Privacy Policy

1. Controller

Prof. Dr. Frank Martin, Rechtsanwalt und Notar
Parkstraße 33, 65549 Limburg an der Lahn
Telephone: 06431 - 2 88 88 88
E-Mail: kanzlei@notar-martin.de

2. General Information on Data Processing

We process personal data of our users generally only insofar as this is necessary to provide a functioning website and our content and services. The processing is carried out on the basis of the General Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO) and the Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG).

3. Hosting and Server Log Files

This website is hosted by an external service provider (IONOS SE, Elgendorfer Str. 57, 56410 Montabaur). When the website is accessed, the provider automatically collects information transmitted by your browser (including IP address, date and time of access, page accessed, referrer URL, browser used). This data is technically necessary to display the website and to ensure stability and security. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO (legitimate interest).

4. Contacting Us

If you contact us via the contact form, e-mail or telephone, your details will be processed in order to handle your enquiry. The legal basis is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b DSGVO (initiation of a client relationship) or Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO. The data will be deleted as soon as it is no longer required for the purpose for which it was collected, provided no statutory retention obligations apply.

To protect the contact form against automated misuse (spam, bots), we use the service Cloudflare Turnstile provided by Cloudflare, Inc. (101 Townsend St., San Francisco, CA 94107, USA). When the form is submitted, Turnstile checks whether the input originates from a human; in doing so, technical information (including IP address, browser characteristics) is transmitted to Cloudflare and processed there. No advertising cookies are set and no user profiles are created for advertising purposes. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in protecting the form against misuse (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO); the transfer to the USA takes place on the basis of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, to which Cloudflare is affiliated. Further information: cloudflare.com/privacypolicy.

Messages sent via the contact form (name, email address, telephone number where applicable, subject and message text) are delivered to you by email and additionally stored in an area accessible exclusively internally and protected by password on our webspace, so that we can reliably allocate and respond to your enquiry. This storage is carried out on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b and lit. f DSGVO. No disclosure to third parties takes place. The IP address is stored only in truncated form (without the last block) in this process. The archived messages are automatically deleted after 365 days at the latest, unless a mandate relationship or statutory retention obligations require longer storage.

4a. Notarial Data Sheet (Notara)

On the page "Request Notarisation" we offer a digital data sheet provided via our service provider Notara (app.notara.de). The external form is only once you actively consent and initiate the loading process. Only then will content from Notara be loaded and your entries (e.g. details of your matter and your contact details) transmitted to Notara and processed there on our behalf. The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. a DSGVO) as well as the initiation or performance of the mandate (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b DSGVO). A data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 DSGVO exists with the provider. You may also communicate your matter at any time without using this form, by telephone, e-mail or the contact form.

4b. Online appointment booking

On the "Book an appointment" page, you can arrange an appointment directly in our calendar. Booking takes place exclusively via our own systems; an external booking service is no longer integrated.

Process and data processed.When the page is accessed, only the types of appointments we offer and the available times in our calendar are loaded; no personal data of yours is transmitted in the process. Only once you book an appointment do we process the details you have entered: name, e-mail address, telephone number, selected type of appointment and appointment time as well as – voluntarily – your brief description of the matter. For notarisation appointments, we additionally collect the file reference and the subject of the notarisation; this information is required so that we can prepare for the appointment. Your details are transmitted to our firm's server in Germany (Hetzner Online GmbH, data processing pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR), stored there in our appointment management system and entered as an appointment in the firm's calendar. You will receive confirmation by e-mail to the address you provided.

Calendar.Our calendars are managed via Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd.); the booked appointment is stored there with the above details. A data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR is in place with Microsoft.

Legal basis.Processing takes place for the purpose of initiating or carrying out the mandate as well as at your request (Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR) and – insofar as you have expressly consented to the processing of your details – on the basis of your consent (Art. 6 (1) (a) GDPR). Any consent given may be withdrawn at any time with effect for the future.

Protection against misuse.In order to prevent automated mass bookings, we limit the number of requests per visitor. For this purpose, your IP address is not stored, but processed exclusively in the form of a daily changing, non-reversible checksum; this is deleted after two days at the latest. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a functional service free from misuse (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR).

Storage period.We retain appointment data for as long as this is necessary for carrying out the appointment and handling the mandate; otherwise, the retention periods under professional and commercial law apply. If no mandate is established, we delete the details as soon as they are no longer required.

