protection regulations, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority of your choice. (Article 77 GDPR).

You can of course also submit a complaint to the CLAAS data protection officer at any time (privacy@claas.com).

If you wish to exercise your data protection rights of the data subject, we will process your data in order to fulfil our legal obligations in accordance with Article 6(1c) GDPR in conjunction with Articles 15–22, 12(3–6) GDPR and Article 7(3) GDPR. This includes the processing of your data for the purpose of unequivocal identification of the data subject of a data processing activity, and the request for additional information to confirm identity. We do this on the basis of our legal obligation laid out in Article 12(6) GDPR. This includes the transfer of data to the data recipients within the meaning of Article 19 GDPR, as far as requests for the rectification of data, erasure or restriction of processing (Articles 16, 17(1), 18 GDPR) are concerned, and any related communications to these recipients (Article 19 GDPR) or to you as the data subject (Article 12 GDPR).

B. Separate Data Privacy Statement regarding provision of our website for the general public

I. Provision of our website for the general public

If you only use the website for information purposes, i.e. if you do not register or communicate information to CLAAS in any other way (e.g. using our contact form), CLAAS shall only collect the personal data transmitted by your browser to our server. Data collection is a technical requirement in order for us to show you our website. The legal basis for this is Article 6(1b) GDPR. Your visit to the website is recorded in the log files; this is necessary to guarantee the functionality of the website and the security of the IT systems. The legal basis for this data processing is Article 6(1f) GDPR. You are able to object to the processing of data on the basis of a legitimate interest at any time with future effect, see Section A.VII. For the aforementioned purposes, we also have a legitimate interest in data processing.

The following categories of data shall be collected when you visit the website: Usage and traffic data, technical documentation and logged data, e.g.

• date and time of access;
• time zone difference from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT);
• IP address;
• host name of the computer accessing the site;
• website used to call up website;
• websites called up via the website (content of the request);
• pages visited on the website;
• notification of whether access was successful;
• volume of data transferred;
• information about browser type, language and version used;
• operating system.

This data shall be erased as soon as it is no longer required to achieve the purpose of its collection. As regards provision of the website, this is the case once the respective session has ended. If the data is stored in log files, this is the case after a maximum of 30 days. The data is not stored together with any of your other personal data.

In order to display external contents on our website (e.g. integrating an IFRAME to display the CLAAS Collection catalogue), we shall transfer your personal data specified above to third parties (e.g. companies within the CLAAS Group). The legal basis for this is Article 6(1f) GDPR. Our legitimate interest lies in making our website more interesting and user-friendly for you. You are able to object to the processing of data on the basis of a legitimate interest at any time with future effect, see Section A.VII.

II. Use of services (e.g. cookies, analytical and remarketing tools)

CLAAS uses services (e.g. cookies, analysis tools and remarketing tools) on this website. CLAAS uses these services to store information on your device (e.g. in your browser) and/or access information that is already stored on your device. This information may include personal data as well as data that is not related to a specific person. Where applicable, after storing or accessing the information, personal data may be processed further in accordance with your choice of category.

CLAAS uses the following services in the following categories:

If the use of the service (i.e. storing information on your device and/or accessing information stored on your device) is required for a technical reason, Art. 25 para. 2 of the German Telecommunications Telemedia Data Protection Act (TTDSG) in conjunction with Art. 6(1 b, c, f) GDPR forms the lawful basis. This information may include personal data as well as data that is not related to a specific person. If, after storing or accessing the information, personal data relating to you is processed, this processing is performed only if this is required

• for performance of a contract where you are a party to the contract (Article 6(1b) GDPR) or
• by law (Article 6(1c) GDPR)
• to safeguard our legitimate interests (Article 6(1f) GDPR).

You are able to object to the processing of data on the basis of a legitimate interest at any time with future effect, see Section A.VII. You can choose to erase cookies via your browser settings. 

The legal basis for the use of the services (i.e. storing information on your device and/or accessing information stored on your device) in the Statistical Analysis, Marketing, and Additional Functions categories is Section 25 para. 1 sentence 1 of the German Telecommunications Telemedia Data Protection Act (TTDSG) in conjunction with Art. 6(1a) GDPR, subject to your consent. This information may include personal data as well as data that is not related to a specific person. If, after storing or accessing the information, personal data relating to you is processed in accordance with your choice of category, this processing is performed on the basis of Art. 6(1a) GDPR, subject to your consent. Revoking your consent does not affect the legality of storing information on your device and/or accessing information on your end device or the further processing of personal data in accordance with your choice of category that has been performed with your consent. Your consent is voluntary.

