Privacy Notice Flatfox AG
1. Who is responsible for the processing of your data?
2. How do we collect your data?
3. Scope, purpose and legal basis for the processing of your data
3.1 Visiting our offerings (log files)
3.2 Use of our services without registering
3.3 Registering a user account
3.4 Using our offerings as a registered user
3.5 Using mobile applications
3.6 Purchasing/receiving a fee-based offering
3.7 Use of our tenant portal
3.8 Contacting customer service or using the contact form
3.9 Participation in events, sweepstakes or contests (hereinafter jointly referred to as “Events”)
3.10 User surveys, Interviews and market research
3.11 Marketing and analysis purposes
3.12 Combatting fraud, legal disputes and legal processing obligations
4. Profiling
5. Disclosure of your data to third parties
5.1 Disclosure to companies of the SMG Group
5.2 Disclosure to Shareholders of the SMG Group
5.3 Disclosure to service providers
5.4 Disclosure to other third parties
6. Use of cookies, tracking and analysis tools, as well as plug-ins and other integrated third-party offerings
6.1 Cookies
6.2 Tracking and analysis tools
6.3 Plug-ins and other integrated third-party offerings
7. Transfer of personal data abroad
8. How long will we store your data?
9. How do we protect your data?
10. What rights do you have in relation to your data?
11. How can you contact us?
12. Changes to this Privacy Notice
Privacy Notice Flatfox AG
This privacy notice informs you as to how Flatfox AG and the companies of the Swiss Marketplace Group AG (SMG Swiss Marketplace Group AG, Casasoft AG, Ricardo AG, Acheter-Louer.ch & Publimmo Sàrl, Nhat Viet Group Co. Ltd, IAZI, Informations- und Ausbildungszentrum für Immobilien AG), (hereinafter jointly “we”, “us”, “our”, “Flatfox”, “SMG and SMG Group”), handle your personal data, to whom we may disclose your data, if applicable, and the rights you have vis-à-vis us in relation to the use of your data when you use our websites, platforms, portals or mobile applications (hereinafter collectively “offering”), as well as in cooperation with you. SMG Group is jointly owned by Swiss Mobiliar Insurance Company, Bundesgasse 35, 3001 Bern (“Mobiliar”), TX Group Ltd, Werdstrasse 21, 8004 Zurich (“TX Group”), Ringier Ltd, Brühlstrasse 5, 4800 Zofingen (“Ringier”) and General Atlantic SC B.V., Raamplein 1, 1016XK Amsterdam, Netherlands (“General Atlantic”) (hereinafter collectively the “Shareholders”).
We may provide you with additional privacy notices if we deem it appropriate. Such additional privacy notices supplement this privacy notice and must be read together with it.
We process your personal data in accordance with applicable data protection law (including the Swiss Data Protection Act, “FADP” and, where applicable, the EU General Data Protection Regulation, “GDPR”; hereinafter collectively “applicable data protection law”) at all times.
“Personal data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person or, where protected by the FADP, legal entity. This may include, for example, your first and last name, postal address, email address, date of birth, telephone number and data concerning the use of our website, purchases made via our portals and your preferences. This privacy notice also refers to this as “your data“. Information that cannot be directly or indirectly associated with you as a person, i.e. with your identity, does not generally constitute personal data.
“Processing” means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as the collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction of your data.
Please note that third-party websites accessible via our own offerings provide information about the data processing they perform in their own privacy notices. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for compliance with data protection requirements by these third parties and recommend that you consult the privacy notices of these third-party websites.
1. Who is responsible for the processing of your data?
Flatfoxor SMG Group are responsible for the processing of your data that is collected or received in connection with our offerings or in cooperation with you or that is processed for any other purpose as defined in this privacy notice.
2. How do we collect your data?
We collect your data directly from you or obtain your data from third parties, such as property owners and property managers, our affiliated companies, public authorities, consultants, our service providers or from publicly available sources.
3. Scope, purpose and legal basis for the processing of your data
We process your data if you use our offerings, cooperate with us or otherwise contact us.
