This Privacy Policy explains how we, the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BFU), collect and process personal data in connection with our website www.snowsafety.ch and our services as well as the basis for doing so. This description is not to be understood as exhaustive, since other privacy policies, terms and conditions, terms of entry or similar documents may govern specific circumstances. The term “personal data” means all information relating to a uniquely identified or identifiable person, including contact details such as name, phone number, postal and e-mail addresses and any other information you may provide.

The BFU is responsible for processing your data. If you have any questions or suggestions concerning data protection or the processing of your personal data, please contact the BFU’s Data Protection staff:

Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BFU)
Data Protection
Hodlerstrasse 5a
3011 Bern
E-mail: datenschutz@bfu.ch

We are aware how important it is to treat your personal data with the utmost care. All data provided are processed for specific purposes only – for example to fulfil technical, contractual or legal requirements or the BFU’s legal mandate, to serve an overriding interest, on the basis of legitimate reasons or with your express consent. We collect, store and process personal data only to the extent required, for example, to manage the customer relationship, provide products and services, process orders and contracts, handle sales and billing, respond to your questions and concerns, provide information on and market our products and services, provide technical support, and evaluate and develop our products and services.

When you visit our website, your user-specific data (e.g. IP address, web browser and operating system) and technical data (e.g. URLs of pages you have visited and search queries) are collected and analysed in anonymised form.

Collecting and processing these data serves to ensure system security and stability, to analyse errors and performance, and to compile internal statistics, enabling us to optimise our online content.

Finally, we employ cookies as well as other applications and aids whenever you visit our web pages. See below for further details.

When you subscribe to our content, fill in a contact form or log into our services, we process the data needed to provide the requested service. Depending on the service in question, these may include your e-mail address, first and last names, title and full postal address as well as the subject and text of your query.

If you have given us your consent to process your personal data for specific purposes (e.g. when using your e-mail address to save your progress), we process them only to the extent to which you have consented unless we have special grounds to do otherwise as required by law. You may withdraw your consent at any time, but doing so does not affect any data processing that has already been performed.

We use cookies in specific cases to ensure that our content is tailored as precisely as possible to your needs. Cookies are small files that cannot carry out any actions on their own and are stored on your computer or mobile device when you visit or use one of our web pages. They contain information on certain browser settings and interactions between your browser and the page in question. When a cookie is activated, it is assigned an identification number that can serve to identify your browser and use the information the cookie contains. There are two types of cookies: session cookies and persistent cookies. We use both types. Session cookies are temporary, and they are automatically deleted from your computer or mobile device at the end of your browser session. Persistent cookies are permanent and store user settings such as language and game progress. They remain on your computer or mobile device for a period of one month to ten years after your browser session, after which they are automatically deactivated.

The BFU expressly refrains from using cookies designed to collect information from your computer (spyware) or display advertising while you are offline or using websites that do not belong to the BFU (adware).

The BFU also uses cookies and comparable techniques to enable specific processes, services and transactions, e.g. the virtual shopping basket in its online shop.

If you choose not to benefit from the advantages offered by cookies, you can disable them in your browser settings or instruct your browser to ask you before saving each cookie. Cookies that have already been saved can be deleted. However, certain BFU and/or third-party services can only be used if cookies are enabled. Open cookie settings here

The BFU allows partner firms that provide it with services or are integrated into its website to set cookies to the extent that they are required for technical reasons, provided they are used proportionately. The BFU has no influence on the use of cookies outside its own website.

By continuing to use our website and/or agreeing to this Privacy Policy, you consent to us setting cookies and thus collecting, storing and using personal user data – including persistent cookies that remain in place after the end of your browser session. You may withdraw this consent at any time by disabling third-party cookies in your browser settings.

To ensure that the design of our web pages, apps and e-mails fits their purpose and that they can be continually optimised, we use Google Analytics and other third-party web analytics services.

Google Analytics

We use third-party analytics services from providers based around the world for our web pages. One such service is Google Analytics, provided by Google LLC in the United States (google.com), which measures and analyses website usage using non-personal data. This is done using persistent cookies set by the provider. The provider does not receive any personal data from us and does not store any IP addresses, but it can track your usage of the website, combine this information with data from other websites you have visited that it also tracks, and use its findings for its own purposes, e.g. targeted advertising. If you have also signed up to the provider’s services, it knows who you are and processes your personal data independently in accordance with its own Privacy Policy. The provider only informs us about website usage. It does not forward any personal details to us.

Please refer to the Google Analytics website for more information. Instructions on how to opt out of having your data processed by Google Analytics can be found at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en. Google’s Data Processing Terms can be found here.

Web fonts

To ensure that our content is displayed in a correct and visually appealing manner in all browsers, we use Google Fonts on this website. These are provided by Google Inc. Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland) is responsible for all Google services in Europe. Please consult the following page for more information on privacy: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en.

YouTube

Videos stored on YouTube are embedded directly into some of our web pages. The plugin is operated by YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, United States. It allows YouTube content to be displayed inside the browser window, but YouTube videos are only streamed when you click on them. The provider’s Privacy Policy can be found here.

