Data privacy

Public Eye attaches particular importance to treating personal data in a highly confidential manner. Public Eye respects the Federal Act on Data Protection and, through these guidelines, provides transparent information regarding its policy on gathering and using personal data. The guidelines are available online under the Data Privacy section of our website and any amendment is signalled immediately.

Last updated: 5.10.2022

General information: personal data

It is necessary to collect certain data in order to offer targeted and relevant services which can be used in an efficient manner. Anyone interested in Public Eye, whether they are requesting information or ordering products, signing up to one of our newsletters, participating in a petition, action or campaign, or offering Public Eye financial support, provides a certain amount of personal data. These are then compared with Public Eye’s address book and saved electronically. The data are used exclusively for the needs of Public Eye. To monitor contacts, it can be necessary to pass on extracts of these data to service providers commissioned by Public Eye (e.g. printers). These service providers are subject to the provisions of the Federal Act on Data Protection and are contractually obliged to refrain from using the data for any other purpose or from sharing data. With the exception of the specific case mentioned, Public Eye neither shares nor markets any form of personal data.

Post and telephone calls

Anyone who sends us their postal address can be kept up-to-date about the topics we deal with by post unless they have expressly opted out. Telephone data are used by Public Eye if additional information is required and/or during telephone campaigns. Data regarding age can be used to disseminate services specifically targeted at people in a certain age bracket.

Electronic correspondence: emails and newsletters

Anyone who provides us with their email address can receive information (such as proof of pay-ment or information about events) by email. However, information sent on a regular basis, such as our newsletter, can only be sent if the recipient has provided prior consent (i.e. opted in). Anyone who no longer wishes to receive the newsletter can easily and quickly unsubscribe by clicking on the corresponding link which appears in each newsletter.

Public Eye uses US service provider ActiveCampaign Inc.’s ‘ActiveCampaign’ tool to send its electronic newsletter. The tool facilitates analysis used to improve our communication. Activity within our newsletter (opening pages or clicking on links) is saved and connected to personal data which enables us to improve our service.

Payments

Public Eye treats payment-related data in a highly confidential manner. Public Eye is a not-for-profit organisation, recognised as such by Zewo. The Zewo label guarantees that donations are put towards achieving Public Eye’s goals and used in an efficient and cost-effective manner. The label further guarantees transparent internal and external communication, both in terms of how business is conducted and of how the organisation’s finances are managed. In addition, Public Eye has regulations on donations. We do not accept donations or other funds from individuals, companies or institutions, which – provided that there are clear grounds – could undermine our independence or harm our ethical integrity.

Credit card details provided to Public Eye are transferred in an encrypted format to an external partner certified by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). They are neither saved nor used directly by Public Eye.

Website

When a user visits a website operated by Public Eye, only impersonal data are automatically saved. These data provide information on the pages and data consulted, the IP address of the client’s computer, the time and duration of the visit, the operating system and the browser type.

Visits to the website can be linked to personal data if such data have been communicated to Public Eye. This enables us to communicate relevant and targeted information. Public Eye uses the analytical tool Matomo to evaluate these data.

Facebook Pixel is integrated into some of our campaign pages. If you visit one of these pages it can be recorded on your Facebook user account. We can use this information for our adverts on Facebook Ads or monitoring functionalities. Please note that as the site provider we do not obtain any information regarding the content of the data transmitted or how it is used by Facebook. You can find further information about this in Facebook’s Data Policy. If you do not want Custom Audience to collect any data from you, you can deactivate the function here.

Due to a DDoS attack, our traffic has been temporarily running through Cloudflare, a US service provider offering web security services, since 10/24/2022. Cloudflare uses cookies and gets full access to the traffic. Cloudflare does not store user-specific data logs and does not sell user data to third parties or use it to serve ads. We shut down the service as soon as it is possible, but reserve the right to use it again in case of future attacks.

Cookies

Cookies are used on the websites operated by Public Eye. They are small text files which are saved on the device used to visit the pages to analyse impersonal usage data or to identify recurring visits (e.g. through the choice of language or the shopping basket function in the online shop). Public Eye uses session cookies which expire at the end of the session on the one hand, and permanent cookies which expire after a fixed time period or are manually deleted on the other. Cookies can be deleted and disabled at any time through the browser settings.

External links and features of third-party service providers

Public Eye does not have any influence over external content that we refer to, or over compliance with data protection provisions by third-party service providers whose features are connected to our website. In this regard, we recommend that you consult the data protection guidelines of the following third-party service providers, as well as those of their affiliates: Facebook Inc. and Instagram Inc., Twitter Inc., ActiveCampaign Inc., RaiseNow, InnoCraft Ltd., Paperform.

Right to information

We are willing to provide you with written information about your personal data saved on our system, and to correct or delete the data upon request. All you need to do is to send an email to contact[at]publiceye.ch.

Declaration of consent

By using the aforementioned services provided by Public Eye, you are consenting to information about you being collected in the various ways and for the stated purposes cited.

Please do not hesitate to contact Public Eye to ask questions or request additional information about the data protection guidelines: Public Eye, Dienerstrasse 12, Postfach, 8021 Zürich, +41 44 2 777 999, kontakt[at]publiceye.ch.