Terms of Use / Exclusion of Liability / Privacy policy

Important legal information

Please read the following conditions carefully before continuing. Persons who use the Smartlink.ch website of Smartlink SA signify their agreement to the following conditions.

Copyright and trademark rights

The entire content of the Smartlink.ch website is copyright protected. All rights are owned by Smartlink SA. The elements contained on the Smartlink.ch website are freely accessible for browsing purposes only. Duplication of this material, or parts thereof, in any written or electronic form, is permitted only with a specific mention of Smartlink.ch. Reproduction, transfer, amendment, linking or use of the Smartlink.ch website for public or commercial purposes is prohibited without the prior written consent of Smartlink SA.

The various names and logos appearing on the Smartlink.ch site are generally registered and protected trademarks. No part of the Smartlink.ch is designed in such a way as to grant a license or right to utilize a picture, registered mark or logo. Downloading or copying the Smartlink.ch website or parts thereof, confers no rights whatsoever in respect of the software or elements of the Smartlink.ch website. Smartlink SA reserves all rights in respect of all elements of the Smartlink.ch website with the exception of rights belonging to third parties.

Warranty

Although Smartlink SA has taken all possible care to safeguard the reliability of the information contained on the Smartlink.ch website at the time of its publication, neither Smartlink SA nor its contracting partners can give any explicit or implicit assurance or warranty (including to third parties) in respect of the accuracy, reliability or completeness of the information on Smartlink.ch. Opinions and other information contained on the Smartlink.ch website may be changed at any time without prior notice.

Smartlink SA accepts no responsibility and gives no guarantee to the effect that the functions on Smartlink.ch website will not be interrupted or that the Smartlink.ch website or the relevant server is or are free from viruses or other harmful contents.

Limitation of liability

All liability of Smartlink SA (including liability for negligence) for direct, indirect or secondary damage suffered as a result of access to the elements of the Smartlink.ch website or to use of that site or as a consequence of impossibility of access to or use thereof or links to other websites, is hereby declined.

Links to other websites

The Smartlink.ch website contains links to websites operated by third parties which might be of interest to you. When activating these links you might leave the Smartlink.ch website or summaries of third-party websites may be displayed within the context of the Smartlink.ch website. Smartlink SA has not carried out any checks whatsoever on the websites of third parties accessible via links on the Smartlink.ch website and is in no way responsible for their content or effective operation. This applies regardless of whether when activating the link you leave the Smartlink.ch website or the display appears within the context of the Smartlink.ch website, as well as if in the latter case the information provider of an external website is not immediately obvious. Establishing the link or consulting websites operated by third parties is at the sole risk and peril of the user.

Data protection

Smartlink SA (6 Cours de Rive, Geneva, Switzerland), an Institute of Swiss Public Law (CHE-102.762.564), operates the website Smartlink.ch and is therefore responsible for the collection, processing and use of your personal data and the compliance of the said data processing with Swiss law. Your trust is important to us, which is why we take the issue of data protection seriously and ensure the appropriate level of security. We, of course, abide by the statutory provisions of the Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), the Ordinance to the Federal Act on Data Protection (OFADP), the Telecommunications Act (TCA) and, if applicable, other data protection provisions, in particular the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union (GDPR).

Please take note of the information below so that you know which data we collect from you and for what purposes it is used.

Privacy Policy

Introduction

Smartlink SA is committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors. This policy applies where we are acting as a data controller with respect to the personal data of our website visitors; in other words, where we determine the purposes and means of the processing of that personal data. We use cookies on our website. Insofar as those cookies are not strictly necessary for the provision of our website, we will ask you to consent to our use of cookies when you first visit our website. In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to Smartlink SA. For more information about us, see Section 13.

Credit

This document was created using a template from SEQ Legal (https://seqlegal.com).

How we use your personal data

In this Section 3 we have set out:

  • the general categories of personal data that we may process;
  • in the case of personal data that we did not obtain directly from you, the source and specific categories of that data;
  • the purposes for which we may process personal data; and
  • the legal bases of the processing.

When you visit www.smartlink.ch

When you visit our website, our servers make a temporary record of each access and store it in a log file. The following data is collected and stored, without any action on your part, until it is automatically deleted by us after 24 months at the latest:

  • the IP address of the accessing computer
  • the time and date of access
  • the name and URL of the file called up
  • the website from which access is made
  • the operating system of your computer and the browser used
  • the country from which access is made and the language settings of your browser
  • the name of your Internet access provider

The said data is collected and processed for the purpose of allowing you to use our website (establishing a connection), ensuring system security and stability in the long term and allowing our Internet offering to be optimised, as well as for internal statistical purposes. This is our legitimate interest in the processing of data within the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR. The IP address in particular is used in order to determine the country of residence of the visitor to the website and set the language of the website accordingly. The IP address is also analysed in the event of attacks on the network infrastructure of www.smartlink.ch as well as for statistical purposes.

