Privacy notice

This translation is provided for convenience. The German version is authoritative.

This notice explains which data the website animekultur.de processes, for what purpose and for how long. It applies to this website only. The Anime Kultur Account, AnimeRadio.de, Anime Messe Babelsberg and our other services have their own privacy notices on their respective sites.

We write so that it can be understood. If you have questions, just write to us.

1. Controller

Anime Kultur e.V.
Wattstr. 59
12459 Berlin
Germany

Represented by the board:
Michael Klement, Abdulkadir Aslan, Cuong Tran

Phone: +49 (0)30 530 27 210
E-mail: info@animekultur.de

For questions about data protection you can reach us at info@animekultur.de or by post with the addition "Datenschutz". We are not required to appoint a data protection officer because fewer than 20 people at our organisation regularly work with personal data.

The technology is operated on our behalf by AKV Events GmbH, Helmholtzstr. 23, 12459 Berlin, a company in which the association holds a stake. A data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR is in place with it.

2. Visiting the website

When you open a page, our server processes technically necessary data: the IP address of your device, date and time, the page requested, the page you came from if your browser sends it, browser and operating system.

• Purpose: deliver the page, fend off attacks, find errors.
• Legal basis: legitimate interest in a secure and stable operation (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
• Duration: we delete server logs after 7 days. Only in the event of a security incident do we keep the affected logs for up to 30 days to investigate the incident (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

The website loads no content from third-party servers. Fonts, images and scripts are stored on our server. Videos are not embedded but linked to YouTube. Only when you click such a link does YouTube open in a new window, and from then on YouTube's privacy notice applies.

3. Cookies

We only set cookies that are necessary for the website. That is why there is no cookie banner (section 25(2) no. 2 of the German TDDDG).

There are no statistics, advertising or tracking on this website.

4. Contact form

We protect both forms on this website against automated entries without third-party services: when sending, your browser solves a small computing puzzle (a so-called proof of work) that stays invisible to you, collects no data about you, sets no cookie and sends nothing to third parties. In addition there is a limit per IP address for one hour, which we do not store permanently.

When you write to us via the contact form, we process your name, your e-mail address, your subject, your message and, if given, your company or organisation. Plus the language in which you used the website.

• Purpose: answer your enquiry.
• Legal basis: pre-contractual steps or answering your enquiry (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) for business enquiries, otherwise our legitimate interest in answering enquiries (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).
• Route: your message goes as an e-mail to our mailbox info@animekultur.de. You receive a confirmation at your e-mail address.
• Duration: we delete the enquiry once it is settled, at the latest after 12 months. If the enquiry leads to a contract, we keep the correspondence as a business letter for 6 years (section 257 of the German Commercial Code, section 147 of the German Fiscal Code).

To protect against spam we check, without third-party services, whether the form was filled in by a human (a hidden field and the time until sending). We use the IP address of your device only to fend off too many submissions in a short time. It is not stored with your message.

5. Application for candidate membership

With the application on the "Get involved" page you apply for admission as a candidate under section 4 of our statutes. We process: nickname, first name, surname, date of birth, address (street and house number, address line 2, postcode, city, country), e-mail address, if given your mobile number and Discord name, your motivation and, if given, how you heard about us. If you are under 18, you also upload the signed form for legal guardians (PDF, JPG or PNG, up to 5 MB). It contains the name, address, phone number and e-mail address of a legal guardian and their signature.

• Purpose: decide on your application, get to know you, integrate you into the association's work on admission. We need the date of birth for the youth rate of the fee regulation and for youth protection: if you are under 18, we need the consent of a legal guardian; the address for membership administration and invitations to the general meeting.
• Legal basis: pre-contractual steps at your request (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). You provide the mobile number and Discord name voluntarily (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR) and can have them deleted at any time. We process the legal guardian's details because the statutes require consent for minors (Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR, protection of minors).
• Route: after sending you receive an e-mail with a confirmation link. Until you click it, the application including the uploaded form is kept in the association's database, for at most 7 days. If you do not click, we delete everything automatically afterwards without anyone having read it. After the click the application goes as an e-mail to our mailbox info@animekultur.de, where the board reads it, the form as an attachment of that e-mail; we delete the data in the database at that moment. This ensures that nobody applies with someone else's e-mail address. You receive a confirmation at your e-mail address.
• Duration: if we reject the application or you withdraw it, we delete the details within 3 months. If you become a candidate or member, we transfer the details to the association's membership administration. The association's data protection regulation then applies, which we hand to you before admission. Fee bookings are accounting records: if your membership ends and your record is deleted, the membership number and the bookings remain locked for 8 years from the end of the calendar year of the last booking (section 147 of the German Fiscal Code, Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR), visible in no list. If your membership ends by resignation, striking off or exclusion, your record is kept for 8 years from the end of the calendar year of the ending; afterwards we lock and anonymise it automatically. The record of a deceased member is kept in remembrance; we anonymise it at the request of the relatives. If you request deletion, we remove your name, contact details, address, documents and notes immediately and keep only the membership number, the status and the bookings for that period. Afterwards we delete the bookings; the membership number stays blocked without any link to you so that it is never reassigned.

Request to join the AKV team: On the same page you can send a request to join the AKV team instead of applying for membership. We then process only nickname, first name, surname, e-mail address, city and country, if given your mobile number and Discord name, what you would like to do with us and, if given, how you heard about us. We do not ask for the date of birth, the address or the form for legal guardians. Route, legal bases and duration are the same as for the application for candidate membership; if the board accepts you, we keep you as AKV team in the membership administration, without fee and without voting rights.

