Privacy policy

1. Controller

Mathias Wallem, Zimfox, Am Felde 13, 25488 Holm, Deutschland · info@zimfox.com

2. Public website and server operation

When you visit the site, Zimfox processes technically necessary connection data, in particular the IP address, time, requested URL including any query parameters, user agent, status and error data, to deliver content, prevent attacks and secure operations. The legal basis is Article 6(1)(f) GDPR. The hosting provider is Hetzner Online GmbH, Industriestr. 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, Germany. The Zimfox production server is located in Nuremberg, Germany. A data-processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR has been in place with Hetzner since 2 October 2026. Server and error logs are generally retained for no more than approximately 14 days unless they are needed for longer to investigate a specific security incident or because of a documented legal hold.

3. Account, authentication and security

For registration, login, email verification, password reset and sessions, Zimfox processes email address, encrypted or hashed authentication data, session and security attributes and rate-limit data. This serves entering into and performing the contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR) and system security (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). OTPs expire after 15 minutes; sessions after 7 days of inactivity and no later than 30 days.

4. Website checks and monitoring

Zimfox processes the domain supplied by the customer, inspected URLs, publicly available page content and technical HTTP, DNS, TLS, technology and availability data. This produces findings, screenshots or previews, scans and reports. Third-party website content may contain personal data. Processing is carried out for the requested check and contract performance (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR). Completed anonymous free scans are deleted after no more than 30 days; monitoring health data after 90 days. Contractual historical reports remain available under the product contract.

5. Purchase, payment and invoices

For purchases, Zimfox processes the billing profile, contract and consent records, domain and term reference, amount, currency, payment status and reduced provider references. Payments are made either through PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A., 22–24 Boulevard Royal, L-2449 Luxembourg, or through Stripe Hosted Checkout. In the EEA, depending on the payment service, relevant Stripe entities include Stripe Payments Europe, Limited and Stripe Technology Europe, Limited, with Stripe Technology Company Limited carrying out central European privacy functions. Depending on the processing, PayPal and Stripe may act as independent controllers and may process data internationally. Appropriate safeguards may include adequacy decisions, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses.

Zimfox sends both providers the amount, currency, a pseudonymous purchase ID, idempotency and technical contract references, and return/cancel URLs. In particular, Zimfox does not send PayPal the customer's name, email address, billing address, telephone number, IP address as a request field, website/domain or invoice number. Stripe also receives a generic product description, but in particular not the customer's name, email address, billing address, company, VAT ID, telephone number, IP address as a checkout field, website/domain, invoice number or card information. Payment and payer data entered directly with the payment provider is not transferred into Zimfox's provider-neutral payment core. Complete API or webhook payloads are not retained permanently.

The legal bases are Article 6(1)(b) GDPR and Article 6(1)(c) GDPR for invoicing and statutory retention obligations. An electronic withdrawal does not automatically trigger a refund through either PayPal or Stripe.

To handle refunds, withdrawals, payment disputes, chargebacks and reversals, Zimfox processes reduced provider lifecycle events, case status, amounts, operator decisions and technical audit evidence. This data supports traceable contract and payment handling. Cleanup follows the described invoice, contract, legal-hold and review contract; while the specific period remains subject to legal review, the data is marked as requiring review and is not deleted prematurely.

For confirmed refunds, Zimfox may create an immutable invoice correction. The data processed includes, in particular, the reference to the original invoice, historical seller and invoice-recipient data, website and service reference, original amount, individual and cumulative refund amount, remaining financial balance, reduced provider reference, document time, and the historical tax and small-business notice. The original invoice remains unchanged.

In the protected superadmin area, Zimfox maintains a transaction journal based on authoritatively confirmed payments and refunds. This internal evidence view includes the associated document references, customer, website, provider, amounts and times. A CSV export is generated only on demand for an authorised superadmin, is not publicly served and is not stored as a permanent file in the web root.

