Various media and dissemination channels are used for public relations work. From a data protection perspective, only the publication of personal data is relevant. In the context of a project, this could be, for example:

• Names of project participants
• Name of the authors of documents and project results
• Contact details of contact persons
• Image. Video and sound recordings of persons

In the following consideration of the channels, we assume that the data subjects are informed about the processing, have consented to the publication and the processing is lawful. 

Publications on websites

🟢 Own website: The content of your own website is generally the responsibility of your own organisation. If the service provider with which the website is stored is based in the EU and an AV contract has been concluded, the use of this channel is generally harmless.  

🟢 EPALE (Electronic Platform for Adult Learning in Europe): EPALE is the European platform for adult education in Europe. The website is subject to the standards of the GDPR.  (https://epale.ec.europa.eu/) .

🟢🟡 Third-party websites: In the case of publication on third-party websites (e.g. specialist articles on educational or research portals), the data protection assessment depends primarily on the location of the website operator and its data processing standards.

Social Media

🟢🟡 Mastodon is a decentralised open source network whose range of functions is comparable to X. Unlike the well-known social media services, the network is not owned by a commercial company, but consists of independent small networks that combine to form a large network. The decisive factor for the data protection assessment is which server is used to access the network and which data protection guarantees are provided by the server operator. In principle, however, nothing stands in the way of using the platform. 

🟡 Faceboook & Instagram are part of the Meta Group together with WhatsApp. The company is headquartered in the USA. In principle, nothing stands in the way of using the platforms from this perspective, but there is a lack of transparency regarding data processing and the exact purposes of processing.  

🟡 LinkedIn is a professional network that was acquired by Microsoft a few years ago. The company is headquartered in the USA. In principle, there is nothing to prevent the use of the platforms from this perspective, but there is a lack of transparency about the data processing and the exact purposes of the processing.  

🟡 X (ehemals Twitter): Twitter was bought by Elon Musk and renamed X as part of a reorganisation. The company is headquartered in the USA. In principle, there is nothing to prevent the use of the platforms from this perspective, but there is a lack of transparency regarding data processing and the exact purposes of processing. 

🟡🔴 TikTok belongs to the company ByteDance, which is headquartered in China. There is no adequacy decision for this country and here too it is unclear to what extent and for what purposes the company processes personal data. The publication of personal data on TikTok should be kept to a minimum.  

Attention: Plugins!

Numerous social media platforms offer plugins that allow you to integrate social media content into your own website. However, some of these plugins transfer personal data of website visitors to the social media companies as soon as they open a website. If you use such plugins, you must ensure that website visitors are informed about the processing and have the option of not consenting to the processing.