In general, we process your data for the following purposes:
fulfilling and performing contractual or statutory obligations;
verifying access authorisation and administering the user account (if any);
recording notices of termination, damage reports and other requests from you as a tenant;
enabling you to communicate and exchange documents with other users and third parties (e.g. property owners or tenants who are not users);
providing your data to the property management if you, as an interested party, create an application dossier on our real estate platform flatfox.ch;
communicating with you and informing you of updates or changes to our offerings or events and in the event of amendments to our GTC, privacy notice and our specifications as to how you may advertise on our portals and websites;
combating fraud;
developing and maintaining the customer relationship;
for marketing purposes on our part and that of third parties, i.e. all promotional measures, e.g. newsletters, telephone, online advertising, SMS and push notifications for market research, conducting analyses and surveys, as well as for statistical purposes;
designing and improving our offerings in order to meet our customers’ needs;
evaluating user behaviour;
initiation of contractual relationships with third parties;
training purposes.
Below, we have summarised in detail for you the data we process in connection with our offerings, the purpose for which we process the data and the legal basis on which we rely for this processing.
3.1 Visiting our offerings (log files)
If you use our offerings without providing any additional information, the web server technology utilised by us automatically logs general technical visit information in something known as log files. This includes but is not limited to the IP address of the device from which the visit is made, information about the type of browser, the internet service provider and the operating system utilised, the offerings requested from us, referring/exit sites, and the time and duration of the visit.
This information is collected and processed for the purpose of enabling the use of our websites (connection set-up), ensuring and increasing the security and stability of our systems and websites, analysing the use of our offerings and services, collecting general demographic information and enabling the optimisation of our offerings, as well as for internal statistical purposes. The user is not identified in this process. Furthermore, no link is normally established between this automatically collected information and any personal data stored by us. However, the automatically collected information and the personal data stored with us may be linked if you already have a registered user account on one of our portals or use, as a guest, certain features of our websites, such as our contact form or our request function. This information may be linked in order to analyse the use of our offerings and services, to collect general demographic information and to enable the optimisation of our Internet offerings:
If you send a message to a third party (for example an advertiser) via a corresponding feature on our portal, your message, including its content, may be stored by us.
You can also obtain free services on our portal. We may use your personal data provided when using a free service or with a message (e-mail address, telephone number, etc.), for example, for marketing and analysis purposes (see Chapter 3.9 below).
If any of your personal data is processed for the purposes described above when you visit our offerings, this processing is performed in our legitimate interest of enabling the use of our websites (connection set-up), ensuring and increasing the security and stability of our systems and offerings, analysing, statistically evaluating, adapting and improving the use of our offerings and enabling the optimisation of our internet offerings.
3.2 Use of our services without registering a user account
You can also use certain services on Flatfox without having a registered user account. This includes, among other things:
Submitting Application Forms for Rental Properties: As a prospective tenant, you can submit an application dossier for a rental property apartment without possessing a user account. The required data for the application form is primarily determined by the property management. In the background, a user profile without login credentials is created, but no account registration takes place. The following personal data, among others, can be collected:
First and last name
Address (complete postal address, postal code, city/town, country)
Date of birth
Telephone number
Proof of identity (copy of ID or passport)
Job titles
Employer
Income details
Creditworthiness details
Housing situation details
Living situation details
Citizenship
Other documents, such as:
Extract from the debt collection register
Rental deposit agreements
Rental contracts
Copy of identification
Ordering Debt Collection Extracts: You have the option to order debt collection extracts via our platform without creating a user account. For this, we collect the following personal data, among others:
First and last name
Address (complete postal address, postal code, city/town, country)
Date of birth
Telephone number
Proof of identity (copy of ID or passport)
Payment information
The processing of this personal data is for the purpose of providing you access to specific services without an account and to administer our offerings accordingly. We ensure the security and protection of your personal data in compliance with applicable data protection regulations.