Voluntary nature.The use of online appointment booking is voluntary. You may arrange an appointment at any time by telephone, e-mail or via our contact form.

4c. Use of an AI-Supported Telephone Assistant

Description of the Processing

To ensure availability outside office hours and for the initial handling of incoming telephone calls, the law firm uses an AI-supported telephone assistant. Callers are informed at the beginning of the call that they are communicating with an automated system based on artificial intelligence. This is done in implementation of the transparency obligation under Art. 52 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on Artificial Intelligence (AI Regulation).

Categories of Data Processed

In the course of incoming calls, the following personal data is collected and processed:

• Telephone number and, where applicable, name of the caller
• Content of the spoken conversation (voice data)
• Date and time of the call
• Matter / subject of the conversation, insofar as communicated by the caller

Insofar as special categories of personal data within the meaning of Art. 9 DSGVO (such as information regarding health or other sensitive personal matters) are disclosed during the telephone call, these are treated exclusively within the relevant legal basis for processing and are subject to the professional secrecy obligations of lawyers and notaries.

Purpose of the Processing

The processing serves the purpose of receiving mandate enquiries and firm contacts, forwarding matters to firm staff, and ensuring availability.

Legal Bases

The processing is based on:

• Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b DSGVO, insofar as the processing serves the initiation or performance of a client relationship or a notarial official act (pre-contractual measures at the request of the data subject),
• Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO, insofar as the legitimate interest of the law firm in permanent and orderly availability and communication prevails. The interests of the data subjects are outweighed in view of the exclusive use of the data for firm purposes and the protective measures described below.

Recipients / Categories of Recipients

For the technical provision of the telephone assistant, personal data is transmitted to a service provider for AI-supported telecommunications services within the framework of a data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 DSGVO. A data processing agreement exists with this service provider, obliging it to process data exclusively on the instructions of the law firm, to comply with technical and organisational protective measures, and to maintain confidentiality. Beyond this, the data is not transmitted to third parties.

Insofar as the service provider's registered office or server location is outside the European Economic Area, the transfer takes place on the basis of EU Standard Contractual Clauses pursuant to Art. 46 para. 2 lit. c DSGVO or another safeguard permissible under Art. 44 et seq. DSGVO.

Automated Decision-Making

The telephone assistant does not make any automated decisions with legal effect within the meaning of Art. 22 DSGVO. The evaluation of incoming information and all legally relevant decisions are made exclusively by firm staff.

Storage Period

Call data is stored for a period of 30 days and then automatically deleted, unless a statutory retention obligation or a specific client relationship requires longer storage. In the latter case, the mandate-related retention period applies.

Note on Professional Secrecy of Lawyers and Notaries

All data collected during telephone calls that relates to legal matters is subject to the professional secrecy obligation of lawyers pursuant to § 43a para. 2 BRAO as well as the professional secrecy obligation of notaries pursuant to § 18 BNotO. The commissioned service provider is contractually bound to confidentiality to the same extent.

Rights of Data Subjects

With regard to the data processed by the telephone assistant, you have the rights to access (Art. 15 DSGVO), rectification (Art. 16 DSGVO), erasure (Art. 17 DSGVO), restriction of processing (Art. 18 DSGVO) as well as objection (Art. 21 DSGVO). Objections to processing based on Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f DSGVO should be addressed to the firm's address or the contact address stated below.

4d. Online payment with Bitcoin (in-house payment server)

On the page "Pay invoice" you may voluntarily settle invoices from our firm using Bitcoin. This is currently only possible for invoices relating to legal matters; whether, and under what conditions, notarial fee invoices may also be paid using Bitcoin in due course is currently under review. Only the details entered by you are processed: file reference, invoice number, invoice amount and your name. This information is transmitted to our in-house payment server(BTCPay Server, hosted in a German data centre) in order to generate a payment page with a QR code and to allocate the incoming payment to your file. No external payment service providersare involved; no transmission to third parties takes place. The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR (performance of a contract/billing). Transaction data on the Bitcoin blockchain itself is, for technical reasons, publicly accessible; it does not contain any of the aforementioned information. The payment data is stored in accordance with statutory retention obligations under commercial and tax law.

