PEFC Council Website Privacy Notice
PEFC Council Website Privacy Notice
Introduction
Welcome to the PEFC Council Website Privacy Notice.
The PEFC Council (hereafter “PEFC”, “we”, “us” and “our”) is committed to protecting and to being transparent about how it collects and uses your personal data when you visit our website. This Privacy Policy will inform you as to how PEFC looks after your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
1. Information about the notice
1.1 Purpose
This privacy notice provides information on how the PEFC Council collects and processes your personal data through your use of the website, such as when you sign up to our newsletter.
This privacy notice is to be considered together with any other privacy notice or policy we may provide in other situations when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy policy complements and does not override other notices and privacy policies.
1.2 Who is responsible for data processing and who can you contact?
The PEFC Council (PEFC International) is the controller and the responsible of the data processing originating from this website.
PEFC Data Subject Access Request Form
Please find here the PEFC Council Data Subject Request Form, which you might use to send the PEFC Council any request related to your data subject rights. The use of the standard form is not compulsory; however, this form should help you to formulate your request by indicating your subject rights and the information you need to provide us with for us to be able to answer in a timely manner.
By mail
1215 Geneva, route de Pré-Bois 20
Switzerland
By email
2. Data that we collect about you
All information that relates to a natural person that is identified or identifiable from that data alone or from that data when it is combined with other information that is in the possession of or is likely to come into the possession of the PEFC Council.
The PEFC Council may collect, use, store and transfer personal data about you:
- Contact details: names, physical address, e-mail address, and telephone number
- Technical data: IP address, recruitment information, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access the website
- Usage Data: information about how you use the website.
- Marketing and Communications Data: your preferences in receiving marketing and your communication preferences.
Where we need to collect personal data by law and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to provide you with full access to the website.
3. Collection and further processing of personal data on the website
When you only visit the PEFC website for informational purposes, i.e. if you do not register or otherwise provide us with information, we only collect the personal data that your browser transmits to our server. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies.
We may also collect data about you through direct interactions when:
- You subscribe to our newsletter or other publications; or
- You give us feedback or contact us by email.
4. For what purpose does PEFC process your data and on what legal basis?
In accordance with applicable data protection laws, PEFC processes the personal data of its website users and other digital offerings to maintain and develop the website. Personal data is processed based on the following legal grounds - provided any such legal ground is required under applicable data protection law (i.e. the GDPR or the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection):
- Performance of contracts or pre-contractual measures
- PEFC compliance with legal obligations
- Consent (as far as the processing is based on a specific request for consent)
- Legitimate interests of PEFC are, including but not limited to:
- Efficient and effective improvement of services
- Carrying out communications and marketing activities
- Efficient and effective member and user support
- Understanding members and third-party behaviour, activities, concerns and needs, market studies
- Maintenance and successful further development of our websites and other digital offerings and of our IT systems.
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.
If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
5. Who will receive your personal data?
We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in Section 4 above.
- Group companies, third party service providers and partners who provide data processing services to us (for example, to support the delivery of, provide functionality on, or help to enhance the security of our website);
- Competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation; (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights; or (iii) to protect your vital interests or those of any other person;
- To any other person with your consent to the disclosure.
We transfer your personal data to our other PEFC entities and third parties worldwide. Some countries do not provide adequate data protection provisions. In this case, we ensure suitable data protection with adequate contractual guarantees on the basis of EU/Swiss standard contract clauses or other provisions, or we may transfer Personal Data based on the exception of consent, of contract processing, of the determination, assertion or enforcement of legal claims, of overriding public interests, or because the transfer is necessary to protect the physical integrity of a data subject.
6. How long will your data be stored?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for.
Additionally, we store personal data that relates to the provision of our services or otherwise to a contract or business relationship if the contractual relation is ongoing and for a period of 10 years after the termination of the contractual relationship. In some cases, a longer statutory retention period is applicable for reasons of proof or if there is another valid reason for an exception based on applicable law or regulation.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.
In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see your legal rights below for further information.
7. Data security
We consider it our primary task to protect the confidentiality of the personal data you provide us with and to protect it from unauthorized access. That is why we apply the utmost care and state-of-the-art security standards to ensure maximum protection of your personal data.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so. When we notify you, we will provide you with the relevant details of the personal data breach.
8. Further functions and offers on our website
In addition to the informational use of our website, we offer various services that you can use. To do this, you usually have to provide additional personal data that we use to provide the respective service and for which the data processing principles apply.
In some cases, we use external service providers to process your data. These have been carefully selected and commissioned by us, are bound by our instructions and are assessed regularly.
Furthermore, we can transfer your personal data to third parties, if we offer participation in campaigns, photo contests, conclusion of a contract or similar services together with partners. You will receive more information on this when you provide your personal data.
If our service providers or partners are based in a country outside of Switzerland, we will inform you of the consequences of this fact in the description of the offer.
9. Use of cookies
In addition to the aforementioned data, we use cookies incl. tracker like Google Analytics, which are stored on your computer when you use our website. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your hard drive and assigned to the browser you are using and through which certain information flows to the place that sets the cookie. Cookies cannot run programs or transmit viruses to your computer. They serve to make the Internet offer more user-friendly and more effective overall.
You can configure your browser settings according to your wishes and e.g. reject third-party cookies or all cookies. So-called "Third Party Cookies" are cookies, that have been set by a third party, therefore not by the actual website you are currently visiting. We would like to point out that by deactivating cookies you may not be able to use all functions of this website.
10. What privacy rights do you have?
Under applicable data protection law, you have the following privacy rights:
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data's accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us using the details set out in Section 1.
Time limit to respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month.
You may also raise a complaint with the competent data protection authority, which for PEFC in Switzerland is the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (http://www.edoeb.admin.ch). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns in the first instance.
11. Amendment of our data protection notice
We reserve the right to change our security and data protection measures, if this becomes necessary due to technical circumstances. In these cases, we will also amend our information on data protection accordingly. Please note therefore the current version of our data protection declaration.
Status: 04.10.2024