Privacy Policy

The data controller for the personal data of an individual member is that member's own local Blue Knights chapter, represented by its Chapter President. Each chapter decides what member data is recorded and is responsible for the legal basis of processing.

The technical platform is operated by Karl-Michael Kühnke, Berliner Ring 5, D-49456 Bakum, Germany, acting as processor on behalf of the chapters — he provides the software and infrastructure but does not determine why or how member data is used. For platform/technical matters, contact webmaster@blue-knights.eu. For questions about your own data, please also contact your chapter's President.

Depending on your membership, the portal may process: name and nickname; postal address; phone number and e-mail address; date of birth; photo (for the digital/physical membership card); membership number, status, tier and renewal history; and login credentials for portal access (if you have an account).

Data is processed to administer your club membership, issue membership cards, coordinate between your chapter and the European Board, and calculate annual membership dues. The legal basis is the performance of the membership relationship (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR) and the legitimate interest of the association in administering its membership (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR). Where a photo or other optional data is provided voluntarily, the legal basis is consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), which can be withdrawn at any time.

Within the portal, access is restricted by role: your own chapter's administrators, the European Board (read-only, for coordination purposes), and — where relevant to the renewal process — the Treasurer. The European Board, when acting in its coordinating capacity, only ever sees a minimal data set for chapters it does not itself administer (chapter name and member count), not individual member records.

Blue Knights International (USA): As documented in our internal GDPR Position Statement, no direct technical data connection exists between this portal and systems of Blue Knights International. Only aggregated, non-personal statistics (member counts and fees per chapter) are transmitted as part of the annual renewal process — never individual names, addresses, or dates of birth.

The portal is hosted on servers located in Germany (Ionos SE), and backups are stored on a Nextcloud instance also located in Germany. No personal data is transferred outside the European Union or European Economic Area as part of normal platform operation.

Data is retained for as long as your membership is active, plus a reasonable period thereafter for legitimate administrative and legal purposes (e.g. financial record-keeping). You may request earlier deletion at any time; see Section 7.

Under the GDPR, you have the right to: access the data held about you (Art. 15); request correction of inaccurate data (Art. 16); request erasure (Art. 17); request restriction of processing (Art. 18); receive your data in a portable format (Art. 20); and object to processing (Art. 21). To exercise these rights, please contact your chapter President, or webmaster@blue-knights.eu for platform-related requests.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority — either the authority responsible for your chapter's country, or, for matters concerning the technical operation of this platform, the data protection authority of Lower Saxony, Germany (Die Landesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz Niedersachsen).

The portal uses encrypted connections (HTTPS/TLS), role-based access control, bcrypt-hashed passwords, automatic session expiry, complete audit logging of data changes, and daily encrypted backups. Further technical and organisational details are documented in our internal Technical Documentation and GDPR Position Statement, available to logged-in administrators.

This portal uses a single, technically necessary session cookie to keep you signed in. It does not use tracking, advertising, or analytics cookies.