Privacy policy

Thank you for your interest in our website and our services. For us, data is the basis for excellent service. However, our most important asset is the trust of our customers. Protecting customer data and using it only in the way our customers expect, is our number one priority. The following privacy notice is therefore intended to inform you about the processing of your personal data and your rights in this processing in accordance with the European General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") and other applicable data protection regulations.

1. General information

  1. Responsible for the operation of this website is METRO AG, Metro-Straße 1, 40235 Duesseldorf, Germany (hereinafter "METRO", "we" or "us").
  2. If you have any questions about privacy and data protection, you can contact our data protection officer using the following contact details: METRO AG, Data Protection Officer, Metro-Straße 1, 40235 Duesseldorf, Germany, email: datenschutz@metro.de.
  3. This privacy policy explains how we collect, process and use personal data in connection with the provision of our website. Personal data are individual details about your personal or factual circumstances. We process your personal data that we collect, store and use exclusively within the framework of the applicable legal regulations.
  4. We have taken appropriate technical measures to ensure that your data is protected against unauthorized disclosure, unlawful use, alteration and destruction. METRO employees are required to comply with data protection regulations when handling (personal) data.

2. Processing of Personal Data and Transfer to Third Parties

  1. Some personal data is collected automatically via your device (computer, mobile phone, tablet, etc.) when you use our website. The IP address currently used by your device, date and time, the typ of browser and operating system of your device and the pages accessed are recorded. This is done for the purposes of data security and to optimise our offer as well as to improve our website. Any other analysis, with the exception of statistical purposes, and that always in anonymous form, is only carried out within the scope of this privacy policy. This personal data is processed on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. f) GDPR. The protection of our website and the optimisation of our services constitute a legitimate interest of METRO.
  2. If you contact us (for example via an enquiry at datenschutz@metro.de), we only collect, process and use the personal data that you have made available to us and that is necessary to process and respond to your enquiry. Legal basis for the processing is Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. b) GDPR.
  3. You can register for our information service using a separate form. After you have filled out the relevant registration form and, by doing so, sent us your personal data supplied therein as well as your consent to the use of your data for the purposes selected by you, we will send you a confirmation email. The sending of our information takes place only with your consent and is based on Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. a) GDPR. You can opt out of receiving the information at any time via the respective link at the bottom of each message that you receive from us.
  4. In order to enable the data processing procedures mentioned in this privacy policy, we use service providers as data processors within the meaning of Art. 28 GDPR, for example service providers for sending e-mails, maintenance and other services. These are both external service providers and service providers within METRO located in countries within and eventually outside the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). Through contractual arrangements, we ensure that these service providers process personal data in accordance with the GDPR in order to guarantee a high level of privacy, even if personal data is transferred to a country with a different level of data protection for which no adequacy decision by the EU Commission exists. No further transmission of personal data to other recipients takes place unless we are legally obliged to do so. For more information on appropriate security measures for international data transfer or a copy thereof, please contact our data protection officer: datenschutz@metro.de.

3. Cookies

We use so-called cookies to make our services attractive to visitors and to enable the use of certain functions. These are small text files that are stored on your device. Some of the cookies we use are deleted after the end of the browser session, i.e. after closing your browser (so-called session cookies). Other cookies remain on your device and enable us to recognise your browser on your next visit (persistent cookies). You can configure your browser so that you are notified when you receive a cookie and you can decide on an individual basis if you want to accept them; you can also refuse cookies for certain cases or generally refuse them. For more information, see the help section of your browser. If you do not accept cookies, the functionality of our website may be limited. By accepting the respective categories in our "cookie banner" or on the cookie selection site, you also agree to the processing of your personal data through cookies. This personal data is processed on the basis of Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. a) GDPR. To learn more about cookies and other possible web tracking tools and the choices you have in this regard, please visit: youronlinechoices.eu (for users in the European Union).

4. Individual Services

  1. Siteimprove Analytics: If you have activated statistics cookies, we use Siteimprove Analytics on this website, a web analysis service of Siteimprove GmbH, Kurfürstendamm 56, 10707 Berlin, Germany. We use Siteimprove Analytics to analyse website use by users in order to monitor the functionality of our websites (e.g. accessibility of our texts, functionality of links, etc.) and to provide our visitors with the most pleasant and useful experience possible. For example, your anonymised IP address, your browser and operating system, the URL visited, page title, length of stay and other statistical data are temporarily collected, which are used exclusively for quality checks. Their evaluation helps us to continuously improve our services for you. To this end, Siteimprove also uses cookies. The data Siteimprove collects and processes from European customers is stored in the EU. The dedicated data centres are located in Germany and Denmark.
  2. Matomo: We use the data processor nexxar GmbH (https://nexxar.com) to host andmeasure the reach of this website. As part of this service, we use the open source software Matomo – a web analysis tool for the statistical evaluation of user behaviour. The data collected by Matomo is stored anonymously in order to improve our website.

