Privacy Policy

1. Data Controller

The data controller responsible for this website under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is:

Julian Schempp
Rotenkruger Weg 88
12305 Berlin
Germany
Email: [email protected]

2. What Data We Collect and Why

2.1 Enquiry Form

When you send an enquiry to a school through this site, we collect and forward:

• your name. Your email address stays with us: the school receives a reply address we create for your enquiry instead (see "Replies pass through us" below), so it never sees yours;
• which school and course you selected;
• what you told us about your enquiry: whether you want course information, want to book a place, or want help finding your level; your German level (or that you would like a placement test); the month you want to start; whether you need a visa; and anything you wrote in the message field.

We also store, alongside your enquiry and not sent to the school: the date and time you submitted it, the version of the form and the exact notice text you were shown above the send button, and technical details we keep to defend the form against automated abuse (see 2.6). We keep a copy of the email itself so we can show you, or the school, exactly what was sent.

The enquiry email goes to the school you chose, and a blind copy comes to us at [email protected]. We read that copy to see that the enquiry actually left, to answer you if the school does not reply, and to resolve any dispute about what was sent.

Replies pass through us. The school's reply is addressed to a reply address we create for your enquiry alone (for example anfrage+…@reply.lingomap.io) and is passed on to your email address automatically; your replies to the school travel the same way. We store each relayed message (sender, subject, text, attachments count) alongside your enquiry and receive a blind copy, for the same three reasons as above and so that we can see whether and when a school answered. Nobody reads these messages as a matter of routine. About three days after your enquiry we send you one email asking whether the school got back to you; your answer (booked / replied / no reply) is stored with the enquiry and is only recorded when you confirm it on our site. If you answer "no reply", we contact the school about your enquiry and tell you what we hear.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR — performance of a contract, or of steps taken at your request before one. Forwarding your enquiry to the school you selected is the service you asked us for; it is not an optional extra, so we do not ask for consent for it. There is no consent checkbox on the form. Keeping the record of what was sent rests on Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, our legitimate interest in being able to prove what we forwarded and to whom.

The school is a separate, independent controller for the data it receives — not our processor. Once your enquiry reaches it, it decides on its own how it uses your data, and it owes you its own information under Art. 14 GDPR. Requests about the copy the school holds — access, correction, erasure — have to go to that school; we cannot act on its behalf. Section 5 covers the copy we hold.

Retention: we delete an enquiry — including every relayed reply and your check-in answer — 6 months after it was sent. Where an enquiry has become the basis of an invoice to a school, the record of it is kept for 3 years from the end of the year in which the claim arose — the standard limitation period under § 195 BGB — so that both sides can still prove what was delivered, and is then deleted.

2.2 Google Analytics

With your consent we use Google Analytics 4 (Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland) to analyse how visitors use this website. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect anonymised usage data including pages visited, time on site and approximate location (country/city level).

Your IP address is anonymised before transmission. Data may be transferred to Google servers in the United States under Standard Contractual Clauses (Art. 46 GDPR).

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR — consent via cookie banner.

Retention: 14 months (Google Analytics default).

You can opt out at any time by clicking "Decline" in the cookie banner, or by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

2.3 Returning-Visitor Recognition

With your consent we set a first-party cookie (lm_vid) containing a randomly generated ID, so we can tell whether a visit to the site is from a browser we've seen before. This is used only in our own internal analytics dashboard to measure how often visitors return — it is not shared with any third party and is not linked to your name, email, or any other identifying information.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR — consent via cookie banner (the same choice covers this and Google Analytics together).

Retention: the cookie itself expires after 1 year. Page-visit records tied to this ID are kept as part of our general analytics data and are not separately deleted sooner.

You can opt out at any time by clicking "Decline" in the cookie banner — this deletes the cookie immediately and no further visits are linked together.

2.4 Google Maps

School and course pages can show a Google Maps map (Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland). No map loads until you press "Load map". Until you do, nothing on the page contacts Google: there is no map, no hidden frame, and no connection opened in advance. The address and the transit directions link are plain text and need no map.

When you do press it, your IP address and browser information are transmitted to Google, and may be transferred to Google servers in the United States. If you tick "Always load maps", that choice is stored in your browser's local storage on your own device — never sent to us — and maps then load without asking again. Clearing your browser's site data removes it.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR — your consent, given by pressing the button. Before 2026-09-08 the map loaded as soon as it scrolled into view, which we relied on Art. 6(1)(f) to justify; a transfer the visitor never triggered is not something a legitimate interest can carry, so both the behaviour and the basis have changed.

2.5 Google Reviews (Places API)

We display publicly available Google reviews for language schools via the Google Places API. No personal data about site visitors is collected through this feature.

2.6 Server Logs

Our hosting provider (Hetzner Online GmbH, Industriestr. 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, Germany) automatically logs standard server access data (IP address, browser type, pages accessed, timestamps). These logs are used solely for security and technical maintenance purposes.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR — legitimate interest in operating a secure website.

Retention: 7 days.

2.7 Emailing Your Saved Courses

If you use the "Email this list to yourself" button on your saved courses page, we collect the email address you enter and the courses you saved, and send you a one-off email listing them. We keep a record of this (the address and which courses/schools) in our own internal analytics, so we can see how the feature is used. We do not add this address to any mailing list or share it with any school or other third party.

Legal basis: Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR — necessary to carry out the specific action you requested; Art. 6(1)(f) — legitimate interest in understanding feature usage.

Retention: up to 12 months, then deleted.

3. Cookies

We use the following cookies:

Cookie	Purpose	Duration	Type
csrftoken	Security — prevents cross-site request forgery	1 year	Essential
lm_cookie_consent	Remembers your cookie preference	1 year	Essential
_ga, _ga_*	Google Analytics — distinguishes users	2 years	Analytics (consent)
lm_vid	Recognises a returning visitor — our own first-party analytics, no third party	1 year	Analytics (consent)
lm_notrack	Per-device opt-out — excludes this device from our analytics entirely	5 years	Essential

4. Data Sharing

We share your data only in the following cases:

• Language schools — everything listed in 2.1 (your name, email, the course you chose, your level, start month, visa status and message) when you send an enquiry, to the one school you selected and no other. That school is an independent controller, not our processor
• Google — analytics data (with consent) and server-side Maps/Reviews API calls
• Hetzner — our hosting provider processes server logs as a data processor under a Data Processing Agreement
• Postmark (ActiveCampaign, LLC) — sends every email this site sends on our behalf (enquiries, claim requests, saved-course-list emails) as our email-delivery processor

We do not sell personal data to third parties.

5. Your Rights

Under GDPR you have the following rights:

• Access (Art. 15) — request a copy of your personal data
• Rectification (Art. 16) — correct inaccurate data
• Erasure (Art. 17) — request deletion of your data
• Restriction (Art. 18) — limit how we process your data
• Portability (Art. 20) — receive your data in a machine-readable format
• Objection (Art. 21) — object to processing based on legitimate interest
• Withdraw consent (Art. 7(3)) — at any time for consent-based processing

To exercise any right, contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within 30 days.

6. Right to Lodge a Complaint

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The competent authority for Berlin is:

Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit
Alt-Moabit 59–61, 10555 Berlin
www.datenschutz-berlin.de

7. Changes to this Policy

We may update this policy as the website grows. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised. Material changes will be communicated via a notice on the website.