4e. AI chat on the website ("Maja")

On our website, we offer a text-based chat with an AI assistant ("Maja"). The assistant answers general questions about the firm (locations, availability, procedures, areas of law) and refers you to appointment booking, the contact form and telephone. It does not provide legal advice and has no access to files, mandates or calendars. When you open the chat, you are informed that you are communicating with an AI system (transparency obligation pursuant to Art. 50 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, AI Act).

The chat only becomes active once you open it and send a message. Until then, no data is transmitted. Please do not enter any confidential information about your case in the chat (such as names of third parties, file references, amounts or health data); for such matters, please use the telephone, contact form or an appointment.

The chat text you enter, together with the previous history of the session, as well as, technically, your IP address, are processed. The messages are forwarded by our web server to a server operated by us at Hetzner Online GmbH (Germany) and from there transmitted to the AI provider Anthropic, PBC (548 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94104, USA) to generate the response. Under contract, Anthropic does not use the inputs to train its models and stores them only temporarily for abuse monitoring. A data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR is in place with Anthropic; transmission to the USA takes place on the basis of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework as well as the standard contractual clauses of the EU Commission.

We do not store the content of your chat messages.The history is only stored in your browser for the duration of the session (session storage, not a cookie) and is deleted when the browser is closed. To protect against misuse, a counter is maintained on our web server for one hour under a daily changing, non-reversible value derived from your IP address; the IP address itself is not stored for this purpose. Only technical metrics (number and length of requests, response time) are logged on the firm's server, without content.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in providing low-threshold initial information to website visitors (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR) as well as, insofar as you are initiating a mandate, Art. 6 (1) (b) GDPR. The use of the chat is voluntary; all information is also available to you at any time by telephone, e-mail or via the contact form.

4f. Applications

If you apply to us – for example, in response to a job advertisement on this website – we process the information you provide (in particular name, contact details, cover letter, CV, references and other application documents) solely for the purpose of conducting the application process. The legal basis is Art. 6 (1) (b) DSGVO (initiation of an employment relationship). Providing this information is voluntary; however, without it, we are unable to consider your application.

Within the firm, only the persons involved in the selection process have access to your documents. Our email accounts are operated via Microsoft 365 (Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd.); a data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 DSGVO is in place with Microsoft. Your data will not be disclosed to third parties. If you would prefer not to submit your documents by email, you may also send your application by post to the address stated above.

If an employment relationship is established, your documents will be added to your personnel file. Otherwise, we will delete them no later than six months after the application process has concluded; retention until that time serves to safeguard our rights, for example in relation to claims under the General Equal Treatment Act (Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO). Longer retention – for example, for future job offers – will only take place with your consent (Art. 6 (1) (a) DSGVO), which you may withdraw at any time with effect for the future.

5. Client Relationship

In the course of a mandate, we process personal data in order to carry out the assignment. The legal basis is Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b DSGVO as well as professional regulations. Lawyers and notaries are subject to special confidentiality obligations. Retention periods arise from BRAO, BNotO, HGB and AO.

6. Disclosure of Data

Your data will only be transmitted to third parties if this is necessary for the performance of the contract (e.g. courts, authorities, the opposing party in the course of handling the mandate), if you have given consent, or if there is a legal obligation to do so.

7. Map Service / Directions

For route planning we link to an external map service. Data is only transmitted to the respective provider once you click on the link. No map is embedded on this website that automatically transmits data.

8. Cookies and Reach Measurement

This website uses no cookies and does not integrate any external analysis or tracking services (e.g. Google Analytics).

To determine general usage (e.g. number of page views, pages accessed, referring website, device type, approximate origin as country code), we carry out an anonymous, cookie-less reach measurement in-house ("first party") . In doing so, no IP addresses are stored; to count repeat visits within a single day, we generate exclusively a checksum (hash) using a randomly generated value that changes daily which technically rules out recognition beyond that day. Identification of individual persons is therefore not possible. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in the statistical evaluation of website usage (Art. 6 (1)(f) GDPR). A "Do Not Track" signal from your browser is respected; in this case, no measurement takes place. Your data is not passed on to third parties.

9. Your Rights

You have the right to information (Art. 15 GDPR), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20) and objection (Art. 21). Any consent given may be withdrawn at any time with effect for the future.

10. Right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority. The competent authority is the Hessian Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, Postfach 3163, 65021 Wiesbaden.

11. Data Security

This website is delivered via an encrypted SSL/TLS connection (HTTPS) to protect the transmission of your data.

Last updated: 2026