Privacy policy

Data Controller: BioDesign Foundation, Reherstrasse 20 – 9016 St.Gallen, Switzerland. Email: roberto.guerini @biodesignfoundation.org

‍If you have any questions about your personal data, feel free to contact us anytime: Contact ‍We protect the data you provide to us confidentially and process it in accordance with applicable laws. In principle, we only process your personal data to the extent necessary to provide you with a functioning website and the content and services you desire. You can contact us at any time. If you disagree with something in our communication, we will be happy to correct it. If your data is necessary for fulfilling a joint contract or for implementing pre-contractual measures, early deletion of the data is only possible to the extent that contractual or legal obligations do not contradict the deletion. The BioDesign Foundation is subject to Swiss law, including data protection laws. If you provide us with personal data of third parties (e.g., friends or family members in case of donations), please ensure that the information provided is accurate, that these persons have acknowledged this privacy policy, and that they have given their consent to the transfer of data to the BioDesign Foundation. ‍

Editing ‍The processing of personal data includes, for example, collection, storage, management, use, transmission, disclosure, and deletion of personal data. We process the personal data you provide to us and those collected automatically or manually when you visit our website, such as name, home address, date of birth, gender, email address, phone numbers, membership in the BioDesign Foundation or the Custodians Movement, donations (amount, date, method, purpose), activities on our websites www.biodesignfoundation.org and www.thecustodians.org, IP addresses of technical devices, consent to receive newsletters or other information, contractual data, customer service information, communications via phone, fax, email, text messages (e.g., SMS). ‍

Use ‍In our communications, we need your personal data, for example, to send you our newsletter, respond to your inquiries, process your participation in petitions, campaigns, actions, or competitions, or process your support, donations, membership, or purchases in our store, for the organization, implementation, and analysis of all our communications (by mail or electronic means: phone, email, voice messages, SMS, MMS, video messages, or instant messaging) and for the organization and implementation of our events you want to participate in. ‍

Forwarding We transmit your data to third parties if necessary for the purposes specified in this privacy policy, for example, to use technical or organizational services needed to fulfill the specified purposes or for other activities of our foundation. This includes the transfer of data abroad. We may share your personal data with trusted third parties, including but not limited to, printers, third parties involved in the management or organization of camps and events, IT service providers, or our auditors. Where required by law, we must disclose your personal data to courts, law enforcement agencies, regulatory and government authorities, and law enforcement and police forces. ‍

Storage We will delete your personal data as soon as the purpose for storing them is no longer valid. ‍

Cookies, Tracking, and Other Technologies ‍We typically use “cookies” and similar technologies on our websites to identify your browser or device. A cookie is a small file sent to your computer or stored automatically on your computer or mobile device by the web browser you use when you visit our website. This allows us to recognize you when you return to this site, even if we do not know who you are. Besides the cookies used only during a session and deleted after the website visit (“session cookies”), cookies can also be used to store user settings and other information for a certain period (e.g., two years) (“persistent cookies”). However, you can set your browser to refuse cookies, save them only for a session, or delete them prematurely. Most browsers are preset to accept cookies. We use persistent cookies to better understand how you use our services and content and to improve our services continuously. If you block cookies, some features (such as voice composition) may no longer work. Sometimes we use Google Analytics or similar services on our websites. These are third-party services that may be located in any country (in the case of Google Analytics, it is Google LLC in the USA, www.google.com), with which we can evaluate the website’s use (not on a personal basis). Cookies set by the service provider are also used for this purpose. The service provider does not receive any personal data from us (and does not retain any IP addresses) but may track your use of the website, combine this information with data from other websites you have visited that are also tracked by the service provider, and use these results for their purposes (e.g., controlling advertising). If you have registered with the service provider yourself, the service provider also knows you. The service provider processes your personal data under its responsibility and in accordance with its data protection regulations. The service provider only informs us about the use of our respective website (no information about you personally). Cookies used on this website can be found here: https://www.thecustodians.org/cookies-policy.html ‍

Secure Data Transmission ‍The personal data you provide via the website forms are transmitted to us securely in encrypted form. The security procedure used (SSL-Secure Sockets Layer) is state-of-the-art. All BioDesign Foundation employees who process your data are obliged to comply with data protection laws. Access to the system is via an authorization procedure. SSL encryption (recognizable by https:// in the browser address bar) is a protocol for encrypting data during transmission from the web server to the browser. This transmission offers a particularly high level of security. During the transmission, your personal data is encrypted between your computer and our SSL server using the SSL protocol. ‍

Use of Internet Platforms ‍On this website, among others, with the help of service providers Google Inc. (USA), Facebook Incorporated (USA), and Blue Summit Media GmbH (Germany), information on the browsing behavior of website visitors is collected and stored in anonymous and/or pseudonymized form for marketing purposes and for continuously improving the offering. With the help of a so-called “web bug,” website visitors can be technically identified without personal references, and pseudonymized profiles can be created. The data is then stored on your computer in encrypted and compressed form using cookies. This cookie is only accessible to you and the service provider. We reserve the right to regulate access to service providers if this is necessary to improve our offers. Service providers (including Google and Facebook) analyze your browsing behavior to show you targeted product recommendations, such as personalized banner ads on other websites. Under no circumstances can your data be used to identify you personally as a visitor to this site. The data collected will only be used to improve the offering. No further use will be made of it. ‍

Use of Social Media Plug-ins ‍We use so-called plug-ins from social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, or Instagram on our websites. This is evident to you in each case, typically through the corresponding icons. We configure these elements to be disabled by default. If you activate them (by clicking on them), the operators of the respective social networks can record that you are on our website and can use this information for their purposes. The processing of your personal data is then the responsibility of this operator in accordance with their data protection regulations. We do not receive any information about you from them. ‍

Responsibility for Links ‍We expressly declare that at the time of the creation of the links, no illegal content was recognizable on the linked pages. We have no influence on the current and future design, content, or authorship of the linked pages. We, therefore, expressly distance ourselves from all contents of all linked pages that were changed after the link was created. This statement applies to all links and references placed within our Internet offering. The responsibility for illegal, incorrect, or incomplete content and, in particular, for damages resulting from the use or non-use of such information lies solely with the provider of the page to which reference is made, not with the one who merely refers to the respective publication via links. ‍

Changes ‍We may change this privacy policy at any time without prior notice. The most recent version published on our website will apply.