Privacy Policy

Last updated: 12 October 2023


What is the purpose of this Privacy Policy?

The Asset Management Association Switzerland, Dufourstrasse 49, 4002 Basel, Switzerland (hereinafter “AMAS”, “we” or “us”) collects and processes personal data (hereinafter “personal data” or simply “data”), in particular concerning our members, associated individuals, contracting partners, visitors to our website, event attendees, recipients of newsletters, and other bodies, including their contacts and employees (hereinafter “you”). This Privacy Policy informs you about this data processing. In addition to this Privacy Policy, we may inform you separately about any processing of your data (e.g. in forms or contractual terms and conditions).


Who is responsible for your personal data?

Responsibility for processing personal data under this Privacy Policy lies with the following entity:

Asset Management Association Switzerland
Dufourstrasse 49
4002 Basel
Switzerland

If you have any questions relating to data protection law, please call +41 (0)61 278 98 00 or e-mail office@am-switzerland.ch.


Which personal data do we collect, and from where?

We collect information that you send to us voluntarily when, for example, you (a) correspond with us via e-mail, contact form or any other communication channel; (b) ask us to send you notices, newsletters (client alerts) or other information; (c) sign up to an event; or (d) buy documents on our website. This frequently includes personal data such as your first and last names, home and e-mail addresses, phone number, account and payment data, language preference, occupation, and business address, as well as those of your employees and representatives and the content of communications. We may also collect data from publicly accessible sources or receive them from (i) authorities; (ii) your employer or client, if they are in a business relationship with us or have any other dealings with us; and (iii) other third parties (e.g. associations and contracting partners). Such data include in particular those that we process as part of our activities as an association and those arising from correspondence and discussions with third parties.


For what purposes do we process your personal data?

We process your personal data primarily in connection with our activities as an industry association, in particular managing our list of members. We also process your personal data in order to (a) communicate with you and with third parties via e-mail, contact form or other communication channels; (b) send you information relating to events; (c) send you newsletters (client alerts) and other information; and (d) bill you when you buy documents. In addition, we may process your personal data for other purposes, e.g. in order to comply with applicable laws, self-regulation or industry standards, for education or training purposes, for administrative purposes or in order to host and follow up on events, e.g. in particular lists of attendees, the content of speeches and discussions, or audio/video recordings or photographs taken during events.


What is our justification for processing your personal data?

If you have given us your consent to process your personal data for specific purposes, we do so based on and within the scope of this consent unless another legal basis exists and is required. You can withdraw your consent at any time, but this has no effect on any data processing that has already been carried out.

Where the applicable data protection legislation requires us to have a special legal basis for processing personal data beyond the scope outlined above, this normally concerns the conclusion or handling of contracts or, to the extent that is permitted and that we deem appropriate, in our justified interest (or that of a third party) in the following cases:

  • offering and developing our products, services, and website;
  • communicating with third parties and processing their requests (e.g. applications, media queries);
  • advertising and marketing (including events), provided you have not objected to the use of your data;
  • asserting legal claims and defending ourselves in legal disputes and official proceedings;
  • effectively and efficiently managing the Association and promoting its purpose, any transactions under company law and the related transfers of personal data, and compliance with legal and regulatory requirements.


To whom do we disclose your personal data?

We do not make your personal data available to third parties. However, some of our service providers, in particular those responsible for operating and maintaining our IT systems, as well as contracting partners and authorities, may have access to certain personal data.

These categories of recipients may in turn use the services of third parties and thus make your data available to them. We are able to restrict processing by some third parties (e.g. IT service providers) but not others (e.g. authorities).


Are your personal data also sent outside Switzerland?

We process and store personal data primarily in Switzerland, although in exceptional cases – e.g. via our service providers’ contractors – we also do so in the European Economic Area (EEA) or potentially in any other country.

Where a recipient is located in a country with inadequate data protection, we contractually oblige the recipient to ensure an adequate level of data protection (using the revised standard clauses provided by the European Commission, which can be found at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?, including the addenda required for Switzerland), unless the recipient is already subject to legally recognized data protection rules or we are able to apply an exception. An exception may apply in particular in cases of legal proceedings outside Switzerland, overriding public interest, where you have given your consent or where you have made the data in question publicly accessible and not raised an objection to them being processed.


How long do we store your personal data?

We process and store your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil our contractual and statutory obligations or the purpose of the processing, i.e. for the duration of your membership of the Association, as long as your employer is a member and you are on file as our contact, or as required by statutory retention and documentation requirements when you are no longer a member. As soon as your personal data are no longer needed for the above purposes, they are deleted or anonymized wherever possible.

Details of your membership are normally deleted five years after you cease to be a member. Your master data are normally deleted once your account has been inactive for ten years.


How do we protect your personal data?

We take appropriate technical and organizational measures in line with the known risks to protect the confidentiality and integrity of your personal data.

We also make every effort in close cooperation with our hosting providers to protect our databases as far as possible against unauthorized access, loss, misuse, and falsification. However, you should be aware that no security measures are infallible. Despite our best efforts, data stored in the system may be lost, sent to the wrong recipient or intercepted by unauthorized third parties. All personal information and data are therefore given on a voluntary basis and at your own risk.


What are your rights?

To the extent provided for in the applicable data protection legislation (e.g. the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)), you have rights of access, rectification, erasure, and restriction of processing as well as the right to object to our processing of your personal data and the right to data portability (i.e. the right to receive certain personal data in order to transfer them to a third party). Please note, however, that we reserve the right to assert the restrictions on such rights provided for in law, for example when we are obliged to store or process certain data, have an overriding interest in doing so (insofar as we are allowed to cite this as a reason) or require the data to assert claims. We will notify you in advance of any costs that may apply.