6. Transactional email

Zimfox uses Brevo GmbH, Köpenicker Str. 126, 10179 Berlin, Germany (HRB 133191, Charlottenburg Local Court), for necessary transactional email. This includes verification and OTP, account and contract communications, monitoring outage and recovery notifications, and withdrawal confirmations. Recipient address, sender, subject and message content are processed. The data-processing agreement forms part of Brevo's contractual terms. Transaction logs are retained for one month; email previews are not stored.

According to the confirmed Brevo information, primary data storage takes place in the EU, particularly in France, Germany and Belgium. Support or maintenance access by subprocessors outside the EEA is possible. Depending on the recipient, safeguards include standard contractual clauses and supplementary measures, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework for the United States, and an adequacy decision for Canada. Zimfox sets contactPixelTrackingConsent=false and does not enable additional Brevo tracking functions.

7. Cookies and analytics

Technically necessary host-bound cookies secure sessions, CSRF protection, password reset and an explicitly started public scan (section 25(2) TDDDG). On zimfox.com, Google Analytics 4 with measurement ID G-1ZN95G0V0L is loaded only after voluntary consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR and section 25(1) TDDDG). Before consent, after rejection and during Private Production, no Google tag is loaded and no ping is sent. app.zimfox.com remains GA-free. The first-party cookie zimfox_analytics_consent stores the versioned choice “accepted” or “necessary” for approximately 180 days; neither localStorage nor sessionStorage is used for analytics.

Zimfox sends only manually controlled page_view events without query strings, hash fragments or a specific scan ID. It sends no custom signup, login, checkout, purchase, provider, account, email, domain, invoice, scan-content, report or form-data events. Google Signals and ad-personalisation signals are disabled in code. Enhanced measurement, Google Signals, user-provided data, personalised advertising and product links are disabled in the property; no user ID is used. Event and user data is retained there for two months and the period is not reset upon new user activity.

When an analytics request is made, the browser IP address is technically transmitted to Google. According to the confirmed Google information, it is used to derive approximate location information and discarded before being stored or logged in Analytics. Detailed location and device data collection is enabled for aggregated geographic and device analysis; Zimfox does not thereby collect precise locations. International processing is possible and may rely on appropriate safeguards such as the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses. Google's data-processing terms have been accepted. Consent can be withdrawn at any time through Cookie settings; further Zimfox analytics events are then stopped and GA cookies removed where technically possible.

8. Retention

Zimfox retains data according to its specific purpose. Invoices and invoice corrections, together with the accounting and payment evidence required for them, are retained under the existing ACCOUNTING_8Y contract until 1 January of the ninth year following the respective document year. This includes, in particular, the document and items, the relationship between the original invoice and invoice correction, immutable buyer, seller and service snapshots, amount, currency, refund and balance details, tax and service-period information, and the necessary reduced payment record with the authoritative provider reference. Not all customer data is retained for eight years.

Successful contracts retain the necessary contract and legal versions for the same period; successful B2C contracts additionally retain the versioned evidence of the requested immediate start of service and associated withdrawal evidence. Successful checkout URLs are minimised after 7 days and terminally unsuccessful ones after 30 days. Depending on status, unsuccessful checkout/purchase data is cleaned up after 30, 90 or 180 days; operational provider and reconciliation data and the reduced webhook ledger after 365 days; and terminal notification-outbox entries after 90 days. The editable billing profile remains for the account lifetime plus a 30-day grace period after account deletion. Active tax audits, litigation, chargebacks, refunds, provider disputes, regulatory grounds or documented legal holds may block cleanup.

9. Recipients and international transfers

Technical recipients are, depending on the service used, Hetzner, Brevo, Stripe and PayPal, as well as the operators of websites accessed during scanning and configured DNS resolvers.

10. Account deletion and your rights

When an account is deleted, the login email and account access are removed or pseudonymised and the billing profile is deleted according to the described lifecycle. Invoices, invoice corrections, payment, refund and contract records required by law or for contract documentation remain with a necessary pseudonymous anchor. Historical documents are based on immutable buyer, seller, service and item snapshots rather than on the subsequently deleted billing profile. Subject to the GDPR, data subjects have rights including access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, objection and withdrawal of consent for the future. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection authority. Send requests to info@zimfox.com.