By using these features without registering a user account, we create a user profile in the background. This allows us to manage the information you have submitted and facilitate the apartment application process. This user profile does not constitute active account registration and does not offer login functions.
3.3 Registering a user account
For personalised services or secure areas, or to process requests and administer your subscriptions, you may need to register and create a user account. This requires entering certain personal data. This may include, for example,
your email address, which may also serve as your username,
password
and, depending on the context and offering, additional details, such as
first and last name
proof of identity such as copies of official identification documents
address (complete postal address, postcode, city/town)
telephone number
date of birth
gender
information about subscribed newsletters or other advertising
language preferences
Apart from the details labelled as mandatory for taking advantage of a particular offering, you can also voluntarily enter and store additional personal data. By your confirmation upon completing the registration for collecting and changing your details for the user account, you guarantee that the information collected from you is accurate.
We use such data for processing and administering our digital offerings, verifying the plausibility of the data entered, i.e. establishing, designing the content of, processing and amending the contracts concluded with you via your user account and, in case of fee-based services, proper invoicing. Accordingly, we process your data in this regard in accordance with the applicable data protection law.
3.4 Using our offerings as a registered user
During the use of the offering by registered users, we collect data for statistical purposes in order to enable the smooth functioning of the portal and to analyse and optimise our offerings and services. For example, we collect data about whether and how you use our digital offerings, particularly which features and adverts you take advantage of and how you do so. It is in our legitimate interest to optimise, develop and improve our offering in accordance with applicable data protection law.
If you make use of our offering as a registered user, statistical data may be visible to other registered users. Such data shall only be made available to other registered users in anonymised and/or aggregated form.
3.5 Using mobile applications
If you use our mobile applications with a mobile device and you have enabled the transfer of your GPS signal data to a third party in your mobile device settings, we may use GPS signal data to collect information about the location of your mobile device (longitude and latitude, horizontal accuracy data).
We will use the location data to enhance your user experience by displaying location-based online advertising and other location-based digital content to you via the mobile application(s) on your mobile device (such as location-based weather information and messages). We request your consent in accordance with applicable data protection law before collecting your location data for the above applications.
Even after you have provided your consent, you may withdraw your consent or deactivate or object to the collection, processing and disclosure of your location data at any time. If you do not wish to receive any location-based online advertising and content, you can either deny access to your location or deactivate the location services in your device’s settings at any time. To deactivate the location services, please follow the directions provided by your device’s manufacturer: for Apple devices: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207092, for Android devices: https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3467281?hl=e.
3.6 Purchasing/receiving a fee-based offering
If you purchase a product on our site or receive a fee-based service from us, the provision of data such as your first and last name, address (complete postal address, postal code, city/town) and any other data (such as your delivery address, billing address, payment information, etc.) is mandatory because we need it in order to perform our contract with you in accordance with applicable data protection law.
If you select an online payment option, e.g. credit card, TWINT or PayPal, to purchase a product or a fee-based service, the payment is processed via the online payment system of the relevant provider. In this case, your personal and payment data is processed directly through the provider of the payment system in question. We do not see or store your payment data. The privacy notice of the relevant provider of the online payment system applies.
We may store your information collected for the purchase or receipt of a fee-based offering in your user account for the next purchase/contract in accordance with our internal archiving and data protection policies or as required by law. We will use this data to optimise, improve and further develop our offering, for marketing purposes and for statistical purposes. For this purpose, we may store all information about your current and previous purchases and contracts concluded, i.e. the products, services, number of products and services per purchase and the payment amount.
3.7 Use of our tenant portal
If you use our Flatfox Tenant Portal as a tenant to record terminations, damage reports, and other concerns, we process data such as your first and last name, address, contact details, and potentially other information (e.g., application dossier, payment information, etc.).
As part of the Flatfox Tenant Portal, we may also process data collected from other sources, such as information from private information providers, details from public registers, information we receive from a company you work for, or information about you that our users (e.g., landlords, property managers, etc.) record via our Tenant Portal (e.g., within the scope of communication or the storage and exchange of documents).
