1. Who is responsible
The controller is opd – Organisation zum Erhalt der Demokratie e.V., Dreilindenstr. 38, 14109 Berlin, Germany, represented by its executive board Lars Mährholz, Christian Much and Benjamin Ott. You can contact us at kontakt@opd-deutschland.org or +49 30 26575600. Please also use these details for privacy questions and requests about your personal data.
2. Visiting the website and hosting
The website and its database run on our virtual private server provided by IONOS SE, Elgendorfer Straße 57, 56410 Montabaur, Germany. The server is located in the United Kingdom. An adequacy decision of the European Commission under Article 45 GDPR applies to the United Kingdom. Further information is available from the European Commission.
When a page is requested, necessary connection data is processed, including the IP address, time, requested address, response status and browser information where supplied. This is used to deliver the website, investigate errors and prevent misuse. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in secure operation under Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. Technical logs are rotated according to their size, so there is no uniform retention period expressed in days. Messages and survey answers are not intentionally written to application logs. Authorised administrators and our hosting and email providers receive the access needed for their tasks.
3. Necessary cookies and protection against misuse
We use the sessionid session cookie for sign-in and requested features; its normal lifetime is 24 hours. The csrftoken cookie protects forms against submissions initiated by another website and also lasts for 24 hours. Necessary cookies may be renewed when a protected feature is used again. Session data is stored in our database. These necessary device accesses are based on section 25(2), point 2 TDDDG; subsequent processing provides the requested feature or protects its security under Article 6(1)(b) or (f) GDPR.
To limit automated submissions, we check a hidden form field, the minimum time between loading and submitting a form, and request limits. This uses short-lived, purpose-specific verification keys derived from an IP address or the relevant account/email identifier. The request-limit store does not retain a plain-text IP address. This protection does not mean that upstream technical logs can never contain an IP address. We do not load an external CAPTCHA service.
If you save a choice in the Privacy settings dialog, it is stored with a timestamp under opd-privacy-v1 in local browser storage. It remains until you change that choice or clear the website data in your browser. This entry does not currently activate an analytics provider.
4. Accounts and membership applications
For an account, we process your username, email address, a protected password verification value, confirmation and security information, and account status. Email verification and password resets use time-limited links. A verified account does not by itself mean that membership has been approved.
For a membership application, we process the details in the relevant form, its receipt, review status and the board's decision. New applications are accepted; the board decides on admission. The trial phase is free of charge. The current online process does not require an identity-document copy and does not provide file uploads. Handling a requested application and providing an account are based on Article 6(1)(b) GDPR. Where voluntary information reveals political opinions or related interests, we obtain separately explained explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a) GDPR.
If you enable optional two-factor authentication, we store the necessary device and verification information in the protected database. Your authenticator generates codes on your device; this does not require a text message or telephone number. Recovery codes are intended only to recover access to the second factor; the server stores only their verification hashes and consumes each code when used. Editorial staff accounts must use a second factor.
5. Voluntary surveys
Each survey states its purpose, question, choices and participation conditions before submission. We process political answers on the basis of your explicit consent under Article 6(1)(a) and Article 9(2)(a) GDPR. No answer is stored without that consent. Participation is voluntary. Results are not representative and are not official election or referendum results.
Answers are stored separately from accounts and records used to prevent repeat participation. The answer record contains no email address, user identifier or IP address. A survey-specific verification key is used to prevent repeat submissions. For a survey explicitly offered without an account, this is based on a random browser identifier held in the session. Such a restriction cannot prove that each person participates only once. Separation reduces the risk of linking answers to individuals; it is not an absolute guarantee of anonymity.
Only approved aggregate results are made public. Answer distributions are shown only once at least ten valid answers to the relevant question have been received; before then, the participation count may be visible. Free-text answers and individual ballots are not displayed publicly. The normal administrative interface does not show the board a mapping between individual answers and members.
You can withdraw consent for future processing using our privacy contact. We will assess which data can still be linked to you. We do not recombine separate answer and account data solely to identify a respondent. If an individual answer can no longer be linked to you, it cannot be selectively removed using only your name or email address. Result summaries that are genuinely non-personal may remain available.
6. Proposals and support
If you propose a topic or a public figure, we store the proposal, its association with your account and its review status for moderation. Support is associated with an account so that it is counted once and can be withdrawn. Proposals and support may reveal political opinions. We therefore use the explicit consent explained at the point of submission under Article 6(1)(a) and Article 9(2)(a) GDPR.
Only after moderation may a proposal's title, factual explanation and public status appear on the website. The names of contributors and supporters are not automatically published. Please do not submit private contact details, health information or confidential information about other people. Nominating a public figure does not imply that person's consent or an existing role at OPD.
