Privacy Statement

This statement relates to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) privacy practices in connection with its website(s). The EPA is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other websites that are/may be linked to this site. By accessing this website you are agreeing to the EPA Privacy Policy .

General statement

The EPA fully respects your right to privacy and will not collect any personal data about you through this website that you do not give voluntarily. Any personal data that you volunteer to the EPA will be treated with the highest standards of security and confidentiality, strictly in accordance with the Data Protection Acts, 1988 & 2003.

Collection and use of personal information

The EPA does not collect any personal data about you on this website, apart from information which you volunteer (for example by e-mailing us or by using our online Contact form). Any information which you provide in this way is not made available to any third parties and is used by the EPA only for the purpose for which you provided it.

Personal Data

The personal data collected by phone, mail, social media or in the Contact Us form on this website (name, email address, subject and message) is maintained to respond to queries and feedback for which you provided.

This website is secured by an SSL certificate and is hosted on secure infrastructure to prevent the unauthorised retrieval of personal data collected for mailing list purposes.

Cookies

We use cookies to collect non-personal information about how visitors use our website. Cookies are small data files placed on your computer, mobile or other device when you browse online. This data is stored on your browser. The cookie is sent back to our webserver each time you visit our website.

Cookies are not computer programs and do not run on a computer like programs do. They cannot gather information or function on their own.  Generally speaking, cookies do not contain personal information from which you can be identified. Technical details in connection with visits to this website are logged for statistical purposes. No information is collected that could be used by us to identify website visitors. Cookies merely enable us to provide a more valuable online experience to you. These cookies are used as part of Google Analytics, a web analytics service that enables us to track how visitors use our website. Google Analytics uses first-party cookies.

Most browsers allow you to disable cookies or to customise your settings for cookies. You can set up your internet browser to disable cookie technology. The procedure for disabling cookies depends on the web browser that you have chosen to use. Please note that if you turn off cookies or change your settings, some features of this website may not work correctly.

The EPA will make no attempt to identify individual visitors, or to associate the technical details with any individual. You should note that technical details, which we cannot associate with any identifiable individual, do not constitute “personal data” for the purposes of the Data Protection Acts, 1988 & 2003.

Refer to the cookie policy for details on the data collected in your web browser to help customise your user experience on this website.

Google Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”), to gather statistics on our website. The statistics we gather help us to provide a better online experience for the visitor. For more information on Google Analytics, please visit: Google’s website.

Google Analytics uses cookies to define user sessions, as well as to provide a number of key features in the Google Analytics reports. This means that the cookies are linked to our website domain(s), and we will only use that cookie data for statistical analysis related to your browsing behaviour on our websites. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.  If you choose, you can opt out by selecting the appropriate setting on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. You can opt-out from being tracked by Google Analytics by downloading and installing Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on for your current web browser.

Further details on Google Analytics use of cookies

Annex

YouTube

Our website uses plugins from YouTube, which is operated by Google. The operator of the pages is YouTube LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA. If you visit one of our pages featuring a YouTube plugin, a connection to the YouTube servers is established. Here the YouTube server is informed about which of our pages you have visited. If you’re logged in to your YouTube account, YouTube allows you to associate your browsing behaviour directly with your personal profile. You can prevent this by logging out of your YouTube account. YouTube is used to help make our website appealing. This constitutes a justified interest pursuant to Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO. Further information about handling user data, can be found in the data protection declaration of YouTube under https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy.

Vimeo

Our website uses features provided by the Vimeo video portal. This service is provided by Vimeo Inc., 555 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011, USA. If you visit one of our pages featuring a Vimeo plugin, a connection to the Vimeo servers is established. Here the Vimeo server is informed about which of our pages you have visited. In addition, Vimeo will receive your IP address. This also applies if you are not logged in to Vimeo when you visit our plugin or do not have a Vimeo account. The information is transmitted to a Vimeo server in the US, where it is stored. If you are logged in to your Vimeo account, Vimeo allows you to associate your browsing behaviour directly with your personal profile. You can prevent this by logging out of your Vimeo account. For more information on how to handle user data, please refer to the Vimeo Privacy Policy at https://vimeo.com/privacy.

Google Web Fonts

For uniform representation of fonts, this page uses web fonts provided by Google. When you open a page, your browser loads the required web fonts into your browser cache to display texts and fonts correctly. For this purpose, your browser has to establish a direct connection to Google servers. Google thus becomes aware that our web page was accessed via your IP address. The use of Google Web fonts is done in the interest of a uniform and attractive presentation of our plugin. This constitutes a justified interest pursuant to Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO. If your browser does not support web fonts, a standard font is used by your computer. Further information about handling user data, can be found athttps://developers.google.com/fonts/faq and in Google’s privacy policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy /.

SoundCloud

On our pages, plugins of the SoundCloud social network (SoundCloud Limited, Berners House, 47-48 Berners Street, London W1T 3NF, UK) may be integrated. The SoundCloud plugins can be recognized by the SoundCloud logo on our site. When you visit our site, a direct connection between your browser and the SoundCloud server is established via the plugin. This enables SoundCloud to receive information that you have visited our site from your IP address. If you click on the “Like” or “Share” buttons while you are logged into your SoundCloud account, you can link the content of our pages to your SoundCloud profile. This means that SoundCloud can associate visits to our pages with your user account. We would like to point out that, as the provider of these pages, we have no knowledge of the content of the data transmitted or how it will be used by SoundCloud. For more information on SoundCloud’s privacy policy, please go to https://soundcloud.com/pages/privacy. If you do not want SoundCloud to associate your visit to our site with your SoundCloud account, please log out of your SoundCloud account.