3.8 Contacting customer service or using the contact form
If you contact our Customer Service, we may process your contact details (such as your title, first and last name, telephone number, email address or postal address) and the content of the conversation in order to answer your request. This is in our legitimate interest, as defined in the applicable data protection law, of providing you with accurate information and processing your request correctly.
Incoming and outgoing consultations with our customer service may be recorded and stored for training and quality purposes if you have consented to this.
If you fill out a contact form on our offerings, we will process the personal data provided (e.g. title, first and last name, telephone number, email address or postal address and the content of the request). This is also in our legitimate interest of providing you with accurate information and processing your request correctly (in accordance with applicable data protection law).
3.9 Participation in events, sweepstakes or contests (hereinafter jointly referred to as “Events”)
In order for you to participate voluntarily in Events, we use the data you have provided, such as your title, first and last name, email address, postal address and event-related data. This data is utilised to organise and conduct events, as well as to notify and/or announce the winners via direct notification or on social networks. In this context, your data may also be disclosed in accordance with Chapter 5, e.g. if we have engaged a third party to conduct or evaluate the event, or if the event is conducted by a third party through our offerings. Photos and videos can be taken on site at Events. Audio or video recordings will not be edited out afterwards. Recordings (photo and video) are used exclusively for our own purposes (e.g. posting on our websites, flyer, event review on social media, newsletter, information to participants by e-mail, etc.).
3.10 User surveys, Interviews and market research
If you voluntarily participate in a user survey, an interview or other market research activities conducted by us, we collect personal data from you, such as your title, first and last name, contact details and other information requested in the course of the survey. We use the information you provide solely to improve the user experience and to further develop our products, which is a legitimate interest of ours (in accordance with applicable data protection law). The results of the surveys consist solely of aggregated and anonymous data.
3.11 Marketing and analysis purposes
By registering or placing an order as a guest via one of our offerings, we may also use your data for personalised advertising activities by us, our affiliated companies, third parties and our shareholders. Personalised advertising measures include but are not limited to the personalisation of advertising via digital adverts on our web offerings and mobile applications, by email, such as e-mails with general information or of an advertising nature (newsletters), by telephone, post, fax, text messages, picture messages and on instant messaging services. At the end of every e-mail you receive from us, you will find a link through which you can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time. You may also unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time by sending us a message to [email protected].
We will only send you newsletters if they relate to similar offerings or if you have expressly consented to them. Otherwise, the delivery of personalised content and advertising, e.g. on our portals or those of our affiliated companies, is in our legitimate interest, under applicable data protection law, of offering you our products or services that may be of interest to you and optimally marketing our offerings. If prior consent is required, particularly for the processing of your data by our affiliated companies or by our shareholders, we will obtain it in advance.
For this purpose, user-specific historical and future data available to us can be continuously linked with each other using various analysis tools, and user behaviour can be analysed, aggregated, pseudonymised and anonymised across our offerings. In order to improve our database, we may use data that is publicly available or obtained from third-party providers. The findings based on your use of our offering may be utilised and exploited in the analysis of user behaviour at other participating companies. Such data processing generally takes place using pseudonymised or anonymised data. You may object to this processing of your data at any time by setting your browser to reject cookies as described in point 6, or by contacting us by e-mail as described above..
In addition, we process your data for analysis purposes, e.g. in order to continuously improve our offerings and to make them more responsive to your needs and more secure. This is in our legitimate interest, under applicable data protection law, of tailoring our offerings to the needs of our customers, improving them in line with the market and guaranteeing their security.
Upon registering a user account, you generally also automatically subscribe to one of our newsletters, and your email address may accordingly also be used to advertise our own similar offerings until you unsubscribe from the newsletter in question.
For the purposes described here, we may also engage data processors to carry out the technical processing of advertising measures and advertising for ourselves, who process your data at our instruction exclusively for the purposes described above (see chapter 5 below).
