Merz Aesthetics GmbH, Eckenheimer Landstraße 100, 60318 Frankfurt am Main, Germany, (“Merz”, “we”, “us”) operates this website. We respect your privacy and want you to understand how we use your personal data. This Privacy Policy describes when, why and how we collect and use your information when you make use of the website www.merzmedicalforum.com (the “website”). Merz Aesthetics GmbH is part of a global network of Merz affiliates that operate in multiple nations across Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East, Latin and North America. This privacy policy has been constructed under the framework of the EU General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Personal data is information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, such as your name, email address, training information, national identification number, physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural, social identifiers and, in some cases, IP address or mobile device identifier.

When you use this website, Merz collects personal data about you so that we can (1) provide you access to the website; (2) provide you information and or promotions regarding Merz products and (3) to improve your experience of our website. For example, we may ask if you would like to receive information about our products or promotions, in which case we may ask you for personal data such as your name, mailing address or email address. 

Merz collects personal data about you when you register for the website ("Registration Data") that allows you to continue to access its restricted content. Registration Data includes your name, email address, content you have watched on the website and the geographic area where you practice. Merz may use this data for marketing purposes, where legally permissible. In this case, we may edit it in relation to the purpose of the processing and forward it to the appropriate contact person in your country so that we can contact you in accordance with your specific interest. 

Furthermore in some cases, you will be asked to acknowledge that the content of the video/podcast/article may be considered as off-label content in your country. Your acknowledgement is stored in connection with your user profile in order to provide appropriate answers in case of queries. 

Merz may collect technical information when you visit our websites such as your Internet Protocol ("IP") address, internet browser type, browser language, and the date and time of your visit. Gathering this information helps protect the security of our websites and helps us understand aggregate statistical information regarding how our website is used. It also allows us to register you and provide you credentials to use the site. Merz may also use your IP address to help identify geographic-specific content to make sure you see information applicable to you as a user from your country of residence. This processing is accordance with our Cookie Policy, which can be found here:

The legal basis for the processing of the data is Art. 6 (1) S. 1 lit. b and f GDPR.

If you use the contact form to send us a message or contact us by other means (such as by e-mail), we may store this message in order to process your request. We will use your personal data for the purpose specified by you in the contact form. If it is necessary to send information or documents to third parties outside of Merz, we will first remove all personal data not required for fulfil your request. Merz uses appropriate measures, such as the European Commissions’ standard contractual clauses (and any national addendums) to protect any personal data transferred outside of the European Union, regardless whether such data is processed by affiliated Merz companies or by other third parties.

Merz relies on the support of specialised technical service providers for the technical processing of personal data. These service providers are carefully selected and are legally and contractually committed to ensuring a high level of data protection, in accordance with Art. 28 of the GDPR. In connection with the provision of the registration portal, HeyPlatform (Athletia Invest GmbH) acts as service provider on behalf of Merz. The registration portal is hosted on servers of Amazon Web Services (AWS) within the European Economic Area. This platform has been subject to the Merz Data Protection Impact Assessment process.

With the following information, we inform you about the contents of our newsletter as well as the registration, dispatch and statistical evaluation procedure and your rights of objection. By the Website, you agree to receive it in accordance with the procedures described below.

Content of the newsletter: We send newsletters, e-mails and other electronic notifications with new content on our website, services, webcasts (hereinafter "Newsletter") you are able to opt out of this Newsletter at any time.. We may also keep you informed of vital information, such as website availability or major updates, we consider this strictly necessary.

Service provider: The newsletter is sent by:

CleverReach GmbH & Co. KG 
 //CRASH Building  
Schafjückenweg 2  
26180 Rastede  
Deutschland  


You can view the privacy policy of the shipping service provider here:

Changes to your data stored with the shipping service provider are also logged

Furthermore, according to its own information, the shipping service provider may use this data in pseudonymous form, i.e. without assigning it to a user, to optimise or improve its own services, e.g. to technically optimise the dispatch and presentation of the newsletters or for statistical purposes to determine which countries the recipients come from. However, the service provider does not use the data of our Newsletter recipients to write to them itself or to pass them on to third parties. 

The subscribed newsletters contain so-called tracking pixels. A tracking pixel is a miniature graphic that is embedded in e-mails in HTML format. Merz can use the embedded tracking pixel to recognise whether and when the newsletter was opened by the recipient and which links contained in the newsletter were called up by the recipient. Data collected via tracking pixels contained in the newsletters are stored and processed anonymously for statistical purposes in order to optimise the newsletter dispatch and to better adapt the content of future newsletters to the interests of the recipients. 

This service provider has been carefully selected and is legally and contractually committed to ensuring a high level of data protection, in accordance with Art. 28 of the GDPR. Cancellation/revocation: You can cancel the receipt of our newsletter at any time, i.e. revoke your consent. You will find a link to cancel the newsletter at the end of each newsletter. If the users have cancelled the newsletter receipt, the users' personal data processed for its sending will be deleted.

Where this Website contains links to other Merz Group websites (e.g. expert group website) or websites belonging to third-party companies, or provides apps to download, this privacy policy does not apply. Please see those websites or apps for information about how they manage your personal data.

Unless otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy, personal data will be erased by Merz if it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was processed and if the retention periods prescribed by law have expired. Contractually relevant data are usually erased ten years after the termination of the respective contract with Merz.

You have various rights under data protection laws which you can exercise by contacting us. The easiest way to do this is by email at dataprotection@merz.de. These including the right to:

• access your personal data (also known as a “subject access request”);
• correct incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you;
• ask us to erase the personal data we hold about you;
• ask us to restrict our handling of your personal data;
• ask us to transfer your personal data to a third party;
• object to how we are using your personal data; and
• withdraw your consent to us handling your personal data.
   

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your relevant supervisory authority, you can find which one applies to you here. 

Complaints should first be made to the Data Protection Officer at: 

Merz Aesthetics GmbH 

Data Protection 

Eckenheimer Landstrasse 100 

60318 Frankfurt am Main 

Germany