You can revoke your consent or make changes to your data protection settings via "Changing data privacy settings":

Your consent is valid for six months. After this time, we shall ask you to reconfirm your consent. We shall also ask you to reconfirm your consent by displaying the cookie banner if new services are added to this website or if services change such that renewed consent is required in order to be able to continue to implement the services (e.g. changes of purpose).

Please note that your individual browser settings can potentially prevent your settings (e.g. your consent) from being saved long-term and we shall ask you to reconfirm your consent each time you visit our website.

III. Cross-website statistical analysis – Joint controllership

For the purpose of cross-website statistical analysis, data about your user behaviour, which we collect using Google Analytics on this website (operator: CLAAS KGaA mbH), the website https://configurator.claas.com (operator: CLAAS Global Sales GmbH), the website https://accounts.claas.com/ (operator: CLAAS KGaA mbH) and https://connect.claas.com (operator: CLAAS Global Sales GmbH), will be merged and evaluated by CLAAS KGaA mbH and CLAAS Global Sales GmbH.

The joint controllers are CLAAS KGaA mbH¹ and CLAAS Global Sales GmbH².

The data protection officers of CLAAS KGaA mbH and of CLAAS Global Sales GmbH can be reached at: CLAAS KGaA mbH, for the attention of the data protection officer, Mühlenwinkel 1, 33428 Harsewinkel, Germany, group.dpo@claas.com.

The parties have agreed that the operator of the website in question will make the information according to article 13, 14 GDPR available. Your rights as an affected person can be asserted directly at the operator in question.

C. Separate Data Privacy Statement regarding the handling of (general) enquiries and complaints and relevant communication (e.g. request for information, ordering or support, callback requests).

You can contact CLAAS using the contact details specified on this website or via the contact form provided on the website. We shall process your personal data for the purposes of handling your concern, providing a response or pursuing a complaint.

This is based on our legitimate interest, in accordance with Article 6(1f) GDPR, in the handling of the concerns you have raised with us and for the processing and pursuing of complaints as well as for communicating with customers and interested parties. You have the right to object to the data processing at any time, see Section A.VII. If the data processing serves to initiate a contractual relationship, this processing is based on Article 6(1b) GDPR.

The data needed in order to respond to your message is marked as mandatory with an asterisk (*). You can also provide us with additional data voluntarily. Mandatory data covers personal identification data (e.g. title, first name, last name), contact details (e.g. telephone number, e-mail address), company data (e.g. company name, address) and message contents (if you provide us with additional information about your concern).

We also process usage and traffic data (e.g. IP address, date and time of your enquiry). The legal basis for this data processing is Article 6(1f) GDPR, based on our legitimate interest in ensuring the functionality of this website and the security of the IT systems.

In addition to processing enquiries and complaints, we shall also use the data for the purposes of advertising and marketing measures. See Section D of this Data Privacy Statement.

If necessary, we shall also share your data with third parties, e.g. the CLAAS distribution partner responsible for you or chosen by you, CLAAS partners (e.g. importers) or CLAAS Group companies, as required to pursue and act on your concern.

CLAAS saves your data in order to best advise you. Your personal data shall be saved for the purposes of responding to your enquiry, and then erased, unless we are legally or contractually obliged to save the data for longer or we are permitted to do so on the basis of your consent. For more detailed information, see Section A.III. of this Data Privacy Statement. On the basis of your consent and/or another legally recognised form of permission, including but not limited to our legitimate interest in accordance with Article 6(1f) GDPR, your data can continue to be stored, e.g. for the purpose of customer loyalty or retention and in relation to the defence of legal claims. In the case of your data being processed to defend against legal claims in legal disputes, the storage period shall also be based on the legal limitation periods (e.g. in accordance with civil law and the German Product Liability Act). As regards storage of your data, our technical infrastructure is designed along the basic principles of necessity and purpose limitation. As such, the affiliates and trading partners are granted access to such data as is required for the performance of their tasks. For more detailed information, see Section A.IV..

D. Links to websites of third parties

This website contains links to websites of third parties (e.g. companies belonging to the CLAAS Group). If you access the relevant link, the website of the third party will open in a new window. This Data Privacy Statement does not extend to data processing on the website of the third party.