Ethos respects your privacy and is committed to being fully transparent about how Ethos collects, uses and shares your personal information.
In this respect, Ethos complies with the Federal Data Protection Act of 1st September 2023 (DPA) and the European General Data Protection Regulation n° 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 (GDPR) for data subjects located on the territory of the European Union.
This statement aims to explain how Ethos complies with best practices in the area of digital responsibility, including :
- lists the personal data that Ethos collects through its website, its e-services platform (client platform) or in the course of fulfilling its contracts;
- describes the purpose of the processing (e.g. collection, use, storage, disclosure, etc.) of this data;
- explains the legal basis on which Ethos processes this data;
- informs with whom this data is shared;
- states the security measures Ethos takes in relation to this data; and
- informs visitors and customers about their rights in relation to their personal data and how they can exercise these rights.
1. Responsible for data processing
Ethos Services SA
Place de Pont-Rouge 1
PO Box
1211 Geneva 26
Switzerland
2. Processing of personal data
Définitions
Personal data means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual. A data subject is a person whose personal data are processed. Processing includes all operations related to such data, regardless of the means and procedures used, in particular the storing, disclosing, receiving, recording, erasing, recording, altering, destroying and evaluating of such data.
The European Economic Area (EEA) comprises the European Union (EU) and the Principality of Liechtenstein, Iceland and Norway.
The applicable regulations describe the processing of personal data as the processing of data relating to an individual.
What personal data is collected?
Ethos collects personal data necessary to provide a sustainable, user friendly, secure and reliable service. This personal data may fall into the categories of master data, contact data, browser and device data, content data, metadata, secondary data, usage data, location data, sales data, contract data and payment data.
Ethos processes personal data for as long as it is necessary or required by law for the fulfilment of the respective purposes.
In this context, Ethos processes, in particular, data that data subjects voluntarily submit when contacting it - for example, by post, email, contact form, via social networks or by telephone -, when registering for a user account or when using it. If a user transmits personal data via third parties, the user is obliged to ensure that the obligations under data protection law have been complied with vis-à-vis these third parties and must guarantee them the accuracy of this personal data.
For what purposes is your personal data processed?
Ethos processes your personal data in order to:
- provide its range of services in response to users' requests;
- conduct business transactions with its customers and fulfil contracts;
- provide its customers with services that are relevant and related to their needs;
- optimise the user experience on the website and the e-Services platform;
- ensure the safety of staff and visitors to the website;
- respond to job applications and
- record its activities in order to meet financial or legal obligations.
3. What security measures are taken for your personal data?
Ethos takes appropriate technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal data and to prevent its loss, misuse or alteration.
For example, access to the online offer takes place with the help of transport encryption (SSL/TLS, in particular with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure, abbreviated HTTPS). Most browsers symbolise the transport encryption with a padlock in the address bar.
Ethos stores your personal data on secure servers in data centres operated by recognised third parties.
Despite these measures, the processing of personal data on the Internet can still have security gaps, which is why Ethos cannot guarantee the absolute security of this data. However, Ethos undertakes to inform about any possible theft of personal data.
In addition, the Ethos website contains links to third party websites and further information about those websites. Ethos has no control over the privacy policies and practices of third parties and does not accept any responsibility for the processing of your personal data by these third parties, unless it is subject to this Privacy Policy. It is therefore your responsibility to inform yourself about the privacy policies of these third parties.
4. Use of the webiste
Cookies
Ethos endeavours to minimise the use of cookies for its website and e-Services platform. The website does not use cookies to transmit personal information and does not use persistent cookies of any kind (except those required by the third parties listed in point 6) or user tracking systems.
The use of session cookies (which are not permanently stored on the user's computer and disappear when the browser is closed) is strictly limited to the transmission of session cookies, which consist of random numbers generated by the server and are necessary for safe and efficient browsing. These cookies make it possible, among other things, to recognise your browser the next time you visit our website and to measure, for example, the frequency of use of our website (also called traffic).
In the settings of your browser, you can deactivate and delete cookies in whole or in part at any time. Without cookies, however, the functionality of our website may be limited.
Tracker pixel
Ethos does not use tracker pixels, also called web beacons, on its website and e-services platform.
Tracker pixels or web beacons are also known as tracking pixels and are small, normally invisible images that are automatically called up when websites are visited. Web beacons can be used to collect the same information that is contained in server log files.