6. Data check for members

If you are a member, candidate or in the AKV team, the board occasionally asks you by e-mail or SMS to check your details in the membership list. The link leads to the page "Your details at the association". There you see what the association has stored about you: status, membership number and date of joining (maintained by the board), plus nickname, first name and surname, for Japanese names the reading, date of birth, role in the association, private e-mail address, association e-mail, mobile number, address, Discord name, Discord user ID, WhatsApp username, preferred language and the text from your application. Paying members also see their tariff, fee, payment interval and the association's bank details. The AKV team sees only city and country instead of the address and no date of birth. You can propose changes or confirm that everything is correct. You can also tell the board your wishes: become a member (from the AKV team, with the details of an application for candidate status), switch to the AKV team, leave (with a date and a message), change the payment interval or tariff of your fee or apply for an exemption (with a reason), or have your membership linked to your Anime Kultur Account if there is a verified account for your e-mail address. If your account is linked, the page shows its username, and the association takes your language and Discord ID from the account. If you are a member or in the AKV team, the page shows you the invitation link to the association's WhatsApp groups, a one-time invitation link to the Discord server and the way to the Anime Kultur Account. Whether you follow them is up to you.

• Purpose: keep the membership list accurate (Art. 5(1)(d) GDPR), deliver invitations to the general meeting and fee notices, invitations to the association's WhatsApp groups and Discord server.
• Legal basis: membership and statutes (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR), the association's data protection regulation of 7 February 2026. You provide the mobile number, Discord name and name on WhatsApp voluntarily (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR).
• Route: the link contains a random key that is valid only for you. Only its hash is stored in the database. It is valid for 14 days and exactly once. Your proposal does not go straight into the membership list: a board member with the right to do so compares it in the association's administration system and applies or rejects it. The board receives an e-mail with the names of the changed fields and your wishes, not with the values and not with your message. The board decides on a wish according to the statutes; the page never changes your status itself. SMS messages are sent by seven communications GmbH & Co. KG (seven.io), Willestr. 4-6, 24103 Kiel, under a data processing agreement; they contain only the link.
• Duration: we delete unused links after they expire. We delete applied or rejected proposals 90 days after the decision; applied details are then in the membership list. The association's data protection regulation applies to the membership list.

7. E-mails

Confirmations to you and the forwarding of your message to our mailbox are sent by our system via the e-mail relay of Positive Group Deutschland GmbH (rapidmail), Ingeborg-Krummer-Schroth-Straße 18a, 79106 Freiburg im Breisgau. A data processing agreement is in place with rapidmail. Our mailbox is hosted by OVH GmbH, Oskar-Jäger-Straße 173/K6, 50825 Köln, data centre Roubaix, Frankreich, also under a data processing agreement.

8. Hosting

The website runs on servers of OVH GmbH, Oskar-Jäger-Straße 173/K6, 50825 Köln, in the Roubaix, Frankreich data centre. All data of this website stays in the European Union.

9. Links to other services

The website links to our own services (AnimeMesse.de, AnimeRadio.de, AnimeTickets.de and others) and to third-party services: our Discord server, our WhatsApp channel, our newsletter, Instagram, YouTube and the websites of partners and artists. Their own privacy notices apply to these services. When you click a link, your browser sends the operator only what it usually sends when opening a page, for example your IP address.

The newsletter is operated via Positive Group Deutschland GmbH (rapidmail). Registration there uses double opt-in, and every issue contains an unsubscribe link.

10. Donations

On the "Support us" page we state our bank account, our PayPal address and a link to Ko-fi. What is processed depends on the route you choose.

For a bank transfer we receive your name, your IBAN, the amount and the reference from our bank. These details appear on our bank statement and form an accounting record which we must retain for 8 years from the end of the calendar year under section 147 of the German Fiscal Code (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR). Your own bank's privacy notice applies to its processing.

PayPal and Ko-fi are third-party services with their own privacy notices. From them we receive your name, your e-mail address, the amount and a message if you leave one. Ko-fi processes payments via PayPal or Stripe. Both services may transfer data to the USA under the respective providers' agreements.

If you ask us to in the reference or in your message, we name you as a supporter on our pages or at our events (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR). You can withdraw this at any time by e-mailing info@animekultur.de. Without such a request we name nobody. If a company supports us and is named in return, this is sponsoring. On request we issue an invoice for it. It contains the company name and address and is an accounting record with the same retention period of 8 years (Art. 6(1)(b) and (c) GDPR).

Anime Kultur e.V. is not recognised as a charity and does not issue donation receipts.

11. Your rights

You have the right of access to your data (Art. 15 GDPR), to rectification (Art. 16), to erasure (Art. 17), to restriction of processing (Art. 18) and to data portability (Art. 20). You can object to processing based on our legitimate interest (Art. 21). You can withdraw consent at any time with effect for the future (Art. 7(3)).

Write to us at info@animekultur.de for this. We reply without undue delay, at the latest within one month (Art. 12(3) GDPR).

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The authority responsible for us is the Berliner Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit, Alt-Moabit 59-61, 10555 Berlin, Germany.

12. Changes

If we change this notice, we publish a new version with a date. The current version is always available on this page.

Translator notes

• "Anwärter" (candidate) is the status of a prospective member during the probationary period under section 4 of the statutes. Candidates are not yet members.
• "Datenschutzordnung" is the association's internal data protection regulation, a document in German that members receive on admission.

Version dated 2026-10-14