Privacy policy

1. Controller

Hongsik Kim, Kkachisan-ro 113-1, Nr. 101, Gangseo-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Email: support@lebeninkorea.com

The controller is also responsible for the protection of personal data (개인정보 보호책임자 under the Korean Personal Information Protection Act, PIPA).

2. Overview

Leben in Korea is a community for German speakers in Korea. We only process personal data as far as it is necessary to run the website and its features. We do not use external analytics or tracking tools or advertising cookies, and we do not sell data. We measure ourselves, without cookies, how many visits and sign-ups come through which channel (see sections 3 and 4).

3. Visiting the website and hosting

The website is hosted by Vercel Inc. When you visit it, Vercel processes technically necessary access data: IP address, date and time, the page visited, referrer, and browser and device information. This data serves the secure and stable delivery of the website.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in secure operation (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Visit statistics without cookies: When you open our website from outside (e.g. through a link on Instagram), we store in our own database the page visited, the campaign details from the link (UTM parameters) and the name of the referring website (e.g. "instagram.com"). We do not store an IP address or a device or browser identifier, and we do not set cookies; on your device we only store your language setting (see section 8). The entries cannot be linked to a person and only serve to evaluate which channels bring visitors (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

4. Registration and user account

For an account we store your email address and your password. The password is only stored in encrypted (hashed) form. Voluntarily, you can create a profile: display name, profile picture, short description, place of residence, languages, interests and the kinds of contact you are looking for.

In addition, when you register we store through which channel you came to us: the campaign details of the link through which you opened the website in this browser tab, the referring website and, if you provide it, your answer to "How did you hear about us?". This helps us decide where to make the community known (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). These details are deleted with your account.

When you are signed in, we store your preferred language (German, English or Korean) in your profile. We take it from the language of the page when you register, on your first visit to an English or Korean page if you have not chosen one yet, and every time you switch the language. We use it to show you messages from other members in your language. Other members cannot retrieve your language setting. Anyone who writes you a message can, however, see into which language it was translated for you.

The legal basis is the performance of the user relationship (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR).

5. Signing in with Google

If you sign in with Google, Google sends us your name, your email address and your profile picture. Google learns that you are signing in to Leben in Korea. This sign-in is voluntary; you can register with email and password instead. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

6. Content, listings and messages

We store the content you create: posts, comments, likes, community activities, housing and job listings with images, expressions of interest and connections.

Visibility: Your profile, your posts and your community activities are also visible to visitors without an account. Direct messages are only visible to the participants of the respective conversation.

The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR.

Automatic translation: So that posts and comments can be read in German, English and Korean, we send the title and text of your post, the text of your comment, the title, description, location and company of your listings and job entries, the title, text and location of your community entries, and the "About me" and location of your profile when you save them, as well as the text of your messages to other members when you send them and, if a member opens a conversation in another language, to DeepL SE, Maarweg 165, 50825 Cologne, Germany, and store the translation together with your content. We store the translation of a message together with the message and delete it with it. We do not transmit your name, email address or other account data. We use the free version "DeepL API Free". With this version, DeepL may store the transmitted texts and use them to improve its services. So do not write anything in your content that DeepL should not learn. Translations are marked "Automatically translated"; the original text is always available. To prevent misuse, we only translate content once your account is at least 24 hours old and your email address is confirmed, and we limit the translated characters per account. For this we only use your existing account data (creation time, confirmation status) and the number of translated characters; none of it goes to DeepL. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR (our interest in making the community accessible in several languages).

7. Database and file storage

We store accounts, content, messages and uploaded images with Supabase Inc. on servers in Singapore. Access is protected by access rules at database level.

8. Cookies

We only set technically necessary cookies that store your sign-in. Without them, signing in is not possible. No consent is required for this (§ 25(2) TDDDG).

If you choose a language or close the language notice, we store this choice in your browser's local storage ("lik.lang", "lik.langBanner"). It is not transmitted to us and can be deleted in your browser settings. No consent is required for this (§ 25(2) no. 2 TDDDG).