Statistics and audience measurement
Ethos uses Matomo to measure audience statistics. Matomo is hosted on the same environment as the website and no audience or visit information is shared with third party services. IP addresses are anonymised and will not be combined with other Ethos data. The Matomo service has been configured to store raw data for a maximum of 24 months.
5. Contact and newsletters
Ethos aims to make it easy for you to contact us using the contact form. The information you provide will be stored for the purpose of processing your request and possible follow-up questions. If you contact Ethos to request a quote or further information or to apply for a position, the data you provide will be used to carry out pre-contractual measures.
Ethos sends newsletters by e-mail only to registered persons with their consent.
Measurement of success and reach (audience)
The newsletters may contain links that register the opening of individual messages and the clicking of links in these messages. These links may also record usage of the newsletters by linking to you personally. Ethos needs this statistical usage data to measure success and reach in order to provide notifications and information tailored to the needs and reading habits of recipients in an efficient, user-friendly, durable, secure and reliable manner.
Consent and objection
You must expressly consent to the use of your email addresses and your other contact addresses, except where such use is permitted for other legal reasons. In order to obtain your consent, if any, to receive emails, Ethos uses the "double opt-in" procedure whenever possible. It sends you an email with a link that you must click on to confirm your consent. This prevents misuse by unauthorised third parties. Ethos archives such consents (including the IP address as well as the date) for evidence and security purposes.
You can unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time. This does not apply to notifications and messages that are mandatory for our offer.
6. With whom is your personal data shared?
Ethos does not sell your personal data to third parties and only transfers personal data within the European Union or to territories that have a DPA adequacy decision. Should Ethos process data in a country outside these territories in the future, this can only be done with the user’s consent, due to a legal obligation or on the basis of Ethos' legitimate interests.
Ethos may entrust the processing of personal data to appointed third parties, process it with third parties or with the assistance of third parties, or transmit it to third parties. These third parties are in particular the service providers whose services Ethos uses. Ethos also guarantees an adequate level of data protection for these third parties.
Digital infrastructure
Ethos works with Swiss companies that provide the following services for the website (www.ethosfund.ch) and for the e-Services platform (www.ethos-esg.ch): Infrastructure and platform operation, computing capacity, storage space and database, emailing, security and technical maintenance services used by Ethos for the operation of this online service.
Ethos or its hosting providers process the master data, contact data, content data, contract data, usage data, meta data and communication data of customers, prospective customers and visitors to this online service on the basis of Ethos' legitimate interests in the efficient and secure provision of its online service.
Provider for notifications and messages
When subscribing to the newsletter service, Ethos uses Flexmail to send and manage the newsletters. Flexmail is a service of the company Flexmail NV based in Belgium. Further information on the nature, scope and purpose of data processing is available in the privacy policy of this company. The Flexmail service has been configured to store data indefinitely in order to ensure the relevance of the subscription and unsubscription information.
Provider for the management of customer relations
As a service for managing client relationships, Ethos uses a cloud solution. The software for this is hosted in Belgium. Further information on the nature, scope and purpose of the data processing can be found in the privacy policy of this company. The service has been configured to store data indefinitely in order to maintain the relevance of the information required for the performance of contracts and services.
7. What rights do you have and how can you exercise them?
You have the following rights in relation to your personal data:
- You will be informed of the way in which your personal data is processed and will be given access to your personal data at any time by requesting copies from Ethos via the contact form or by post.
- You have the right to have your personal data corrected or deleted under certain conditions.
- You have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data under certain conditions and to refuse it if there is a legitimate interest in doing so.
- Where your consent is the legal basis for our processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw it at any time.
- You have the right to data portability, which means the right to receive personal data in a structured, commonly used format and to transfer this data to another controller without hindrance from us.
- If you are not satisfied with the way Ethos processes your data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.
You can exercise your rights at any time by contacting us via the contact form or by post.
8. Social networks
Ethos is active on social networks and other online platforms in order to be able to communicate with interested parties and inform them about our offer. In this context, personal data may also be processed outside Switzerland and the EEA.
The General Terms and Conditions, the Terms of Use as well as the data protection guidelines and other provisions of the respective operators of these online platforms apply. These provisions inform in particular about the rights of the data subjects, including the right to information.
9. Final provisions
Ethos may amend or supplement this Privacy Policy at any time and will provide notice of such amendments and supplements in an appropriate manner, in particular by posting the updated Privacy Policy on its website.