7. Enquiries, volunteering and events
For contact, feedback, volunteering and partner enquiries, we store the contact/message details submitted through the form and the handling status. We use these to handle and respond to the request, under Article 6(1)(b) or (f) GDPR depending on its purpose. If you voluntarily provide political information, we additionally request the necessary explicit consent. Please provide only what is needed for your enquiry.
For event registration, we store the account, event, registration status and any cancellation. This supports your requested attendance and event organisation under Article 6(1)(b) GDPR. Where attendance at a specifically political event reveals special-category data, this is explained before registration and explicit consent is obtained. Attendee lists are not published.
8. Email and newsletters
Account confirmations, password links and necessary organisational messages are sent through IONOS using encrypted SMTP transport. Our technical sender address is server@dabrain.biz. Email processing includes the recipient address, subject, message and delivery information. Our contact address remains kontakt@opd-deutschland.org. Transport encryption is not end-to-end encryption of the mailbox.
You receive the newsletter only after signing up and separately confirming your email address. We store the address, language, request/confirmation time, consent version and subscription status. Consent is separate from membership, enquiries and survey participation. The basis is Article 6(1)(a) GDPR and, where an interest in political content is revealed, Article 9(2)(a) GDPR. You can unsubscribe at any time using the unsubscribe link or by contacting us. No further newsletters will then be sent to you. Newsletters do not use open-tracking pixels or individual click tracking.
9. TestCoins during the free trial
Exactly one TestCoin is recorded for an eligible completed survey. We store a test account, the entry, a receipt used to prevent duplicate credits and the applicable rule version. No answer or answer ID is included in the ledger. Providing this test account is based on Article 6(1)(b) GDPR.
A TestCoin has an explanatory reference value of EUR 0.50. These are test credits with no right to a cash payout. No future conversion, payout or transfer to a later scheme is promised. The current service does not collect bank, payment-card or cryptocurrency-wallet details for this purpose, and does not publish personal data on a blockchain.
10. Retention and deletion
Account and newsletter confirmation links last for 24 hours; password-reset links last for one hour. Unconfirmed accounts and newsletter sign-ups are removed after seven days by the daily cleanup. Expired sessions and request-limit verification keys are also cleaned up. Depending on the protection involved, these short-lived limit keys expire within two hours.
Unsubscribed newsletter records are retained for up to 180 days as a restricted record of the opt-out and then deleted. Form submissions are removed after 180 days if the case is closed, and generally after 365 days at the latest. These periods are measured from receipt. Ongoing membership is managed through the membership status; it does not justify retaining every original form message indefinitely.
Raw answers and the separate records used to prevent repeat participation are deleted by the daily cleanup 90 days after a survey ends. The results archive keeps only the participation count and previously approved aggregates meeting the minimum of ten answers per question; free-text answers are not archived. This also applies when a completed survey is no longer offered publicly.
Active account details remain necessary to operate the account and membership you use. You can request account deletion in your account or by contacting us. Public, moderated factual content and non-personal survey summaries do not necessarily disappear as a result; where they still contain personal data, we assess removal separately. Specific legal obligations or a particular legal dispute may require limited further retention.
Account deletion removes your form submissions, proposals and support records, and the newsletter subscription associated with the account. The link between the test-credit ledger and your account is removed. These orphaned test entries remain for limited traceability for up to 365 days after account deletion, then are removed by the daily cleanup. Retaining them does not create a right to a payout.
Technical logs follow the size-based rotation described above. Verified, access-restricted local VPS backups have a retention period of 30 days. Backups that cannot be verified are held securely for separate investigation and review. Deleted data may remain in a backup until that period expires; those backups are not used for normal website operation. Messages in email inboxes used to handle enquiries are reviewed for continuing necessity once the matter is concluded. We do not claim an automatic fixed deletion period for those mailboxes.
11. No unrequested audience tracking
No analytics or advertising tracker is currently active. Local fonts and website functionality are delivered by our server. External links contact the linked provider only when you follow them. Any later optional measurement or external integration would be activated only after appropriate information and, where required, your consent.
12. Your rights
Subject to the legal conditions, you can request access, correction, deletion, restriction of processing and data portability. Where processing is based on legitimate interests, you can object for reasons arising from your particular situation. You can withdraw consent for the future; this does not affect the lawfulness of earlier processing. Please contact kontakt@opd-deutschland.org. Your account also provides a data export and account deletion.
You can complain to a data-protection supervisory authority, for example the Berlin Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. The board decides on membership applications; we do not make that decision solely by automated means. Choosing not to provide information prevents only the function for which it is needed.
Last updated: 4 November 2026.