To convert won into euros on German-language pages, our server fetches the exchange rate once a day from frankfurter.dev (reference rates of the European Central Bank). No data about you is transmitted.

Fonts are loaded from our own server; no data is transmitted to Google.

9. Contact form, housing requests and email

When you write to us through the contact form or by email, we process your details (name, email address, topic and message) to answer your request (Art. 6(1)(b) or (f) GDPR). We store form requests in our database and forward them to our team through a Telegram bot. If you are signed in, we link the request to your account.

Through the "Help with finding housing" form we process name, email address, city, preferred neighbourhood, budget, move-in date, length of stay, reason for your stay and your message, to answer you with information free of charge and without obligation and, where appropriate, to point you to licensed agents (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). We do not pass your details on to agents. As with the contact form, we store the request in our database, forward it to our team through a Telegram bot and link it to your account if you are signed in. In addition, we store the campaign details of the link through which you opened the website in this browser tab and the referring website. In aggregated form we evaluate the requests to improve our housing services (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

10. Protection against misuse (Cloudflare Turnstile)

To protect registration, sign-in, password reset, the contact form and housing requests from automated access (bots), we use Cloudflare Turnstile by Cloudflare Inc., USA. When these forms load, Cloudflare processes technical data such as IP address and browser and device information to check whether the request comes from a human. Turnstile does not set advertising cookies for this and does not serve tracking.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in protecting our website and our users from spam and misuse (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

11. Transfers to third countries

Some service providers process data outside the EU and Korea. Transfers are based on EU standard contractual clauses or, where the recipient is certified, the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. The data is transmitted over the internet in encrypted form when you use the website or register, and stored for as long as described in section 12.

12. Storage period

We store account and content data for as long as your account exists. You can delete your account yourself at any time in your profile ("Delete account"); profile, content, messages and images are then removed immediately. If you request deletion in another way, we delete your data unless statutory retention obligations prevent this. We delete contact and housing requests no later than twelve months after the request is closed. Server logs are deleted automatically by the hosting provider after a short time. We delete translations together with the respective post, comment or message.

13. Your rights

• Access to your stored data (Art. 15 GDPR)
• Rectification (Art. 16 GDPR)
• Erasure (Art. 17 GDPR)
• Restriction of processing (Art. 18 GDPR)
• Data portability (Art. 20 GDPR)
• Objection to processing based on legitimate interests (Art. 21 GDPR)
• Complaint to a data protection supervisory authority, in particular in the EU member state where you live

Users in Korea have the corresponding rights under the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). For all requests, including the deletion of your account, write to support@lebeninkorea.com. You can change your profile details yourself at any time under Profile.

14. Automated decisions

We do not make automated decisions, including profiling, within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR.

15. Publishing our videos on YouTube and TikTok

We publish our own short videos on our YouTube channel and our TikTok account. For this, software on the operator's computer, not this website, uses the following interfaces:

• YouTube Data API (Google): uploading videos to our own YouTube channel. Permissions: youtube.upload (upload videos) and youtube.readonly (read information about our own channel and our own videos, e.g. whether an upload has been processed).
• TikTok Content Posting API (TikTok): sending videos to the inbox (drafts) of our own TikTok account; a video is only published once we release it in the TikTok app. Permissions: user.info.basic (name and profile picture of our own account) and video.upload (upload a video as a draft).

Through these interfaces we only access our own accounts. We do not send data of visitors or members of this website to YouTube or TikTok. We store the access keys (OAuth tokens) exclusively on the operator's computer, not on this website and not in our database. We do not sell data from these interfaces and do not pass it on to third parties.

The use and transfer of information we receive from Google APIs follows the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. For YouTube, the YouTube Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy apply. The account holder can revoke an application's access to a Google account at any time in the Google account settings. For TikTok, the TikTok Privacy Policy applies.

16. Changes

We adapt this policy when the website or the legal situation changes. The version published here at the time applies.