Privacy Policy – VDE E-Race

1. Scope

This privacy policy explains how we process personal data when you visit erace-v.de and when you take part in the VDE E-Race, the ESO Qualification Trainings or other activities organised by the VDE E-Race team. It also explains your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

2. Controller

The controller responsible for processing your personal data is:

VDE Region Nord e.V.
represented by its Executive Board
Stadtbahnstraße 114
22391 Hamburg
Germany

Phone: +49 40 2702721
Email: info@vde-erace.de

The VDE E-Race is organised by volunteers on behalf of VDE Region Nord e.V.

3. Visiting our website

Hosting

Our website is hosted by Greenmark IT GmbH (do.de), Leinstraße 3, 31061 Alfeld (Leine), Germany. The provider processes data on our behalf under a data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR.

Server log files

Each time you access our website, the server automatically records:

IP address of the accessing device
date and time of access
page or file accessed
referring website (referrer)
browser type and version, operating system

We need this data to deliver the website, to ensure its stability and security, and to investigate misuse. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR; our legitimate interest lies in the secure and reliable operation of the website. Log files are deleted after a short period unless they are needed to investigate a specific security incident.

Fonts

The fonts used on this website are stored on our own server. No connection to Google or other font providers is established when you visit the site.

Cookies

Our website does not use cookies for visitors, nor any analytics or tracking tools.

4. Contacting us by email

If you email us, we process your email address, your name and the content of your message to answer your request. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR where your request relates to participation in one of our events, and Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR otherwise; our legitimate interest lies in answering enquiries. Our email accounts are provided by Google Workspace (see section 10).

5. Registrations via Google Forms

Registrations and submissions for our activities are collected via Google Forms, a service of Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland. This applies to:

team registration and team member registration for the VDE E-Race
volunteer registration (scrutineers, judges, media team, general support)
registration for the ESO Qualification Trainings
document uploads for the static events (Business Plan, Cost and Manufacturing, Engineering Design)

We process the data requested in the respective form, in particular contact details (name, email address), team and university, role in the team, VDE membership number, information on qualifications and practical experience, accommodation and catering preferences, and uploaded documents. The exact questions may differ between events and years; each form shows which information is required.

We use this data to organise the event or training, allocate places, plan accommodation and catering, and communicate with you. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (performance of the participation agreement and pre-contractual steps). Google processes the data on our behalf; see section 10 on transfers to third countries.

The forms open on google.com. Google’s own privacy policy also applies to your use of Google services, in particular if you are signed in to a Google account.

6. ESO mailing list

You can leave your email address in a Google Form to be notified about upcoming ESO Qualification Trainings. We use it once, to send you the registration link for the next training round. The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), which you can withdraw at any time by emailing info@vde-erace.de. We delete the sign-up data once the notification for that training round has been sent.

7. Photos and videos at our events

We take photos and videos at our events, or have them taken by our media team and photographers. We publish them on this website, on our social media channels and in press material to show what happens at the VDE E-Race and our other activities.

The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR; our legitimate interest lies in documenting our events and presenting the work of the association and the Formula Student community to the public. If you do not want to be photographed or filmed, please tell our media team or the event staff on site. If you would like a published photo of you removed, email info@vde-erace.deand we will take it down.

Photos of our organisational team on this website are published with the consent of the people shown (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR).

8. Links to social media

Our website links to our profiles on Instagram and Facebook (both operated by Meta Platforms Ireland Limited). These are plain links: no data is transferred to Meta when you visit our website. Only when you click a link and open the platform does Meta’s own privacy policy apply.

9. Recipients

Within the VDE E-Race team, only the volunteers who need your data for their task can access it (for example the statics team for uploaded documents, or the ESO training team for ESO registrations). We pass data to third parties only where there is a legal basis, in particular:

service providers processing data on our behalf (Art. 28 GDPR): our hosting provider and Google Ireland Limited (Google Workspace and Google Forms)
hosts of the ESO Qualification Trainings (participating Formula Student teams), to the extent needed to run the training on their premises
accommodation and catering partners of the VDE E-Race, to the extent needed for bookings
VDE e.V. where a VDE membership is required, for example to verify a membership number

We publish the list of registered teams and the event results on this website. These contain team names, not personal data of individual team members.

10. Transfers to third countries

Google may process data on servers outside the European Union, in particular in the USA. Google LLC is certified under the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework, for which the European Commission has adopted an adequacy decision (Art. 45 GDPR). In addition, our agreement with Google includes the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR).

11. Retention period

We store personal data only as long as it is needed for the event or training it was collected for and for any follow-up, such as confirming qualifications or answering questions about past events, or as long as statutory retention periods require. We then delete it.

Results and team lists in the event archive contain team names only and are kept permanently.

12. Is providing data required?

You are not legally obliged to provide personal data. However, we cannot register you for the VDE E-Race, the ESO Qualification Trainings or as a volunteer without the data marked as required in the respective form.

13. Your rights

Under the GDPR you have the right to:

access your personal data (Art. 15)
have inaccurate data corrected (Art. 16)
have your data deleted (Art. 17)
restrict processing (Art. 18)
receive your data in a portable format (Art. 20)
object to processing based on Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR, on grounds relating to your particular situation (Art. 21)
withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future (Art. 7(3))

To exercise these rights, an email to info@vde-erace.de or a letter to the address in section 2 is sufficient.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority (Art. 77 GDPR). The authority responsible for us is:

Der Hamburgische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit
Ludwig-Erhard-Straße 22, 7th floor
20459 Hamburg, Germany
mailbox@datenschutz.hamburg

14. Changes to this privacy policy

We update this privacy policy when our website or our processes change. The current version is always available on this page.

Last updated: 29.10.2026