Terms & Conditions

§ 1 Scope

These General Terms and Conditions (GTC) apply to the use of the ihe.de online platform operated by IHE – INNOVATIVE-HYBRID-ELEKTROPLANUNG and to all services offered through it in the field of building services engineering (Technische Gebäudeausrüstung).

§ 2 Description of Services

IHE provides engineering services in electrical planning and building automation. Specific deliverables are defined in the engineering contract on the basis of the German fee scale for architects and engineers (HOAI).

§ 3 Customer Portal

The customer portal grants registered users access to project-related documents, current planning status, and communication with the project team. Use requires prior registration and activation by IHE.

§ 4 User Obligations

Users undertake to safeguard their access credentials and not share them with third parties. Any activity carried out under a user's credentials is deemed authorised by that user.

§ 5 Liability

IHE is liable only for damages caused by intent or gross negligence. Liability for breach of material contractual obligations remains unaffected. Otherwise, the liability clauses of the respective engineering contract apply.

§ 6 AI-Powered Functions (Overview)

The platform offers AI-supported analysis and planning functions. All AI-generated results are intended as assistance and do not replace expert review by a qualified engineer (human-in-the-loop principle under the EU AI Act). Concrete user obligations are governed by § 9.

§ 7 Data Protection

The provisions of our Privacy Policy apply.

§ 8 Capabilities & Plugin Access

The platform's functional scope is organised through a capability model. A capability is a permission granted by the controller — recorded in writing or electronically — to use a specific function (e.g. tga.recherche, m365.read, users.invite).

(1) Capabilities are granted exclusively by holders of the users.invite or superadmin capability. Each grant is permanently logged in the audit log with timestamp, capability key and granting person (retention period: 3 years).

(2) Users have no entitlement to the grant or retention of any capability. IHE may revoke individual capabilities without prior notice for operational, security-related or legal reasons. Where revocation affects a capability material to contract performance, the user is notified without undue delay.

(3) Certain capabilities with elevated risk potential (in particular superadmin and users.invite) require active multi-factor authentication (MFA). Without an active second factor, the affected endpoints are technically blocked (HTTP 403, code MFA_REQUIRED).

(4) Plugin functions (e.g. TGA research, M365 co-pilot) may be deactivated globally or per user by the controller. Upon deactivation, a notice banner is shown; existing data remains available for the period set out in § 10.

§ 9 AI Functions — User Obligations

Using AI-supported functions (e.g. research summaries, email drafts, full-text analyses, automatic CPV classification) is subject to the following obligations:

• Review obligation: Every AI output must be professionally verified by the user before it enters a contract conclusion, a procurement decision, a construction-related instruction or any external communication.
• Third-party impact: AI-generated content that reaches third parties (emails, letters, Telegram messages) automatically carries a notice footer per Art. 22 GDPR and is not sent fully autonomously — the user must give an explicit approval via the approval inbox before sending.
• Anonymisation: Personal data is anonymised before transmission to external LLM providers (Scaleway, OpenAI, Anthropic). Users undertake not to include any additional personal data in their own prompts beyond what is necessary for the respective function.
• Hallucination risk: AI results may be flawed, incomplete or fabricated. For standard-based statements (DIN, VDE, HOAI) the original source must be consulted. IHE is not liable for damages caused solely by unreviewed reliance on AI outputs.
• Right to data export: Users may at any time request a machine-readable copy of all their AI interactions via /portal/einstellungen/datenschutz (Art. 20 GDPR).

§ 10 Termination of the Contractual Relationship

(1) Forms of termination. Either party may terminate the contract at any time without cause in writing or text form (e-mail to datenschutz@ihe.de). Termination for cause remains unaffected.

(2) Self-service termination by user. Users may request deletion of their account themselves via /portal/einstellungen/datenschutz → "Delete account". A 14-day cooling-off period (cooldown_until) applies during which the user may revoke the request. Once expired, deletion is executed via Phase 7 of our deletion worker.

(3) Data export before termination. Before any deletion the user is informed that a full data export (ZIP, JSON + original files) may be requested. The export link is valid for 7 days.

(4) What happens to the data?

• Hard delete (immediate, irreversible): profile avatar, uploaded CVs, personal notes, mail tokens, MFA factors, AI chat history.
• Anonymisation (data is retained structurally, personal identifiers removed): audit log entries, tender tracking history, completed project communication. user_id is replaced with a deterministic hash, name → [deleted], email → deleted-{hash}@anonymized.local.
• Statutory retention (legally mandated): invoices and tax-relevant documents remain stored for 6 or 10 years pursuant to § 257 HGB / § 147 AO; these are anonymised but not deleted.

(5) Inactive accounts. Accounts without activity for more than 24 months are automatically scheduled for deletion. 60 days before deletion the user receives a warning e-mail with a reactivation link.

(6) Consequences. Upon completion of deletion all capabilities and plugin access expire. Third parties invited by the user remain unaffected; their accounts and data persist independently.

§ 11 Final Provisions

German law applies. Place of jurisdiction is Passau, Germany. Should individual provisions of these GTC be invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions shall remain unaffected. The legally binding version is the German one; this English translation is for convenience only.

Changes to these GTC are communicated to users at least 4 weeks before they take effect, by e-mail or via the consent wall. If the user objects within the deadline, the contractual relationship continues under the previous terms until the next regular termination opportunity.