As a rule, you must provide unequivocal proof of your identity (e.g. by supplying a copy of an identification document where your identity is not otherwise clear and cannot be verified in another way) in order to exercise the above rights.

Every data subject also has the right to assert claims before the courts or to submit a complaint to the competent data protection authority. In Switzerland, this authority is the Federal Data Protection Commissioner (http://www.edoeb.admin.ch).


Cookies and similar technologies

This website uses cookies. Setting a cookie is a means of temporarily storing data that serve to make our site more user-friendly, effective, and secure. Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer by your browser. We use session cookies, which are deleted when you close your browser, as well as persistent cookies, which are stored for a predetermined period (normally between a few days and two years) after you close the browser. These cookies allow us to recognize you the next time you visit the site.

We may also use similar technologies such as fingerprints and others to store data in the browser. Fingerprints comprise information collected during your visit to the website regarding the configuration of your device or browser that make it possible to distinguish your device from others. Most browsers also support other technologies for storing data in the browser that are similar to cookies, e.g. web storage. We may also use these.

The cookies and/or similar technologies we use may be our own creations or may be provided by third-party companies, e.g. when we use features provided by third parties. Such third-party providers may be located outside Switzerland and the European Economic Area (EEA), provided they guarantee adequate protection of your personal data. Information on the disclosure of data abroad can be found above under “Are your personal data also sent outside Switzerland?”.

We use the following types of cookies and similar technologies:

  • Essential cookies: Essential cookies are needed to use a website and its features. They ensure, for example, that you can move between pages without losing the details you have entered into a form.
  • Performance cookies: Performance cookies record information on how a website is used and allow us to carry out analyses, e.g. which pages are most popular and how visitors move around the website. These cookies serve to simplify and speed up your visit to the website as well as to improve its general user-friendliness.
  • Functional cookies: Functional cookies allow us to provide extended functionality and personalized content, e.g. by storing settings (such as your language selection).

You can set up your browser to inform you whenever a cookie is set. You can also choose to allow only specific individual cookies or to block all cookies. Furthermore, you can set up your browser to delete cookies automatically every time you close the browser window. Disabling cookies may restrict the functionality of this website.

Google Analytics

Among other services, this website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google LLC (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA, US) and Google Ireland Ltd. (Google Building Gordon House, Barrow St, Dublin 4, Ireland), which are collectively referred to as “Google”, with Google Ireland Ltd. being responsible for processing personal data. Google uses cookies and similar technologies to record certain information on the behavior of individual users on a website and the devices they use to access it (e.g. tablet, PC or smartphone). This information may include how often you open our website, what you are interested in, and the device and operating system you use. You can find more information on this subject here.

We have configured the service so that Google truncates website visitors’ IP addresses in Europe before they are sent to the US, meaning that they cannot be traced back to individual visitors. Google supplies us with reports and can therefore be seen as our contractor in this respect. Google also processes certain data for its own purposes. Under certain circumstances, Google may be able to identify website visitors from the data collected and thus create personal profiles and link the data collected to any Google accounts they may have. Information on Google Analytics data protection can be found here. If you have a Google account, you can find further information here.


Server log files

The hosting provider for this website collects and stores information in server log files, which are sent automatically by your browser. This information includes the following in particular: browser type and version, operating system used, referrer URL, host name of accessing computer, and time of server request. This information cannot be linked to the identity of a specific person. It is not cross-referenced with data from other sources. We reserve the right to verify this information retrospectively if we have specific grounds to suspect illegal use. This data collection serves primarily to analyze and block attempted attacks on the website. Furthermore, hosting providers are legally obliged in certain situations to be capable of providing information on the origin of an attack in order to counteract criminal activity.


Social networks

We have pages and other online presences on social networks and other platforms operated by third parties, in connection with which we process data about you that we receive from you (e.g. when you communicate with us or comment on our content) and from the platforms (e.g. statistics). The platform operators may analyze your usage and process these data, together with other data about you that might be available to them. They may also do so for their own purposes (e.g. marketing, market research, and platform administration), in which case they act as data controllers in their own right. Further information on processing by platform operators can be found in their respective privacy policies.

We currently use the following platforms – the identity and contact details of each platform operator can be found in its privacy policy:

We are entitled but not obliged to review third-party content before or after it is published on our online presences, to delete such content without notice, and to report it to the platform operator where appropriate.

Some platform operators may be located outside Switzerland. Information on the disclosure of data abroad can be found above under “Are your personal data also sent outside Switzerland?”.


Newsletter

Our newsletter is produced and distributed with the aid of Mailchimp. Mailchimp is owned by The Rocket Science Group, LLC, 675 Ponce de Leon Ave NE, Suite 5000, Atlanta, GA 30308, USA. Mailchimp is a service that can organize and analyze the distribution of the newsletter. The details you enter when you subscribe to the newsletter (e.g. your e-mail address) are stored on Mailchimp servers. Using Mailchimp to distribute our newsletter allows us to analyze recipients’ behavior. We are able, for instance, to analyze how many recipients have opened the e-mail containing the newsletter and how many times each link in the newsletter has been clicked on. Data are processed with your consent. You can revoke this consent at any time by unsubscribing from the newsletter. We provide a link for this purpose in every newsletter e-mail. You can also unsubscribe by sending an e-mail directly to the contact address on the website. Revoking your consent does not affect the legality of any data processing that has already taken place. We store the details you provide for the purpose of receiving the newsletter until such time as you unsubscribe, after which they are deleted from our servers as well as those of Mailchimp. This does not affect data stored with us for any other purpose. We have signed a contract with Mailchimp for order processing and comply in full with the strict requirements of data protection legislation when using the service.

More information on how Mailchimp analyzes data can be found at https://mailchimp.com/.