Security & data protection

This page summarises, for procurement, IT and data-protection officers, how VirtualCampaign handles your data. The legally binding document is the privacy policy.

• Hosted in Germany: all servers at Hetzner Online GmbH, data centres in Germany (EU).
• Live simulation without upload: the live simulation runs entirely in the browser; the creative file is not uploaded. Only a slideshow the user deliberately creates stores finished images or a finished video on our servers for a limited time.
• Encrypted transport: every connection uses HTTPS (TLS).
• Data processing agreement (DPA): under Art. 28 GDPR, available on request.
• Cookieless audience measurement: self-hosted on our own servers in Germany, without cookies, without any third party and without persistent recognition. No advertising trackers.

Website and platform run at Hetzner Online GmbH, Industriestr. 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, on servers in Germany. Hetzner operates ISO 27001-certified data centres. A data processing agreement is in place with Hetzner. All stored data is encrypted. Backups are taken as snapshots of the virtual machines under Hetzner's responsibility. Customer data and creatives are not transferred to third countries; the exception is the platform's optional AI features, which only run when you use them (see section 6). The Creative Simulator is not affected.

The Creative Simulator places your creative onto the footage of the advertising surface client-side. In practice:

• The creative file (image or video) stays in the user's browser. For the live simulation it is not transferred to our servers and not stored there.
• Preview and export (video/image) are rendered locally in the browser.
• Only the advertising-surface videos (our content) and the application itself are loaded from the server.
• The creative file stays in the browser's memory only while the tab is open.
• Selection (optional, enabled per customer): when the user adds products to a selection, their browser stores the finished images locally for up to 30 days, separately per website. None of it goes to our servers.
• Slideshow (optional, enabled per customer): only when the user deliberately creates a slideshow do we store the finished images (advertising surface with creative) or the video made from them, with title and message, in storage at Hetzner in Germany, under a link nobody can guess, until it expires after 1 to 30 days. For this the user enters their own e-mail address and the recipient's. The recipient gets the link with the message by e-mail, and replies go to the sender. IONOS in Germany sends the e-mails and keeps the addresses for 30 days. The creator gets an e-mail with one link to view it and one to delete it. Only the creator gets the delete link.
• The Creative Simulator uses no AI image generation. Nothing is sent to AI providers.

Only when you deliberately upload a creative to the platform's media library (for automated productions) is it stored on our servers in Germany, inside your tenant.

• Tenant isolation: data, creatives and productions are strictly separated per tenant. No tenant ever sees another tenant's data.
• Access: personal user accounts with passwords; access via HTTPS only.
• Roles and permissions: three roles inside a tenant – Creator, Lead and Admin. A cross-tenant Superadmin role exists only for VirtualCampaign's DevOps team.
• API: access only with a tenant-bound API key that can be revoked server-side at any time.
• Encryption: every connection (browser, API, iframe embedding) uses TLS; all stored data is encrypted.
• Logging: system logs are kept in anonymised form.
• Your creatives remain yours: uploaded assets stay the customer's property and responsibility. On request we retain them without time limit.
• Deletion: all customer data is deleted 30 days after the contract ends.

Via the contact form you send us your name, company (optional), e-mail address and message. We use this data solely to handle your enquiry. E-mails are sent through IONOS SE (Germany) as our processor. We additionally record which channel brought you to us (e.g. newsletter or LinkedIn) if the link carried that information – without a cookie, only for the duration of your visit in the browser. Details in the privacy policy.

For this website's statistics we use Umami – an open-source tool we run ourselves, on our own servers in Germany. No additional processor is involved and there is no third-country transfer.

• No cookies and no access to information on your device – so no consent under § 25 (1) TDDDG is required (§ 25 (2) no. 2 TDDDG).
• No IP storage: the IP address is only used transiently to derive a non-reversible hash that rotates daily.
• No recognition across days or across websites, no user profile, no sharing.
• We record the page viewed, the referring page, country, device type, browser and operating system.
• Legal basis: legitimate interest (Art. 6 (1) (f) GDPR); you may object at any time.

Details in the privacy policy, section 8.

• Hetzner Online GmbH, Gunzenhausen, Germany – hosting (website, platform, Creative Simulator, storage).
• IONOS SE, Montabaur, Germany – sending and receiving e-mail.
• fal.ai (Features and Labels, Inc., USA) – the platform's AI image models: generating creatives (AI generator), editing existing images, and image processing for photo take-over and VC Capture (detecting surfaces and people, creating masks, hiding the old advertising, cleaning up the surroundings). What is transmitted is the prompt and the generation parameters, reference images (e.g. a screenshot of your website or your logo), the image being edited or the photo of the ad screen, which may show passers-by. Applies to the platform only, not to the Creative Simulator. Active only when you use these features. We set files transferred to fal.ai to expire after one hour at the latest. The transfer to the USA is safeguarded by the EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Implementing Decision (EU) 2021/914), which form part of the data processing agreement with fal.ai.
• OpenAI (USA) – editing existing images by text instruction (“Edit existing”) and translating that instruction into English. What is transmitted is the image being edited and the instruction. Applies to the platform only, not to the Creative Simulator. Active only when an OpenAI account is set up for your tenant and you use the feature; otherwise editing runs via fal.ai.
• OpenRouter (OpenRouter, Inc., USA) – access to AI language and vision models (e.g. Anthropic Claude) for the platform's AI features: market, competitor and audience analysis, campaign proposals, creative check, adopting colours and style from your website, and automatic detection of ad screens in photos (photo take-over, VC Capture). What is transmitted is the information you enter for this (e.g. brand, website, region, occasion, audience), the AI creative being checked, a screenshot of your website or the downscaled photo of the ad screen, which may show passers-by. OpenRouter forwards the request to the provider of the respective model. Applies to the platform only, not to the Creative Simulator. Active only when you use these features.

For use of the platform we conclude a data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR with you, including a description of the processing, technical and organisational measures and the list of sub-processors. Write to us at info@herzbergmedia.com and we will send it to you. We are also happy to review your own template.

Found a vulnerability? Write to info@herzbergmedia.com. We confirm receipt within two working days and keep you informed about the fix. Please do not publish details until the issue is resolved.

HERZBERGMEDIA, owner Jens Harald Herzberg – contact details in the legal notice. Your rights as a data subject (access, erasure, objection) are described in the privacy policy.