Privacy policy

This privacy policy applies to the website of the Studienkolleg Halle-Merseburg (www.studienkolleg-halle.com). The SKHM Portal has its own privacy policy (see section 5). Only the German version is legally binding.

1. Controller

Ming CHENG Institut GmbH
Operator of the State-Approved Studienkolleg Halle-Merseburg at Merseburg University of Applied Sciences
An der Magistrale 120
06124 Halle (Saale), Germany

Phone: +49 345 5636 8710
Email: info@uni-mc.de

If you have questions about data protection, please contact us at the address above.

2. Hosting and server log files

The website is operated by Cloudflare, Inc., 101 Townsend St., San Francisco, CA 94107, USA (Cloudflare Workers, Cloudflare D1 database, Cloudflare R2 file storage). When you open our pages, Cloudflare processes technically necessary data, in particular IP address, date and time, the address requested, and browser and device type. This data is needed to deliver the pages and to fend off attacks, and Cloudflare stores it only briefly.

The database and file storage (Cloudflare D1 and R2) are restricted to data centres in the European Union. Contact requests and the content of the website are stored there exclusively. The pages themselves are delivered via Cloudflare's global network; in the process, the technical data mentioned above may also be processed in data centres outside the EU.

The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a secure, working service (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We have a data processing agreement with Cloudflare (Art. 28 GDPR). Cloudflare is certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework; data is transferred to the USA on the basis of the European Commission's adequacy decision (Art. 45 GDPR) and additionally on the basis of standard contractual clauses (Art. 46(2)(c) GDPR).

3. Visitor statistics

We count page views on the server without cookies, without any script in your browser and without storing IP addresses. Only daily totals per page are stored, together with the referring website, country, device type (computer, tablet, smartphone) and language. No conclusions about individual persons are possible. The totals are deleted after about 26 months. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in improving our service (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

4. Contact form and contact by email

When you write to us via the contact form or by email, we process your details (in particular name, email address, country and message) to answer your enquiry. So that we can be sure to reach you, we send a confirmation code to the email address given after you submit the form (delivered via the service Brevo, Sendinblue SAS, 106 boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris, France; Brevo processes the data in the EU, and we have a data processing agreement with Brevo under Art. 28 GDPR). Only after you enter the code does your message reach us; unconfirmed enquiries are deleted automatically after 24 hours. Confirmed messages are stored in our database (Cloudflare D1); staff of the Studienkolleg may be notified of new enquiries by email.

The legal basis is Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR if your enquiry relates to a contract (e.g. an application), otherwise our legitimate interest in answering it (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). We delete enquiries once they have been dealt with, unless statutory retention obligations apply.

Protection against abuse: to prevent the contact form and the login to the admin area from being used automatically on a large scale, we store an encrypted value (hash) of your IP address with the time of each attempt. The IP address itself is not stored; the entries are deleted automatically after 24 hours at the latest. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a secure service (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

5. Application by e-mail and SKHM Portal

Application by e-mail: until the SKHM Portal is activated, we accept applications by e-mail. We process your details (in particular details as in your passport, contact details, school and university qualifications, language skills, desired course) and the attached documents to review your application, decide on admission and communicate with you (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR). The documents are seen only by the responsible staff of the Studienkolleg. If no admission is granted or you withdraw your application, we delete the data no later than six months after the procedure has ended; if you are admitted, it becomes part of your student file. Please note that e-mails are not always encrypted in transit.

SKHM Portal: once activated, applications, the student area and the partner area run via the SKHM Portal (portal.studienkolleg-halle.com). It has its own privacy policy of the SKHM Portal.

6. Cookies and local storage

We do not use cookies for advertising or analytics. We only use technically necessary storage (Section 25(2) TDDDG):

• Login cookie (skhm_session) in the website's admin area (staff only), so that they stay logged in; valid for at most 12 hours or until you log out.
• Language cookie (skhm-locale) when you switch the language of the website; it stores only the chosen language (e.g. “en”) so that the home page appears in that language; valid for 1 year.
• Local storage in the browser for your choice between day and night view, for your consent to loading embedded videos and for having hidden the notice about the next course start. This information does not leave your device.

7. Embedded videos (two-click solution)

Videos from YouTube (via youtube-nocookie.com), Vimeo, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn or Facebook are loaded only when you click the preview image. Only then is data (in particular your IP address) transmitted to the respective provider, some of which are based in the USA. The legal basis is your consent given by the click (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), which you can withdraw at any time for the future by clearing your browser's local storage for this website.

8. Links to social networks

We link to our profiles on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and other networks with plain links only. No plug-ins are embedded; data is transmitted only when you follow a link.

9. Fonts

All fonts are served from our own server. There is no connection to Google Fonts or any other font provider.

10. Your rights

You have the right of access (Art. 15 GDPR), rectification (Art. 16), erasure (Art. 17), restriction of processing (Art. 18), data portability (Art. 20) and to object to processing based on legitimate interests (Art. 21 GDPR). You can withdraw any consent at any time with effect for the future. To do so, contact info@uni-mc.de.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, for example the authority responsible for us:

Landesbeauftragter für den Datenschutz Sachsen-Anhalt
Leiterstraße 9, 39104 Magdeburg, Germany
www.datenschutz.sachsen-anhalt.de

11. Obligation to provide data

The details marked as mandatory are required for an enquiry via the contact form. Without them we cannot answer your enquiry. No automated decision-making takes place.

Last updated: October 2026