Public Eye Privacy Policy

Version 25.7.2024

All data is treated as strictly confidential and is not passed on or sold to third parties. We do not collect any data that would allow you to be identified, unless you give us your personal data yourself, for example when you become a member, make a donation or subscribe to our newsletter. We comply with the relevant data protection regulations, in particular the Swiss Data Protection Act and Data Protection Ordinance.

1. Responsibility for data processing 

If you have questions or concerns about data protection at Public Eye, you can contact the person responsible: 

Ursula Baumgartner 
Public Eye 
Dienerstrasse 12 
Postfach 
8021 Zurich 
privacy@publiceye.ch 

2. Which personal data do we collect? 

We need to collect certain data so that we can work efficiently and effectively and provide you with relevant information in the appropriate language. Anyone who is interested in Public Eye and requests information, orders products, subscribes to one of our newsletters, takes part in a petition or campaign, or offers Public Eye financial support, provides us with personal data. This data is stored in electronic form in our database. The data is used exclusively for Public Eye’s purposes. Your data is treated as confidential. Using appropriate technical and organisational measures, we protect your data against loss, manipulation and unauthorised access by third parties. We process some of your data using automated systems for fundraising purposes. To stay in contact with you, it may be necessary for Public Eye to pass on extracts from this data to a service provider (for example, a printing company). These service providers are subject to the provisions of the Swiss Data Protection Act and are contractually obliged to refrain from using the data for any other purpose and from sharing the data. 

3. What are your rights?

Under the terms of the Swiss Data Protection Act, you have the right to access your stored personal data and the right to have it corrected and deleted, provided that there are no statutory restrictions on doing this. For example, we may be obliged by law to store or process certain data. You also have the right to submit a complaint to the relevant data protection authority. In Switzerland, this authority is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner. If you want to exercise your rights in relation to your personal data or have questions or concerns about the processing of your personal data, you can contact us by email at privacy@publiceye.ch. We will respond to your questions or concerns within a reasonable period of time. 

4. Which data do we collect? 

Post and phone calls

If you give Public Eye your postal address, we will keep you informed at regular intervals by post about current issues, unless you have expressly opted out. If you give us your telephone number, we will use it if we have any queries or if we are running a phone campaign. We use information about your age in relation to offers that are age-specific (for example youth membership). 

Text messages

In some campaigns, we communicate with people who want to become involved with the campaign by text message or using a messaging service such as WhatsApp. We send text messages only to people who have explicitly consented to this. We use the Twilio service of the US service provider Twilio Inc. to send text messages. You can unsubscribe from these messages at any time by text message, email or phone. 

Emails and newsletters

If you give Public Eye your email address, we can send you information (such as payment confirmations or details of events) by email. However, information that is sent on a regular basis, such as our newsletter, can only be sent if the recipient has given their consent. If you no longer want to receive the newsletter, you can unsubscribe quickly and easily by clicking on the unsubscribe link which appears in every newsletter. Public Eye uses the ActiveCampaign tool provided by ActiveCampaign Inc. to send newsletters by email. This allows us to carry out analyses to improve our communications. Any activity within our newsletter (opening pages or clicking on links) is stored and linked to personal data, which enables us to improve our service. 

Payments

Public Eye treats all payment-related data as highly confidential. Public Eye is a not-for-profit organisation that is recognised by Zewo. The Zewo seal is awarded to NGOs which use donations efficiently, cost-effectively and for the intended purpose. The seal also indicates transparent internal and external communication and transparent financial reporting. In addition, Public Eye has regulations in place concerning donations. We do not accept donations or other funding from individuals, companies or institutions which could obviously undermine our independence or our ethical integrity. We store details of donations and membership fees (for example, the amount, date, payment method and purpose). We also store information for communicating with our donors (for example, by phone or email). Credit card details provided to Public Eye are transferred in encrypted form to RaiseNow, an external partner certified according to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Public Eye does not store or use the credit card details itself. 

Website

When you visit a website operated by Public Eye, the web server normally stores only impersonal usage data. This includes information about the pages and the data you access, the IP address of your computer, the time and duration of your visit, the operating system and the browser type.

External links and third-party service providers

Public Eye has no influence on the external content that we link to or on compliance with data protection regulations by third-party service providers whose functions are connected to our website.