3.12 Combatting fraud, legal disputes and legal processing obligations
We may also process your data that we collect and process in accordance with Chapters 3.1 to 3.10 in order to combat fraud or in the event of a legal dispute, which is in our legitimate interest, under applicable data protection law, of protecting our business and enforcing or asserting any claims we may have. We may also process your data in order to fulfil our legal obligations in accordance with applicable data protection law.
4. Profiling
We may automatically evaluate personal aspects relating to you («profiling») based on your data for the purposes set out in chapter 3, where we wish to determine preference data, but also in order to detect misuse and security risks, to perform statistical analysis or for operational planning. We may also create profiles for these purposes, i.e. we may combine behavioral and preference data, but also master data, contract data and technical data relating to you in order to better understand you as a person with your various interests and other characteristics.
In such cases, we pay attention to the proportionality and reliability of the results and take measures against misuse of these profiles or profiling. Where these can produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you, we generally ensure human review.
5. Disclosure of your data to third parties
We work with other companies or persons or engage other companies or persons to process and store data in accordance with this privacy notice. These may be companies of the SMG Group, shareholders of the SMG Group (including its subsidiaries), other third parties or contracted data processors of ours. These third parties may obtain access to your personal data or usage data, but only as required for the purpose of completing the tasks assigned by us or to fulfil the purposes described in this privacy notice.
The foregoing shall be subject to the disclosure of your data based on mandatory legal obligations.
Unless a special form of professional secrecy applies in individual cases (e.g. banking secrecy), we are not subject to any professional confidentiality. Please inform us in individual cases if you believe that specific personal data are subject to a duty of confidentiality so that we can review your concerns.
5.1 Disclosure to companies of the SMG Group
To the extent compatible with the purposes described in Chapter 3 above, your data and usage data concerning you or your user account, as the case may be, may be used and disclosed to companies of the SMG Group for the purpose of evaluating and improving our offerings and making them more responsive to our customers’ needs, for customer care and personalisation, as well as for marketing purposes.
If your consent is required for this, we will obtain it from you in advance. Such consent can be withdrawn at any time. If consent is not required, the sharing of your data is based on our legitimate interest, or the legitimate interest of a company of the SMG Group, companies affiliated with the SMG Group or joint ventures of the SMG Group, in enabling the use of our websites (connection set-up), guaranteeing and increasing the security and stability of our systems in accordance with applicable data protection law, to analysing, statistically evaluating, adapting and improving the use of our offerings, showing or sending you advertising, and enabling the optimisation of our internet offerings.
In addition, we conduct an automated assessment of user behavior on various platforms in order to create a profile of the respective users, which allows a more targeted approach. In the event of your consent, we share this profile with the platforms belonging to the SMG Group in order to create an overall profile that the various platforms can use for the management of advertising, for marketing and for analyses. Namely, these are the following platforms: ImmoScout24, Homegate, Immostreet.ch, home.ch, Publimmo, Acheter-Louer.ch, CASASOFT, IAZI, AutoScout24, MotoScout24, CAR FOR YOU, anibis.ch, tutti.ch, Ricardo, FinanceScout24.
5.2 Disclosure to Shareholders of the SMG Group
We may disclose your data to the Shareholders of the SMG Group in accordance with this Chapter 5. The Shareholders may disclose the data to their Subsidiaries, provided that they process your data only for the same purposes (described below) as the Shareholders themselves are permitted to process them.
Disclosure is made for the purpose of evaluating, improving and tailoring the products and services of our Shareholders to meet their needs, for personalisation, for marketing purposes and to combat fraud and misuse. Data will only be disclosed as described herein if permitted by law or if we have obtained your consent in advance. Such consent can be withdrawn at any time.
TX Group Ltd maintains a range of data offerings for the benefit of other companies (affiliated companies). The SMG Group also purchases such services from TX Group Ltd. These data offerings may personalise the user experience on platforms of affiliated companies (e.g. by recommending content), better recognise fraud activities on platforms, display target-group-specific advertising on its own platforms (“ad targeting”) or display personalised advertising on the platforms of other affiliated companies (“ad retargeting”). Further information about the processing of your data by the data offerings of the TX Group can be found here.