We may process data about your use of our website and services (“usage data”). The usage data may include your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths, as well as information about the timing, frequency and pattern of your service use. The source of the usage data is our analytics tracking system. This usage data may be processed for the purposes of analysing the use of the website and services. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely monitoring and improving our website and services.

When you use our contact form

You have the option of using a contact form to get in touch with us. Doing so requires that you enter the following personal data:

  • Your name, optionally your First name and surname
  • Email Address
  • The subject of your contact email
  • Your message to us

We only use this data in order to answer your queries in an optimum manner and in a way that is tailored to you. The processing of your contact request constitutes our legitimate interest within the meaning of Art. 6 para. 1 lit. f GDPR. You can object to this data processing at any time.

We may process information contained in any enquiry you submit to us regarding goods and/or services (“enquiry data”). The enquiry data may be processed for the purposes of offering, marketing and selling relevant goods and/or services to you. The legal basis for this processing is consent.

We may process information relating to our customer relationships, including customer contact information (“customer relationship data”). The customer relationship data may include your name, your contact details, and information contained in communications between us and you. The source of the customer relationship data is you. The customer relationship data may be processed for the purposes of managing our relationships with customers, communicating with customers, keeping records of those communications and promoting our products and services to customers. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper management of our customer relationships.

When you register for our newsletter

You have the option of subscribing to our newsletter through our website. Registration is required in order to do so. As part of the registration, the following data must be provided:

  • Title
  • First name and surname
  • E-mail address

By registering, you give your agreement to the data provided being processed for the regular dispatch of the newsletter to the address you provided, for the statistical analysis of user behaviour and optimisation of the newsletter. Your consent constitutes our legal basis for the processing of your e-mail address in the sense of art. 6 para. 1 lit. a GDPR. We are entitled to commission third parties with the technical processing of advertising measures and to pass your data on for this purpose.

At the end of each newsletter is a link which you can use to unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time. When unsubscribing you have the option to let us know the reason you are doing so. Once you have unsubscribed, your personal data will be deleted. Further processing shall take place only in anonymised form for the purpose of optimising our newsletter. We expressly point to the data analysis during the newsletter distribution.

We may process information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our email notifications and/or newsletters (“notification data”). The notification data may be processed for the purposes of sending you the relevant notifications and/or newsletters. The legal basis for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps, at your request, to enter into such a contract.

We may process information contained in or relating to any communication that you send to us (“correspondence data”). The correspondence data may include the communication content and metadata associated with the communication. Our website will generate the metadata associated with communications made using the website contact forms. The correspondence data may be processed for the purposes of communicating with you and record-keeping. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper administration of our website and business and communications with users.

We may process any of your personal data identified in this policy where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the protection and assertion of our legal rights, your legal rights and the legal rights of others.

We may process any of your personal data identified in this policy where necessary for the purposes of obtaining or maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks, or obtaining professional advice. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the proper protection of our business against risks.

In addition to the specific purposes for which we may process your personal data set out in this Section 3, we may also process any of your personal data where such processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.

Please do not supply any other person’s personal data to us, unless we prompt you to do so.

Providing your personal data to others

We may disclose your personal data to any member of our group of companies (this means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and all its subsidiaries) insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes, and on the legal bases, set out in this policy. We pass your personal data on only if you have expressly consented to this, if there is a legal obligation to do so or if this is required in order to enforce our rights, in particular in order to enforce claims resulting from the relationship between you and Smartlink SA.

We also pass your data on to third parties where this is required in conjunction with use of the website in order to provide you with the services requested or to analyse your user behaviour. If this is required for the purposes specified in the preceding sentence, your data may also be passed on to third parties abroad. If the website contains links to websites of third parties, Switzerland Tourism will no longer have any influence on the collection, processing, storage or use of personal data by third parties once you click on such links and assumes no responsibility in this regard.

We may disclose your personal data to our insurers and/or professional advisers insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes of obtaining or maintaining insurance coverage, managing risks, obtaining professional advice, or the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.

In addition to the specific disclosures of personal data set out in this Section 4, we may disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person. We may also disclose your personal data where such disclosure is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.

International transfers of your personal data

In this Section, we provide information about the circumstances in which your personal data may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Smartlink SA is entitled to pass your personal data on to third-party companies (commissioned service providers) abroad, where this is required for the data processing described in this privacy policy. The said third-party companies are obliged to protect your data to the same extent as we are. If the level of data protection in a country does not correspond to the level of data protection in Switzerland or the European Union, we ensure by contractual means that the protection of your personal data corresponds to that in Switzerland or the European Union at all times.

We and our other group companies have offices and facilities in Vietnam. We will not transfer personal data to this country.

