Privacy Policy

  1. Purpose

The products and services of Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Academy in Europe are provided by non-commercial and non-profit organisation Aschlag Research Institute-Bildungseinrichtung e.V. (kurz: ARI-Bildungseinrichtung e.V.), Wasserwerkstraße 33, DE-13589 Berlin, Germany, registration no. VR 27604 B (“KabAcademy”).

KabAcademy’s mission is to create proper environment for your spiritual development, changing your nature and equalising with the universal force of the Nature. However, we may not assume any liability for your not reaching it.

This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) describes how KabAcademy (also “us”, “we”, or “our”) collects, uses and shares information about you through our online interfaces (e.g., websites and mobile applications) owned and controlled by us, including www.kabacademy.eu (collectively referred to herein as the “Site”).

When we use the term “Personal Information“ in this Policy, we are referring to any information that (i) is recorded in any form and (ii) is about an identified or identifiable individual. Personal Information (also known and personal data) could include Sensitive Personal Information.

When we use the term “Sensitive Personal Information” in this Policy, we are referring to a particular subset of an individual’s Personal Information that provides details of his or her religious or philosophical beliefs and opinions, or that concerns his or her health.

Please read this Policy carefully and contact us at privacy@kabacademy.eu if you have any questions.

KabAcademy is the data controller of all Personal Information collected via the Site or otherwise as described in this Policy and of certain Personal Information collected from third parties, as set out in this Policy.

  1. What Information this Policy Covers

This Policy covers information we collect from you through our Site. Some of our Site’s functionality can be used without revealing any Personal Information, though for features or services related to the Online Courses, Personal Information is required. In order to access certain features and benefits on our Site, you may need to submit, or we may collect, “Personal Information”. Personal Information can include information such as your name and email address, among other things. You are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Personal Information you submit to KabAcademy. Inaccurate information may affect your ability to use the Site, the information you receive when using the Site, and our ability to contact you. For example, your email address should be kept current because that is one of the primary manners in which we communicate with you.

  1. What You Agree to by Using Our Site

Please understand that by submitting any Personal Information to us, you consent and agree that we may collect, use and disclose such Personal Information in accordance with this Policy and our Terms of Use, and as permitted or required by law. If you do not agree with these terms, please do not provide any Personal Information to us. If you refuse or withdraw your consent, or if you choose not to provide us with any required Personal Information, we may not be able to provide you with the services that can be offered on our Site. Consent can be withdrawn at any time by navigating to your profile page (My account) and clicking the box to remove consent or deleting your account. Please note that we may also rely on legitimate interests, fulfilment of a contract, or event be bound by laws to continue processing your data.

  1. What Information We Collect

We gather two types of information about users through the Site:

Personal Information provided directly by you or via third parties. We collect Personal Information that you provide to us when you register for an account, update or change information for your account, purchase products or services, complete a survey, sign-up for email updates, Online Courses or event organised by KabAcademy (e.g. Conventions and Unity Days), participate in our public forums, send us email messages, and/or participate in Online Courses or other services on our Site, or events organised by KabAcademy. We may use the Personal Information that you provide to respond to your questions, provide you the specific course and/or services you select, send you updates about Online Courses offered by KabAcademy or other KabAcademy events, and send you email messages about Site maintenance or updates.

Account Registration. If you register for an account on our Site, you may be required to provide us with Personal Information such as your name and email address.

Updates. KabAcademy may offer you the ability to receive updates either via email or by posting on portions of the Site only accessible to registered users. In order to subscribe to these services, you may be required to provide us with Personal Information such as your name and email address.

Forums. KabAcademy may offer public forums from time to time (the “Forums”) where you can share comments and thoughts. In order to participate in the Forums, you may be required to register with us and/or provide us with Personal Information such as your name and email address. Please keep in mind that information you post or make available in Forums will be publicly available. You should not post any Personal Information or other information of a personal or sensitive nature, whether relating to you or another person, on a Forum. Please also reference our Terms of Use for our Rules for Online Conduct and additional information about proper use of our Forums.

Participation in Online Courses. KabAcademy offers users the opportunity to participate in an Online Course on or through the Site. If you desire to participate in a course, you will be asked to provide us with certain information necessary to conduct such a course. This information may include, among other things, your name and email address.

If you participate in an online course, we may collect from you certain student-generated content, such as assignments you submit to instructors, peer-graded assignments, and peer grading student feedback. We also collect course data, such as student responses to in-video quizzes, standalone quizzes, exams, and surveys. You should not include any Personal Information or other information of a personal or sensitive nature, whether relating to you or another person, on assignments, exams, or surveys, except for information required to participate or submit such assignments, exams, or surveys.