5.3 Disclosure to service providers
Furthermore, we may disclose your data to third parties if this is required for the purpose of performing the contract in accordance with applicable data protection law. For this purpose, we may disclose the necessary data to transport companies, banks and other service providers, such as hardware and software providers. These services will use your data exclusively for processing the contract but not for other purposes. If this is required for the purposes mentioned in sentence 1 of this paragraph, your data may even be disclosed to providers abroad, for instance to enable the delivery of goods. For more information on transfers abroad, see Chapter 7.
5.4 Disclosure to other third parties
If you click on integrated third-party offerings or use integrated third-party contact forms, we may disclose your data in accordance with the offering or contact form. In addition, we may disclose your data to third parties if they wish to place personalised advertising or adverts on our offerings or make a personal service offer to you. Further, your data may be disclosed to third parties if we present an offering together with a third party.
We may disclose your information to domestic and foreign law enforcement agencies and courts to combat fraud and abuse or if we otherwise suspect criminal activity. If necessary, we transfer receivables to other companies such as debt collection agencies.
Apart from the disclosure of your data as described above, we will only disclose your data if you have either expressly consented to it in accordance with applicable data protection law, if there is a statutory obligation to do so, or if this is necessary to enforce our rights, particularly to enforce claims arising from the contractual relationship, or to combat fraud, both of which constitute an overriding interest of ours.
In case of a sale, merger or other reorganisation of any or all of our company assets, personal data may be assigned, sold or otherwise shared with third parties as part of this transaction or reorganisation.
If we provide an advance delivery, for instance in case of a purchase on account, we may obtain a credit check based on mathematical and statistical processes from a credit agency in order to preserve our legitimate interests in concluding a contract with solvent customers (in accordance with applicable data protection law). To this end, we will send a credit agency the personal data required for a credit check and will use the information received concerning the statistical probability of non-payment to make a decision whether to establish, implement or terminate the contractual relationship. The credit check may contain probability values (scores) calculated on the basis of a scientifically recognised mathematical and statistical process and which incorporate, in particular, contact details into the calculation. Your legitimate interests will be taken into account as specified by law.
No other disclosure, transfer or sale of your personal data to third parties outside the SMG Group and our Shareholders will take place unless this is necessary for the performance of a contract you have concluded with us, or you have expressly consented to it.
6. Use of cookies, tracking and analysis tools, as well as plug-ins and other integrated third-party offerings
6.1 Cookies
Cookies help to make your visit to our websites easier, more pleasant and more meaningful, and to ensure the functioning of our offerings and portals. They also serve to provide you with interest-based advertising. Cookies are data files that your web browser automatically stores on your computer’s hard drive when you visit our website. In general, our digital offerings can also be utilised without accepting cookies, but this may restrict the use of certain features.
When you use our website, the cookies set by us may collect and store usage data, such as the IP address of your device, pages visited, browser used, date, time, etc. As a general rule, this data cannot be used to identify you unless you are logged into your user account.
When the browser is closed, cookies are stored in a text file on the computer and called up the next time the web server is queried again. Cookies do not damage your computer’s hard drive or send personal user data to us.
We use cookies, for example, in order to recognise you after your first visit to our websites, offerings or portals, although we generally do not recognise you as a user, but rather only the computer, mobile device or browser used. Furthermore, we use cookies, for instance, to better understand who has visited our offerings and portals and to determine how often certain pages or offerings are viewed, which parts of the portal are especially popular, and generally to ascertain how the portal is utilised. We utilise other cookies so that you can move about freely on our website and use its features, such as when accessing restricted areas of the site, to navigate efficiently between different sites and to store preferences. Such cookies may also be necessary in order to use shopping baskets or payment features. Using cookies also makes it possible to utilise options selected by you (or decisions made by you) as settings in order to make your visit to the portal more user friendly. In general, using cookies helps to make our services better, more effective and more secure. However, cookies are also employed to collect information in order to show you advertising that may be of interest to you. Finally, our cookies help to better match online ads to your potential interests and thereby minimise the inclusion of advertising that might be of little or no interest to you.