The hosting facilities for our website are situated in Switzerland. The European Commission has made an “adequacy decision” with respect to Switzerland. We will not transfer personal data outside of Switzerland.

You acknowledge that personal data that you submit for publication through our website or services may be available, via the internet, around the world. We cannot prevent the use (or misuse) of such personal data by others.

Data security

We take appropriate technical and organisational security measures to protect any of your personal data that we have stored from manipulation, partial or complete loss and unauthorized access by third parties. Our security measures are constantly being improved in line with technological developments. We also take data privacy within our organisation very seriously. Our employees and the service providers commissioned by us are obliged to maintain confidentiality and comply with our data protection provisions.

Analysis of newsletter use

To send our newsletter, we use e-mail marketing services of third parties. Our newsletter may, therefore, contain a web beacon (tracking pixel) or similar technical tools. A web beacon is an invisible graphic image, a 1×1 pixel in size, that is associated with the user ID for the relevant newsletter subscriber.

The use of these services allows us to analyse whether or not the e-mails containing our newsletter have been opened. In addition, the click behaviour of recipients of our newsletter can also be collected and analysed. We use this data for statistical purposes and in order to optimise the newsletter with regard to content and structure. This allows us to better align the information and offers in our newsletter to the individual interests of the recipient in question. The tracking pixel is deleted if you delete the newsletter.

If you wish to prevent tracking pixels from being included in our newsletter, please set your e-mail software such that HTML is not displayed in messages.

Retaining and deleting personal data

This Section sets out our data retention policies and procedure, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal data. Personal data that we process for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes. We will retain your personal data as follows:

  • Usage data will be retained for a minimum period of 6 months following the date of provision, and for a maximum period of 24 months following the date of provision.
  • Enquiry data will be retained for a minimum period of 6 months following the date of provision, and for a maximum period of 24 months following the date of provision.
  • Customer relationship data will be retained for a minimum period of 6 months following the date of provision, and for a maximum period of 24 months following the date of provision.
  • Notification data will be retained for a minimum period of 6 months following the date of provision, and for a maximum period of 24 months following the date of provision.
  • Correspondence data will be retained for a minimum period of 6 months following the date of provision, and for a maximum period of 24 months following the date of provision.

Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section, we may retain your personal data where such retention is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.

Amendments

We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes to this policy. We may notify you of significant changes to this policy by email or through the private messaging system on our website.

Your rights

In this Section 8, we have summarised the rights that you have under data protection law. Some of the rights are complex, and not all of the details have been included in our summaries. Accordingly, you should read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.

Your principal rights under data protection law are:

  • the right to access;
  • the right to rectification;
  • the right to erasure;
  • the right to restrict processing;
  • the right to object to processing;
  • the right to data portability;
  • the right to complain to a supervisory authority; and
  • the right to withdraw consent.

You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee.

You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you rectified and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed.

In some circumstances, you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include:

  • the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed;
  • you withdraw consent to consent-based processing;
  • you object to the processing under certain rules of applicable data protection law;
  • the processing is for direct marketing purposes;
  • and the personal data have been unlawfully processed.

However, there are exclusions of the right to erasure. The general exclusions include where processing is necessary: for exercising the right of freedom of expression and information; for compliance with a legal obligation; or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

In some circumstances, you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are: you contest the accuracy of the personal data; processing is unlawful, but you oppose erasure; we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; and you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data. However, we will only otherwise process it: with your consent; for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person; or for reasons of important public interest.

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data on grounds relating to your particular situation, but only to the extent that the legal basis for the processing is that the processing is necessary for: the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of any official authority vested in us; or the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party. If you make such an objection, we will cease to process the personal information unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (including profiling for direct marketing purposes). If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose.

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes on grounds relating to your situation unless the processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out for reasons of public interest.

To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is:

  • consent; or
  • that the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract,

and such processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your personal data from us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. However, this right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.

If you consider that our processing of your personal information infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority responsible for data protection. You may do so in the EU member state of your habitual residence, your place of work or the place of the alleged infringement.

To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal information is consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal. You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice to us, in addition to the other methods specified in this Section.

About cookies

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

Cookies that we use

We use cookies for the following purposes:

  • authentication – we use cookies to identify you when you visit our website and as you navigate our website (cookies used for this purpose are: [identify cookies]);
  • analysis – we use cookies to help us to analyse the use and performance of our website and services (cookies used for this purpose are: [identify cookies]); and
  • cookie consent – we use cookies to store your preferences in relation to the use of cookies more generally (cookies used for this purpose are: [identify cookies]).

Cookies used by our service providers

Our service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website. We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/. The relevant cookies are: _ga, _gid, _gat, AMP_TOKEN, _gac_<property-id>

Managing cookies

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser, and from version to version. You can, however, obtain up-to-date information about blocking and deleting cookies via these links:

Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites. If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.