Whistleblower office

All staff members and external partners who are connected to the University of Konstanz through their work can report suspected violations via the whistleblower portal. 

You can report violations such as: criminal offences and finable violations of regulations on the protection of life, health, staff rights, environmental protection, radiation protection, energy efficiency, animal welfare, data protection and data security, public procurement law, tax law, EU law and laws pertaining to the constitutional loyalty of civil servants.

You do not need any advanced legal knowledge to report a potential violation. The platform has various categories, including a Miscellaneous category ("Sonstiges"), to make it easy for you to make a report.

The system is hosted outside KIM on servers in Germany and Austria. It guarantees complete anonymity if you wish to remain anonymous. You are also welcome to provide us with more detailed information about yourself, which we will treat absolutely confidentially. The metadata is automatically removed from your uploaded data. After registering, you will receive a 16-digit ID. Please keep this ID in order to communicate with us via the system. You can either select one of the categories in the portal, or report the violation by voice message. The system can be used for written communication as well as for videoconferencing.

Within seven days, the internal reporting team will confirm having received your report. We will check your information for plausibility and take suitable follow-up action if necessary. After three months at the latest, we will notify you about measures already taken or planned, as well as the underlying reasons.

If your report does not fall under the whistleblower protection act, we will provide you with other relevant contacts. At your express request, we will forward your message. We would like to point out that the confidentiality requirements outside the whistleblower protection act are subject to less stringent rules.

We hope that the whistleblower portal will be used responsibly. Please do not shed suspicion on others without good reason. If you are unsure, please indicate that you suspect the violation or have heard about it from a third party.

The whistleblower may be held criminally liable for deliberately making untrue assertions and stating untrue facts. False assertions do not correspond to the respectful treatment of others at our university.

1. Data protection at a glance

General information

The following information provides an overview of what happens to your personal data when you visit this website. Personal data is all data with which you can be personally identified. You can find detailed information on data protection below this text.

Data collection on this website

Who is responsible for data collection on this website?

The website operator processes the data. You can find the contact details in the section "Responsible for data processing" in this data protection information.

How do we collect your data?

When you provide us with information, we collect e.g. the data you enter in a contact form.

When you visit the website, our IT systems collect other data automatically or with your consent. This is primarily technical data (e.g. internet browser, operating system or time of the page view).

What do we use your data for?

Some of the data is collected to ensure that the website functions without errors. Other data may be used to analyze your user behaviour.

What rights do you have with regard to your data?

You have the right to receive information about the origin, recipient and purpose of your stored personal data, at any time and free of charge. You also have the right to have personal data corrected or deleted. If you have given your consent to data processing, you can revoke this consent at any time for the future. Under certain circumstances, you also have the right to request the restriction of personal data processing. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant regulating authority.

You can contact us at any time if you have further questions on the subject of data protection.

2. Hosting

External hosting

An external service provider (hoster) hosts his website . The personal data collected on this website is stored on the hoster's servers. This mainly includes IP addresses, contact requests, meta and communication data, contract data, contact data, names, website accesses and other data generated via a website.

We have concluded an order processing contract with the service provider named below. This is a contract as required by data protection law, which ensures that the service provider processes the personal data of our website visitors only in accordance with our instructions and in compliance with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

If a corresponding consent has been requested, the processing is carried out exclusively on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a) GDPR and § 25 para. 1 TDDDG, insofar as the consent includes the storage of cookies or access to information in the user's end device (e.g. device fingerprinting) within the meaning of the TDDDG (German act on data protection and privacy in telecommunications and digital services). Consent can be revoked at any time.

Our hoster will only process your data to the extent necessary to fulfil the contractual performance obligations and will follow our instructions with regard to this data.

Our hoster is:

Gesellschaft für Datenschutz<br/> Holzweg 9<br/> 38302 Wolfenbüttel

Email: hinweis@gesellschaft-datenschutz.de

3. Data protection and mandatory information

Data protection

The operators of these pages take the protection of your personal data very seriously. We treat your personal data confidentially and in accordance with statutory data protection regulations as well as this data protection information.

When you use this website, various personal data is collected. Personal data is data that can be used to identify you. This data protection information explains what data we collect and what we use it for. It also explains how and for what purpose we do so.

We would like to point out that data transmission over the Internet (e.g. when communicating by email) may be subject to security gaps. We have taken state-of-the-art security measures and continuously adapt them to the security situation in order to protect your data against threats in the best possible way.