Most internet browsers accept cookies automatically. However, you can always configure your browser so that it does not store cookies on your computer or so that it displays a notification whenever you receive a new cookie (please check the relevant settings in your browser). You can also delete cookies on your computer or mobile end device by using the appropriate feature in your browser.
You can decide at any time whether or not you wish to take advantage of targeted ads matched to your potential interests. However, opting out does not mean that no further online ads will be displayed to you. Rather, it only means that the ads displayed to you on our websites are not tailored to your presumed interests and may therefore be less relevant to you.
Apart from that, however, we also use permanent cookies. These cookies remain stored on your computer or mobile device after the end of your browser session. These permanent cookies remain stored on your computer or mobile device for a period between one month and ten years, depending on the type of cookie, and are automatically deactivated only at the end of the programmed time period.
For more details about the cookies and tracking tools we use, please refer to the cookies settings.
6.2 Tracking and analysis tools
The use of our digital offerings is also measured and analysed by means of a variety of technical systems, primarily from third parties such as Google Analytics. These measurements may be made anonymously and in reference to specific persons. In the process, the data collected by us or by the third-party providers of these technical systems may be disclosed to third parties for processing.
We use for example Google Analytics, a service provided by Google Inc. This means that the collected data can generally be transferred to one of Google’s servers in the USA. However, the IP addresses are anonymised through IP anonymisation so that they cannot be associated with their owners. The IP address transmitted from your browser in connection with Google Analytics is not combined with other data held by Google. The collection and processing of this data by Google Analytics may be objected to by setting an opt-out cookie, which prevents the further collection of your data when visiting this website in future: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en-GB.
For more details about the cookies and tracking tools we use, please refer to the cookies settings.
6.3 Plug-ins and other integrated third-party offerings
Our digital offerings are interconnected in a variety of ways with third-party functions and systems, for example by integrating plug-ins of third-party social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube or Twitter.
If you have a user account with these third parties, they may under certain circumstances also be able to measure and analyse your user of our digital offerings. In the process, additional personal data, such as your IP address, personal browser settings and other parameters may be transmitted to and stored by these third parties. When using a social login service such as Facebook Connect, the provider may send us personal data that it has stored with regard to you, such as your name, email address and profile picture. However, we have no control over the use of such personal data collected by third parties, nor do we assume any responsibility or liability for such use. In this regard, please see the additional detailed information linked above. You will find information about third-party providers’ collection and use of the data in the data protection provisions of the respective third-party providers.
7. Transfer of personal data abroad
We may also transfer your personal data to third-party companies or contracted service providers located abroad, particularly in Europe, Asia and the USA, insofar as this is appropriate for the data processing described in this privacy notice. However, these third parties are required to comply with data protection provisions to the same extent as we are. If the level of data protection in a given country is not equivalent to that of Switzerland, we ensure in an approptriate manner that the protection of your personal data is always equivalent to that available in Switzerland. We ensure this e.g. by concluding EU Model Clauses or other Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner-approved contracts with the contracted service providers. In exceptional cases, the transfer to countries without adequate protection may also be permissible in other cases, e.g. based on consent, in connection with legal proceedings abroad or if the transfer is necessary for the performance of a contract.
8. How long will we store your data?
We will store your data only for as long as required by law or in accordance with the purpose of processing, particularly for fulfilling the order or contract and for complying with our statutory obligations.
When analysing your data, we store your data until the analysis has been completed or you have objected to further processing. If we store data based on a contractual relationship with you, this data will remain stored for at least as long as the contractual relationship exists and at the latest for as long as any limitation periods for possible claims by us or any statutory or contractual retention obligations exist.
By law, the contents of the contact form and the subsequent e-mail correspondence must be retained by us for six months.