Participation in our events. KabAcademy offers users the opportunity to participate in physical or virtual events, e.g. Kabbalah Conventions, Unity Days, and zoom meetups. If you desire to participate in a physical event, you will be asked to provide us with certain information necessary to organise such an event. This information may include, among other things, your name, gender, date of birth or age, nationality, languages spoken, email address, telephone number and other contact details, particulars regarding your accommodation and meals, health condition, and information about your study Kabbalah and participation in group work. Your participation and performance in physical or virtual events can be recorded (filmed).

Communications with KabAcademy. We may receive Personal Information when you send us an email message or otherwise contact us.

Third Party Sites. We may receive Personal Information when you access or log-in to a third party site, e.g., Facebook, from our Sites. This may include the text and/or images of your Personal Information available from the third party site.

Surveys. We may receive Personal Information when you provide information in response to a survey operated by us. This may include details about your age, languages spoken, your education history, and your employment and/or skills.

Partner sites. Partner sites providing tools and services related to services of KabAcademy users may collect individual level user data regarding the individual’s use of that partner site while engaged with such services related activities, and the partner sites may share that data with KabAcademy for the purpose of improving KabAcademy’s services, the partner site’s services, and the individual’s education experience. This data includes information such as the amount of time spent on the partner site and pages viewed.

Third Party Credit Card Processing. KabAcademy provides you with the ability to pay for some services and events using a credit card through a third party payment processing service provider (e.g. Stripe). Therefore we collect and process your credit card information.

Information relating to your use of our Site. When users come to our Site, we may track, collect and aggregate information indicating, among other things, which pages of our Site were visited, the order in which they were visited, when they were visited, and which hyperlinks were “clicked”. We also collect information from the URLs from which you linked to our Site. Collecting such information may involve logging the IP address, operating system and browser software used by each user of the Site. We may be able to determine from an IP address a user’s Internet Service Provider and the geographic location of his or her point of connectivity.

We also use (or may use) cookies and web beacons when you visit our Site.

  1. What are cookies

Cookies are small pieces of text sent by your web browser by a website you visit. A cookie file is stored in your web browser and allows the Site or a third-party to recognize you and make your next visit easier and the Site more useful to you. Essentially, cookies are a user’s identification card for the KabAcademy servers. Web beacons are small graphic files linked to our servers that allow us to track your use of our Site and related functionalities. Cookies and web beacons allow KabAcademy to serve you better and more efficiently, and to personalize your experience on our Site.

Cookies can be “persistent” or “session” cookies.

  1. How KabAcademy uses cookies

When you use and access the Site, we may place a number of cookies files in your web browser.

KabAcademy uses or may use cookies and/or web beacons to help us determine and identify repeat visitors, the type of content and sites to which a user of our Site links, the length of time each user spends at any particular area of our Site, and the specific functionalities that users choose to use. To the extent that cookies data constitutes Personal Information, we process such data on the basis of your consent.

We use both session and persistent cookies on the Site and we use different types of cookies to run the Site:

Essential cookies. Necessary for the operation of the Site. We may use essential cookies to authenticate users, prevent fraudulent use of user accounts, or offer Site features.

Analytical/performance cookies. Allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors and see how visitors move around the Site when using it. This helps us improve the way the Site works.

Functionality cookies. Used to recognise you when you return to the Site. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name, and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).

Targeting cookies. Record your visit to the Site, the pages you have visited, and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make the Site and the more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

  1. Third-party cookies

In addition to our own cookies, we may also use various third-party cookies to report usage statistics of the Site and refine marketing efforts.

Tracking cookies. Follow on-site behaviour and tie it to other metrics allowing better understanding of usage habits.

Optimization cookies. Allow real-time tracking of user conversion from different marketing channels to evaluate their effectiveness.

Partner cookies. Provide marketing conversion metrics to our partners so they can optimize their paid marketing efforts.

  1. What are your choices regarding cookies

If you’d like to delete cookies or instruct your web browser to delete or refuse cookies, please visit the help pages of your web browser.

Please note, however, that if you delete cookies or refuse to accept them, you might not be able to use some or all of the features we offer. You may not be able to log in, store your preferences, and some of our pages might not display properly.

  1. How We Use the Information

Information relating to your use of our Site. We use information relating to your use of the Site to build higher quality, more useful services by performing statistical analyses of the collective characteristics and behaviour of our users, and by measuring demographics and interests regarding specific areas of our Site. We may also use this information to ensure the security of our services and the Site.

Personal Information provided directly by you or via third parties. Except as set forth in this Policy or as specifically agreed to by you, KabAcademy will not disclose any of your Personal Information. In addition to the other uses set forth in this Policy, we may disclose and otherwise use Personal Information as described below.

Providing the Site and our services. We use Personal Information which you provide to us in order to allow you to access and use the Site and in order to provide any information, products or services that you request from us.

