Privacy Policy for LIB Biodiversity Data Center

This data protection declaration is a general clarification of the type, scope and purpose of the processing of personal data within our online offering and the associated websites, functions and content. If requirements of individual services operated by the LIB Biodiversity Data Center require additional rules to this Privacy Policy, then these will be regulated separately and made available to the user.

With regard to the terms used, such as “personal data” or their “processing”, we refer you to the definitions in Art. 4 of the General Data Protection Regulation (DGPR).

The LIB Biodiversity Data Center stores personal data that are included in the data submitted to LIB Biodiversity Data Center. Personal data are all data that can be used to identify a real person either directly or indirectly by combination.

Responsible for the LIB Biodiversity Data Center and data processing according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the:

Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB)
Foundation under public law
Adenauerallee 127
53113 Bonn
Email: datenschutz [at] leibniz-lib [dot] de

You have the right to request a copy of all personal data stored about you and to request the deletion or correction of these data. The request can be send to the Biodiversity Informatics Department of the LIB (address see below) or via email to datacenter@leibniz-lib.de. Details on your rights to access, correct and delete your personal data are described in paragraphs 6, 7, 8, and 9 of this document.

1 Collection and processing of personal data

The LIB Biodiversity Data Center serves the LIB in the task to contribute to taxonomic and molecular biodiversity research and the conservation of global biodiversity, documenting and analyzing evolutionary and ecological biodiversity change and engaging in public communication on biodiversity change and its potential causes by storing, managing and publishing research data related to this task. It is operated by the Biodiversity Informatics Department at LIB. The collection and processing of the research data is handled according to the rules of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as founding agency and the policies of the German Research Foundation (DFG).

For quality assurance and re-usability of the research data it is important to have a complete documentation of data collection and applied sampling methods. Therefore, the research data stored and processed by the LIB Biodiversity Data Center and its data processing systems contain personal data, like collector names, sampling sites and their GPS coordinates and sampling dates.

In short, the data contain:

  • Name(s) of the collectors that have done the specimen collection
  • Name(s) of persons who have carried out species determinations
  • Name(s) of persons who have delivered or borrowed biological objects
  • Name(s) of persons who edited the data

Names may be accompanied by additional personal identifying information, such as email addresses or phone numbers. The input of personal or business data (e.g. e-mail addresses) takes place voluntarily.

These data are made publicly available under the condition that the person has given his / her permission. The permission to publish the data can be revoked on the level of single entries after consultation of the Biodiversity Informatics Department.

If personal data of third parties are included in the data transmitted to LIB Biodiversity Data Center (e. g. persons that participated in specimen collection), the data provider must have permission to transmit the data. In addition, the data provider must have informed the persons about the usage of their personal data at LIB Biodiversity Data Center. Persons who's data have been provided to LIB Biodiversity Data Center by others have the same rights on requesting, correction and deletion of their personal data as the data provider.

According to research data management policies 1,2 of the German Research Foundation (DFG) the collected research data with the contained personal data are stored for at least 10 years:

2 Sharing and disclosure of personal data to third parties

The collected research data will be published in order to fulfill the scientific goal of LIB and make the results available to the interested public, researchers, as well as scientific and administrative institutions. The personal data of collectors can be anonymized before publication when data providers request it. The anonymization can be done after consultation with the responsible scientific curator of the data. The request can be send to the Biodiversity Informatics Department of the LIB (see address below) that will forward it to the responsible scientific curator of the data.

3 Contact address to request deletion, correction, or accessing personal data and to revoke the agreement of personal data handling

For all requests on deletion, correction, access and agreement on personal data collected please contact:

Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB)
Section for Biodiversity Informatics
Adenauerallee 127
53113 Bonn
Email: datacenter(at)leibniz-lib.de

4 Deletion or correction of personal data

Users can request the deletion or correction of their personal data by contacting the Biodiversity Informatics Department of LIB (see address above). A deletion of data copied and stored by other services on the internet (e.g. archiving services, scientific portals) cannot be carried out.

5 Access to collected personal data

Collected personal data will be made available to the concerned person in machine.readable or human-readable form. Users can request information on their personal data and the data themselves by contacting the Biodiversity Informatics Department of LIB (see address above). The request will be processed within a period of 4 weeks, if the requesting person can provide a valid authentication.

6 Revoke the agreement to collect personal data

Data providers can revoke their given agreement to the collection and handling of personal data. The collected data will then be deleted within 4 weeks. The person who wants to revoke his/her agreement will be asked for an authentication. The revoke-request can be send to the Biodiversity Informatics Department of the LIB (address see above).

7 Right of appeal at the regulating authority

In accordance to article 13 of the GDPR users have the right of appeal at the regulating authority. The address is (see: https://www.ldi.nrw.de/kontakt):

Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen
Postfach 20 04 44
40102 Düsseldorf
Email: poststelle(at)ldi.nrw.de
Public PGP-Key: https://www.ldi.nrw.de/metanavi_Kontakt/key_ldi.asc

8 Contact data of the LIB data protection officer

Thorsten Klug
Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB)
Adenauerallee 127
53113 Bonn
Email: datenschutz(at)leibniz-lib.de