Responsible for data processing

Responsible for data processing on this website is the:

University of Konstanz

represented by the Rectorate<br/> 78457 Konstanz, Germany

Phone: +49 7531 88-0

Internal responsibility:

Division of Legal Affairs, internal audit team<br/> Email: hinweisgeberschutz@uni-konstanz.de

The natural or legal person who alone or jointly with others determines the purposes and means of processing personal data (e.g. names, email address etc.) is responsible for data processing.

Data protection officer

You can contact the data protection officer of the university at:

Email: datenschutzbeauftragter@uni-konstanz.de

Website: www.uni-konstanz.de/datenschutz/

Storage duration

Your data will be deleted three years after the procedure in the context of the whistleblower protection act has been concluded. In exceptional cases, a longer storage period may apply as per § 11 para. 5 of the whistleblower protection act (Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz - HinSchG). If you make a justified request for deletion or revoke your consent to data processing, your data will be deleted unless we have other legally permissible reasons for storing your personal data (e.g. retention periods under tax or commercial law); in the latter case, deletion will take place once these reasons no longer apply.

General information on the legal basis for data processing on this website

Data is processed on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. c), para. 3 GDPR and Art. 9 para. 2 lit. g) GDPR in conjunction with the whistleblower protection act (Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz - HinSchG).

If you have consented to data processing, we process your personal data on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a) GDPR or Art. 9 para. 2 lit. a) GDPR, insofar as special categories of data are processed as per Art. 9 para. 1 GDPR. If you have consented to the storage of cookies or access to information on your end device (e.g. via device fingerprinting), data is also processed on the basis of § 25 para. 1 TDDDG. Consent can be revoked at any time.  The following sections of this data protection information provide information on the relevant legal bases in each individual case.

Withdrawal of your consent to data processing

Many data processing operations are only possible with your express consent. You can withdraw your consent at any time. The withdrawal of consent will not affect the lawfulness of data processing that took place before consent was withdrawn.

Right to lodge a complaint with the relevant regulating authority

In the event of breaches of the GDPR, the affected persons have the right to lodge a complaint with a regulating authority, in particular in the member state of their habitual residence, place of work or place of the alleged violation. The right to lodge a complaint exists irrespective of other administrative or judicial remedies.

Right to data transfer

You have the right to have data that we process automatically on the basis of your consent transmitted to you or to a third party in a commonly used, machine-readable format. If you request the direct transfer of the data to another unit responsible, this will only be done to the extent that it is technically feasible.

SSL or TLS encryption

This site uses SSL or TLS encryption 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. You can recognize an encrypted connection when the URL changes from "http://" to "https://" and the lock symbol appears in the address line.

If SSL or TLS encryption is activated, the data you transmit to us cannot be read by third parties.

Information, deletion and correction

Within the framework of the applicable legal provisions, you have the right at any time to free information about your stored personal data, its origin and recipients, the purpose of the data processing and, if necessary, a right to correction or deletion of this data. You can contact us at any time if you have further questions on the subject of personal data.

Right to restriction of processing

You also have the right to demand that the processing of your personal data be restricted. To do so, you can contact us at any time. You have the right to restricted data processing in the following cases:

• If you dispute the accuracy of your personal data we have stored, we usually need time to check this. For the duration of the check, you have the right to request that the processing of your personal data be restricted.
• If the processing of your personal data was/is carried out unlawfully, you can request the restriction of data processing instead of deletion.
• If we no longer need your personal data, but you need it for the exercise, defence or assertion of legal claims, you have the right to request the restriction of the processing of your personal data instead of deletion.

If you have restricted the processing of your personal data, this data – apart from its storage – may only be processed with your consent or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person or for reasons of important public interest of the European Union or of a member state.

4. Data collection on this website

Cookies

Our websites use session cookies. Session cookies are temporarily stored on your end device for the duration of a session and are automatically deleted at the end of your visit. 

The use of session cookies is technically necessary for the provision of the log-in function and is based on § 25 para. 2 of the German act on data protection and privacy in telecommunications and digital services (TDDDG).

The storage of these cookies is necessary so the digital service can be provided without any technical errors.

Server log files

The website provider does not collect and store any information in server log files.

Reporting form and message function

If you send us a message using the reporting form or message function, we will store your entries to process your report. 

This data is processed on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. c), para 3 GDPR and Art. 9 para. 2 lit. g) GDPR in conjunction with § 10 HinSchG. We will keep the data you enter in the form until the purpose for data storage no longer applies. Mandatory statutory provisions – in particular retention periods – remain unaffected.