Updates. We use Personal Information collected when you sign-up for our various email or update services to send you the messages in connection with the Site or an Online Course. We may also archive this information and/or use it for future communications with you, where we are legally entitled to do so.

Forums. You should not post any Personal Information or other information of a personal or sensitive nature, whether relating to you or another person, within a Forum post. If you choose to post Personal Information, such Personal Information may be collected during your use of the Forums. We may publish this information via extensions of our Platform that use third-party services, like mobile applications. We also reserve the right to reuse Forum posts that contain Personal Information in future versions of the courses we offer, and to enhance future course offerings. We may archive this information and/or use it for future communications with you and/or your designee(s), and/or provide it to our partner(s), or the instructor(s) associated with the courses you have taken. We may also use or publish posts submitted on the Forums without using Personally Identification Information.

Participation in Online Courses. We use the Personal Information that we collect from you when you participate in an Online Course through the Site for processing purposes, including but not limited to tracking attendance, progress, and completion of an Online Course. We may also share your Personal Information and your performance in a given Online Course with the instructor or instructors who taught the course, with teaching assistants or other individuals designated by the instructor or instructors to assist with the creation, modification or operation of the course, and within the Bnei Baruch. Also, we may archive this information and/or use it for future communications with you, where we are legally entitled to do so.

Disclosure to KabAcademy Operations and Maintenance Contractors. We use various service providers, vendors and contractors (collectively “Contractors”) to assist us in providing our products and services to you. Our Contractors may have limited access to your Personal Information in the course of providing their products or services to us, so that we in turn can provide our products and services to you. These Contractors may include vendors and suppliers that provide us with technology, services, and/or content related to the operation and maintenance of the Site or the Online Course. Access to your Personal Information by these contractors is limited to the information reasonably necessary for the Contractor to perform its limited function for us.

Participation in our events. We use the Personal Information that we collect from you when you participate in an event organised by KabAcademy for processing purposes, including but not limited to smooth organisation of the events. Some information can be shared with Contractors engaged in providing the services or their part, e.g. hotels and transport undertakings, however, only to the extent, in which the information is necessary for their participation. Your participation and performance in physical or virtual events can be recorded (filmed), broadcasted, filed and recording of it made publicly available through the Internet, television or any other broadcast, media, publications and the like worldwide for educational, research, advertising, marketing, promotional and/or illustrative purposes.

Communications with KabAcademy. When you send us an email message or otherwise contact us, we may use the information provided by you to respond to your communication and/or as described in this Policy. We may also archive this information and/or use it for future communications with you where we are legally entitled to do so.

Communications with KabAcademy partners. We may share your Personal Information with our partners so that our partners may share information about their products and services that may be of interest to you where we are legally entitled to do so.

Research. We may share general course data (including quiz or assignment submissions, grades, and forum discussions), information about your activity on our Site, and demographic data from surveys operated by us with our partners so that our partners may use the data for research related to online education and dissemination of Kabbalah.

Government Authorities, Legal Rights and Actions. KabAcademy may share your Personal Information with various government authorities in response to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process; to establish or exercise our legal rights or to protect our property; to defend against legal claims; or as otherwise required by law. In such cases we reserve the right to raise or waive any legal objection or right available to us. We also may share your Personal Information when we believe it is appropriate to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal or suspected illegal activities; to protect and defend the rights, property, or safety of KabAcademy, the Site, our users, customers, or others; and in connection with our Terms of Use and other agreements.

  1. External Links

For your convenience we may provide links to sites operated by organizations other than KabAcademy (“Third Party Sites”) that we believe may be of interest to you. We do not disclose your Personal Information to these Third Party Sites without obtaining your consent. We do not endorse and are not responsible for the privacy practices of these Third Party Sites. If you choose to click on a link to one of these Third Party Sites, you should review the privacy policy posted on the other site to understand how that Third Party Site collects and uses your Personal Information.

  1. Retention of Personal Information

We keep your Personal Information for no longer than necessary for the purposes for which the Personal Information is processed. The length of time we retain Personal Information for depends on the purposes for which we collect and use it and/or as required to comply with applicable laws and to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights.

  1. Confidentiality & Security of Personal Information

We consider the confidentiality and security of your information to be of the utmost importance. We use and will use industry standard physical, technical and administrative security measures to protect Personal Information from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction and to keep your Personal Information confidential and secure and will not share it with third parties, except as otherwise provided in this Policy, or unless such disclosure is necessary in special cases, such as a physical threat to you or others, as permitted by applicable law. We have implemented appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to help safeguard and secure Personal Information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration or destruction.

Because the Internet is not a 100% secure environment, we cannot guarantee the security of Personal Information, and there is some risk that an unauthorized third party may find a way to circumvent our security systems or that transmission of your information over the Internet will be intercepted. It is your responsibility to protect the security of your login information. Please note that e-mails communications are typically not encrypted and should not be considered secure.