5. Third-party content

This website uses the embedding features to display and play videos and other external content (third-party content). The content is inactive by default, i.e. no personal data is transmitted to the third-party providers when you visit our website. It is also possible to use our website without the external content. However, the content can be activated on a voluntary basis individually for each third-party provider. By doing so, you then consent to cookies being set by the third-party providers, your personal data (usage data, meta-communication data (especially IP address), location data, if applicable) being transmitted to the third-party providers and possibly also being processed in third countries such as the USA. The legal basis for the transmission of the data is the consent voluntarily given by you in accordance with Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. a) GDPR. You can revoke your consent at any time for the future by removing the checkmark for the third-party provider.

Further processing is carried out under the own responsibility of the respective third-party provider.

Special notes on YouTube
YouTube is a service offered by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland ("Google"). Parent company: Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheater Parkway, Mountainview, California 94043, USA. Independently of a playback of the embedded videos, a connection to the Google network "DoubleClick" is established each time this website is called up, which may trigger further data processing operations without our influence. Further information on data protection at YouTube can be found in the provider’s privacy policy at: www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy. Information on the cookies used by Google can be found at: policies.google.com/technologies/cookies?hl=en&gl=en.

Special notes on Google Maps
Our website uses the Google Maps plugin. This service is provided by Google Ireland Limited ("Google"), Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland. The purpose and scope of the data collection and the further processing and use of the data by Google as well as your rights and setting options for the protection of your privacy can be found in Google’s data protection information at www.google.com/policies/privacy, Opt-Out: adssettings.google.com/authenticated.

6. Provision of personal data and retention periods

The provision of your personal data is voluntary. You are not legally obliged to make your personal data available to us. If you choose not to make your personal data available to us, this has no consequences for you, except that you may eventually not be able to use our services.

Personal data that you make available to us via our website will only be stored until the purpose for which it was processed has been fulfilled, until you tell us to delete your data or there is a statutory retention period. If the processing of your data is based on consent, we will delete your data if you withdraw your consent, unless we are required by law to retain the personal data.

7. Your rights

to exercise your rights under the GDPR to

  • obtain information about the processing of your personal data and a copy of this data (Art. 15 GDPR),
  • rectification of inaccurate and completion of incomplete personal data (Art. 16 GDPR),
  • erasure of your personal data and, if these have been made public, that METRO informs other controllers about the erasure request (Art. 17 GDPR),
  • restriction of processing of your personal data (Art. 18 GDPR),
  • data portability, so that your personal data is transmitted to you in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and the right to transmit this data to another controller without any hindrance from METRO (Art. 20 GDPR),
  • withdrawal of consent given; the withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal (Art. 7 GDPR) and
  • object to processing of your data (Art. 21 GDPR), you can contact METRO’s Data Protection Officer (datenschutz@metro.de) at any time. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority if you consider the data processing to be incompatible with the GDPR (Art. 77 GDPR).


Competent supervisory authority
State Commissioner for Data Protection and Information Security of North Rhine-Westphalia (Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationssicherheit Nordrhein-Westfalen)
Home address: Kavalleriestraße 2-4, 40213 Duesseldorf, Germany
Postal address: Postfach 20 04 44, 40102 Duesseldorf, Germany
Telephone: +49 (0) 211 / 384 24 – 0
Fax: +49 (0) 211 /384 24 – 10
E-mail: poststelle@lfdi.nrw.de
Website: www.ldi.nrw.de

If your personal data is processed on the basis of legitimate interests pursuant to Art. 6 para. 1 s. 1 lit. f) GDPR, you have the right to object to the processing of your personal data pursuant to Art. 21 GDPR, provided that there are grounds for doing so that arise from your particular situation. If you wish to exercise your right to object, simply send an e-mail to METRO's Data Protection Officer (see above).

8. Updates

We reserve the right to update this data protection notice from time to time. Updates to this data protection notice will be posted on our website.

METRO AG
Corporate Communications

Last amended: February 2022

Cookies settings

This website uses cookies to provide you with the best possible service. If you do not wish to use certain cookies, you can activate or deactivate them at any time on this page. Some cookies are necessary for the operation of the website and cannot be disabled.

You can activate or deactivate cookies yourself below. We offer you the possibility to make settings in order to agree to this use, to revoke your consent or to object to the use.

Necessary Cookies

  • Name: nxrCookieAgreement
    Reason: This cookie stores whether a decision has already been made to use cookies or not and which cookies were acccepted or denied.
    Lifespan: 7 days.

Statistics Cookies

  • Name: piwik_ignore, mtm_consent, mtm_consent_removed
    Reason: Matomo opt-out cookie.
    Lifespan: 2 years after the last page view.

  • Name: MATOMO_SESSID
    Reason: Temporary nonce cookie to prevent CSRF security issues (https://matomo.org/faq/general/faq_146/).
    Lifespan: Duration of the session: the cookie is deleted when the browser is closed.

  • Name: Site Improve
    Reason: Siteimprove Analytics cookies contain no personal information and are used only for anonymized web analytics. For example to identify sequences of pages visitors often looked at in general. This helps to improve the information offer and reduce unneccessary steps. Siteimprove generate a number of cookies. For details, please refer to the privacy policy of siteimprove.
    Lifespan: For details, please refer to the privacy policy of the service provider mentioned in the description.

Third-Party Content

  • Name: YouTube
    Reason: The YouTube videos embedded on these pages use a number of cookies for display. For details, please refer to the privacy policy of Google.
    Lifespan: For details, please refer to the privacy policy of the service provider mentioned in the description.