The contents of the contact form and the following e-mail correspondence will only be stored by us for as long as is legally necessary or in accordance with the processing purpose.
9. How do we protect your data?
We take appropriate technical and organisational precautions to conscientiously protect your data against loss, destruction, falsification, manipulation or unauthorised access. We operate secure data networks that adhere to the technical standards applicable in each case. Our security measures are continuously adapted and improved in line with technological developments.
If you register with us as a user, access to your user account is only possible after entering your personal password, a social login (via social media) or a one-time password (OTP). You should always treat payment and access information confidentially and log out of your profile when you have finished communicating with us, especially if you share the computer with others..
Our staff and contracted service providers undertake to maintain confidentiality and comply with the provisions of data protection law.
10. What rights do you have in relation to your data?
Under applicable data protection law, you have the following rights:
Right to information:
You have the right to find out at any time whether and which of your personal data is being processed by us.
Right to rectification of your data:
You have the right at any time to have your personal data rectified if you notice that we are processing erroneous data about you.
Right to erasure of your data:
If the processing of your data is no longer necessary, e.g., because your contractual relationship with us has ended or because you no longer consent to the processing of your data, you may request the erasure of your personal data. We will erase your personal data, provided we have no other relevant obligation (e.g. a statutory retention obligation) or overriding interest (e.g. in connection with legal proceedings) in continuing to retain or process your personal data for a certain period of time. In this case, we store your data exclusively for these purposes and will not process it otherwise.
Please note that the erasure of your personal data may mean that you can no longer obtain or use the services registered by you.
Right to restrict or block the processing of your data:
You have the right to restrict or block the processing of your data at any time, provided that we are not under any other obligation to retain and process your data for a certain period of time.
Right to disclose your data:
Under certain circumstances, you are entitled to have us disclose your personal information to you or a third party designated by you in a commonly used format or to provide your data to you in a commonly used format.
Right to object:
You may object to the processing of your data for marketing and analysis purposes and to the disclosure of your data within the SMG Group in accordance with Chapter 3.11 at any time.
Such an objection does not entirely preclude the collection of personal data, but only for marketing and analysis purposes and for the disclosure of your data within the SMG Group in accordance with Chapter 3.11.
You may also object to any data processing that is based on a legitimate interest of ours by sending us a message to [email protected], indicating the reasons relating to your particular situation.
Withdrawing your consent:
You always have the right to withdraw at any time any consent previously given. Once we have received notice that you are withdrawing your consent, we will no longer process your personal data for those particular purposes unless there is another legitimate interest in continuing to process it. Please note that the withdrawal of your consent has no effect on data processing that took place prior to the withdrawal.
Complaint to a supervisory authority:
In addition, you have the right to lodge a complaint regarding data processing with the appropriate supervisory authority. In Switzerland, this authority is known as the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner. You can lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority at your place of residence, place of work or at the location of the alleged data breach.
You may exercise your rights at any time by giving written notice and proof of your identity to the address below.
To do this, please use the e-mail account that you used to register with us. This allows us to verify your identity. In addition, we reserve the right to verify your identity by means of a copy of your passport, a copy of the front and back of your ID card or a copy of your Swiss driving licence or by any other means. We may correspond with you in response to your initial contact about exercising your rights.
Please note that, in some cases, the granting of your rights may be refused or restricted for legal reasons or based on data protection law. Where legally required or permitted, we will inform you of the reasons for our decision.
11. How can you contact us?
If you have any questions about the processing of your data, would like to request information or the erasure of your data, please send a message at our Data Protection Contact [email protected].
The contact details of our Data Protection Officer are as follows:
Flatfox AG
Data Protection Officer
Speichergasse 31
3011 Bern
12. Changes to this Privacy Notice
The current privacy notice published on our website shall apply.
We adapt this privacy notice to the most current level of measures dealing with the use and protection of personal data.
Please reread this privacy notice periodically to stay updated on what we do with your personal data and how you can exercise your rights.
Status: Planned adoption of this notice on 1 July 2024