We will process Personal Information in a manner that is compatible with and relevant to the purpose for which it was collected or authorized by you. To the extent necessary for those purposes, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that Personal Information is accurate, complete, current and reliable for its intended use.

  1. Your rights

You have certain rights in relation to your Personal Information. You can access your Personal Information and confirm that it remains correct and up-to-date or choose whether or not you wish to receive material from us or some of our partners by logging into the Site and visiting your user account page (My account).

Subject to certain terms and conditions you have the right to request that we:

  • provide access to any Personal Information we hold about you;
  • prevent the processing of your Personal Information for direct-marketing purposes;
  • update any Personal Information which is out of date or incorrect;
  • delete any Personal Information which we are holding about you;
  • restrict the way that we process your Personal Information;
  • provide your Personal Information to a third party provider of services; or
  • provide you with a copy of any Personal Information which we hold about you.

If you would like further information in relation to your rights or would like to exercise any of them, you may contact us via privacy@kabacademy.eu.

We try to answer every email promptly where possible, and provide our response within the time period stated by applicable law.

We will offer you the opportunity to opt-out of your Personal Information (or to provide explicit consent for Sensitive Personal Information) being: (i) disclosed to a third party (other than our partner and/or Contractor); or (ii) used for a purpose materially different from the purpose for which it was originally collected, or subsequently authorized by you, when the circumstances arise, however, not in circumstances (i) if we are required to do so by law or legal process; (ii) pursuant to valid requests by law enforcement or other government authorities (which we are legally required to respond to); and (iii) when we believe disclosure is necessary to prevent physical harm or financial loss or in connection with an investigation of suspected or actual illegal activity. You also have the ability to opt out at any time from the use of your personal information for direct marketing purposes. To exercise this right, please check your settings options (My account).

Upon request, we will provide you with reasonable access to the Personal Information about you that we hold. We will also take reasonable steps to correct, update, amend or delete any information that is demonstrated to be inaccurate, except where the burden or expense of doing so would be disproportionate to the risks to your privacy in the case in question or where the rights of third parties would be violated.

Keep in mind, however, that there will be residual information that will remain within our databases, access logs and other records, which may or may not contain your Personal Information.

Please also note that certain Personal Information may be exempt from such requests in certain circumstances, which may include if we need to keep processing your Personal Information to comply with a legal obligation or relying on legitimate interests prevailing over your interests or rights, or fulfilment of a contract.

When you email us with a request, we may ask that you provide us with information necessary to confirm your identity.

  1. Questions, Suggestions and Complaints

If you have any privacy-related questions, suggestions, unresolved problems, or complaints you may contact us via privacy@kabacademy.eu, where our Data Protection Officer and Privacy Team will assist with all queries regarding our processing of Personal Information.

You may also make a complaint to our supervisory body for data protection matters or seek a remedy through competent courts if you believe that your rights have been breached.

  1. International Privacy Practices

KabAcademy’s Sites are primarily operated and managed on servers located and operated within the EU. In order to provide our products and services to you, we may send and store your Personal Information outside of the country where you reside or are located. We are committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of Personal Information when it is transferred. We take appropriate steps to provide the same level of protection for the processing carried out in any such countries as you would have within the European Union to the extent feasible under applicable law.

  1. No Information from Children

KabAcademy strongly believes in protecting the privacy of children. In line with this belief, we do not knowingly collect or maintain Personal Information on our Site from persons under 18 years of age, and no part of our Site is directed to persons under 18 years of age. If you are under 18 years of age, then please do not use or access this Site at any time or in any manner. We will take appropriate steps to delete any Personal Information of persons less than 18 years of age that has been collected on our Site without verified parental consent upon learning of the existence of such Personal Information.

  1. Modifications

Please note that we review our privacy practices and this Policy from time to time, and that these practices and this Policy are subject to change. Any change, update, or modification will be effective immediately upon posting on our Site. Please be sure to review the most recent version of this Policy each time that you visit this website so that you are aware of how we collect, use and retain personal information.

  1. Recourse, enforcement, governing Law and Jurisdiction

We will regularly review our compliance with the statements set forth in this Policy, and we will provide an independent way to resolve complaints about our privacy practices. We encourage interested persons to first contact us (privacy@kabacademy.eu) and we will investigate and attempt to resolve any complaints and disputes regarding use and disclosure of Personal Information in accordance with the Policy. If your inquiry is not satisfactorily addressed by us, please, note, we are subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the authorised supervisory authorities.

KabAcademy is located in Germany. You agree that any dispute related to these Terms will be governed by the laws of the Germany, Berlin, excluding its conflicts of law provisions. You further consent to the personal jurisdiction of and exclusive venue in the courts located in and serving Berlin, Germany, as the legal forum for any such dispute.