In connection with our business activities and for the purposes outlined under “Why do we collect personal data?” above, we also disclose data to third parties to the extent that this is permitted and that we deem it to be useful. These third parties process the data either on our behalf or for their own purposes. They include the following in particular:

• Service providers working for us, including those under contract (e.g. IT providers)
• Authorities, government offices and courts in Switzerland and abroad
• Other parties to potential or actual legal proceedings

Some of these recipients are in Switzerland, but they can be anywhere in the world. You must accept in particular that your data may be transferred to other countries, including other countries in Europe and the United States, in which service providers we use (e.g. Microsoft) are located. Such service providers are bound by the same data protection requirements as the BFU. When we transfer data to a country that does not have equivalent data protection legislation, we ensure an equivalent level of data protection by means of appropriate contracts as required by law (in particular the standard contractual clauses stipulated by the European Commission, which can be found here, here and here) or binding corporate rules or make use of the legal exceptions in terms of consent; contract processing; identification, exercise and enforcement of legal claims; or overriding public interest with regard to the personal data disclosed or do so to protect the individuals concerned.

We process and store your personal data for as long as required to fulfil our contractual and statutory duties or the purposes of the processing, e.g. for the entire duration of the business relationship from the request for a contract to the processing and termination of the contract, or longer in accordance with our statutory retention and documentation duties. It is possible that personal data may be stored for the period during which claims may be asserted against our organisation or storage is necessary to fulfil other legal duties or on the basis of legitimate business interests (e.g. for evidence and documentation purposes). As soon as your personal data are no longer required for the aforementioned purposes, they are normally deleted or anonymised wherever possible. Operating data such as system logs are normally subject to retention periods of 30 days or less. Any personal data stored are deleted once they have served their purpose.

We take appropriate technical and organisational security precautions to protect your personal data against unauthorised access and misuse, such as issuing instructions, providing training courses, implementing IT and network security solutions, access controls and restrictions, encrypting data storage media and data transfers, pseudonymising data and carrying out checks.

We cannot offer any guarantee in respect of data transferred via the Internet. In particular, there is a risk that data transferred by e-mail may be intercepted by third parties.

You are required to provide the personal data needed to initiate and maintain our business relationship and to fulfil the contractual duties it entails. As a rule, you have no legal obligation to provide us with data. Without the data you provide, we would not as a rule be able to enter into or ensure performance of a contract with you or the entity or person you represent. In addition, you will not be able to use the website without disclosing certain details required for secure data transfer (e.g. your IP address).

To the extent that data protection law applies, you have the right to information, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing and objection to processing of your data as well as the right to receive certain personal data for transmission to another data processor (right of data portability). Please note, however, that we reserve the right to invoke the legal restrictions to these rights, for example if we are obliged to retain or process certain data, have an overriding interest in doing so (that is recognised by law) or require the data to assert claims on our part. We will inform you in advance of any costs you may incur in this regard. As mentioned above, you have the right to withdraw your consent. Please note that exercising these rights may result in a conflict with contractually agreed terms, which may have consequences such as early termination of the contract or additional costs. In such cases, we will inform you in advance if this is not already covered by a contractual clause.

You are normally required to identify yourself unequivocally in order to exercise such rights, e.g. by providing a copy of an identification document if your identity is not otherwise clear or verifiable. You can contact us at the address given in section 2 above to assert your rights.

In addition, all data subjects are entitled to enforce their rights in court or to make a complaint to the relevant data protection authority. The Swiss data protection authority is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (http://www.edoeb.admin.ch).

We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time without prior notice. The current version as published on our website takes precedence. To the extent that this Privacy Policy forms part of an agreement with you, we will inform you of any updates via e-mail or other suitable means.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 10 August 2020.

Terms & Conditions

The website and online services of the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BFU) are provided voluntarily and intended exclusively to inform users. Please read these Terms & Conditions for using BFU web pages carefully. By accessing BFU web pages, you consent to these Terms & Conditions.

Exclusion of liability

The BFU is not liable under any circumstances for any direct or indirect damage or consequential damage caused by the use of software, information and content on this website or by accessing other websites via links on the website. This also applies to damage and consequential damage caused by an inability to access or use the website. The BFU offers no guarantee that information, software, documents or other content accessible via its web pages are free from viruses or other malware.

It does not accept any liability for information accessible via the BFU website or newsletter. Furthermore, the BFU has no control over information stored on external servers, publicly accessible servers or Usenet news servers, discussion forums, chatrooms etc. The information on the BFU website may be changed at any time. The BFU is not able to guarantee that this information is complete and up to date. It is to be used at the user’s own risk.

No guarantee of completeness or correctness

The content of the BFU’s web pages has been produced with the greatest of care. However, the BFU can offer no guarantee that the information, software, documents and other content provided is complete or error-free. We make every effort to keep our content up to date but can offer no guarantee in this regard. All information on this website is of a general nature and not intended to cover the specific circumstances of individual cases.

Links to other websites

BFU web pages may contain links to websites that are not operated by the BFU. The BFU is not responsible for the content of such external websites or of any websites to which they contain links. Users follow links to such external websites and the links they contain to further websites at their own risk.

Copyright and trademarks

The entire content of the BFU’s website and newsletter is protected by copyright (all rights reserved). Downloading or printing out individual pages and/or parts of the website is permitted for personal, non-commercial use only, provided that neither copyright details nor other legally protected designations are removed.

No content on the BFU’s website may be reproduced, transmitted (electronically or by other means), modified or linked to in whole or in part for public or commercial purposes without the BFU’s prior written consent.

If you download software and/or other information or process these in any other way, all intellectual property rights remain with the BFU. No licensed trademarks may be used. All liability on the part of third-party providers/licensors is excluded. 

Changes/addenda to these Terms & Conditions

The BFU may change or add to its website at any time without prior notice. Please consult these Terms & Conditions every time you open a BFU web page.

Applicable law/place of jurisdiction

To the extent permitted by law, all legal relationships between users and the BFU are governed by material Swiss law. The sole place of jurisdiction is Berne.