Privacy policy

General information

Protecting your privacy and your personal data rights is very important to the Federal Ministry of Finance. The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets out uniform EU-wide norms that guarantee the protection of personal data.

You have the right to know what data we collect, when we collect data, and the purposes for which we use data. We have taken technical and organisational measures to ensure that the relevant data protection provisions are observed, both by us and by our external service providers.

Changes to our privacy policy may become necessary as we continue to update our online services and deploy new technologies. We would therefore recommend that you re-read this policy from time to time.

In general, you can use the Finance Ministry’s website without having to provide personal data.

The information below provides a comprehensive overview of how the Finance Ministry guarantees the protection of your data as well as what type of data is collected and for what purpose.

How your data is processed on this website

Data is collected and exchanged every time you visit a website. The Finance Ministry or its service provider automatically store data in log files, which your browser transmits to our server. This includes:

  • your IP address,
  • the type and version of your internet browser,
  • the operating system you are using,
  • the webpage you have requested,
  • the time of the server request.

The Finance Ministry analyses this data, which are first rendered anonymous, for purely statistical purposes in order to measure interest in its website and improve the website. It is not possible for the Finance Ministry to trace this data back to specific individuals.

This data is not collated with other sources of data (e.g. contact details for the contact form). Our service provider stores IP addresses for a 30-day period and then automatically deletes them. Data logged during visits to the website of the Finance Ministry’s website is only shared with third parties if we are obliged to do so by legal provisions or by court decisions, or if it is necessary to provide the data for the purposes of legal or criminal proceedings in the event of attacks on the internet infrastructure used by the Finance Ministry. These are the only cases in which data is shared

Social media

The information that the Finance Ministry publishes on its website is also available on social media platforms. We currently have active feeds on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and TikTok. We use a widget to display content from X (formerly Twitter) on our website. We do not use client plug-ins for content-sharing functions. When the widget is displayed and the share function is used, however, communication is established with this service.

We would like to explicitly point out that these platforms store their users’ data (such as personal information and IP addresses) in accordance with their own data use policies and use this data for commercial purposes. Please consult each social media platform’s privacy policy to find out about your rights and how you can change your settings to protect your privacy.

You can share the information published on our website with other users on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Facebook.

Cookies

Cookies can be managed using all internet browsers. Most browsers are set up in such a way as to accept all cookies, without asking the user. However, you can also block individual or all cookies.

We use cookies for the following purposes:

Required cookies

Some cookies are necessary to provide you with the basic functions of this website and therefore cannot be disabled.

  • Session cookies

    Session cookies are used when individual webpages are consulted, but these temporary cookies do not contain any personal data.
    We do not use technologies such as Java applets or ActiveX controls, through which users’ access behaviour can be traced.

    Load balancer

    Another session cookie is used to assign visitors a specific load balancer. The load balancer ensures that visitors to the website always remain on the same server during a particular session, instead of being redirected between different servers.

    Hide cookie banner

    This cookie is used to hide the cookie banner and prevents it from being displayed again if users have already made a selection.

    Cookie banner settings

    This cookie stores the setting for required cookies [“Required for technical reasons (cannot be deselected)”] as the default in the cookie banner when visiting the website.

Non-required cookies

Web analytics

Our website uses Matomo (formerly PIWIK), a web analytics platform. Matomo also uses cookies, which allow us to analyse how the website is used: The user information generated by the cookie (including the shortened IP address) is sent to our server and stored for analysis, which helps us optimise our website. The user’s IP address is immediately rendered anonymous in this procedure, ensuring that the user remains anonymous. The information that cookies collect regarding website use is not forwarded to third parties.

If you do not agree to the storage and analysis of the data from your visit, you can object any time, below, with a single click.

Check your data

Please click here to find out where to check on any internet browser whether cookies are being used, and what they contain. You can find detailed information on data protection on the website of the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (only in German) and on the website of the Federal Office for Information Security.

Protection of minors

If you are under 16 years of age, please do not send us any personal data without the consent of your parent or guardian. We do not request any personal data from minors, nor do we knowingly collect such data.

Right of access and right to object

You always have the right to access information regarding the personal data which has been collected concerning you. You also have the right to access information as to their source, the recipient and the purpose of storing your data. You also have the right to rectification, the right to erasure and the right to restriction of processing. In addition, you have the right to object to the processing of your data. Please contact the Ministry’s web team if you require further information about how stored data is processed (internetredaktion@bmf.bund.de).

If you have any questions regarding the handling of personal data at the Federal Ministry of Finance, please contact our data protection officer:

E-Mail: datenschutz@bmf.bund.de
Phone: +49 (0)30 / 18 682-3208

Right of appeal to data protection supervisory authority

If you suspect that the proccessing of your personal data has violated you rights, you can get in touch with the responsible data protection supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR):

Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information
Graurheindorfer Straße 153
53117 Bonn
E-Mail: poststelle@bfdi.bund.de