Data Protection Policy

1 Introduction

The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia (hereafter referred to as «we» or «us») respects the privacy of its website users and customers. We are committed to treating the information you provide us with due care and responsibility, at all times and in compliance with the relevant data protection regulations and our data protection policy (see below).

The services and offers on our website www.prohelvetia.ch are subject to Swiss data protection legislation and to applicable international data protection legislation, in particular that of the European Union (EU) and its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

2. Responsible unit

Legal responsibility for the handling of personal data lies with:

Pro Helvetia
Schweizer Kulturstiftung
Hirschengraben 22
CH-8024 Zürich
Tel.: +41 44 267 71 14
privacy@prohelvetia.ch

You may submit enquiries or requests concerning the protection of your personal data in writing, by telephone or by e-mail (see above contact details).

3. Personal data

Personal data refers to any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person; an identifiable natural person is anyone who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or one or more specific characteristics expressing the physical, physiological, genetic, psychological, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person. This includes, for example, your name, your telephone number, your address as well as all inventory data that you provide us when registering and creating your customer or user account, when registering for our newsletter or when submitting your applicant data as well as within the framework of myprohelvetia’s electronic application portal.

Exempt from the above are statistical or anonymised data, which we collect, for instance, when you visit our web shop and which cannot be directly linked to your person.

4. Statutory bases and the purposes of data collection

We process your personal data primarily to fulfil our contractual obligations and to fulfil the legal, statutory obligations imposed upon us.

In addition to the above mentioned legal principles for data processing, we also process data on the basis of legitimate interests on our part. In particular, we pursue economic, legal and ideational interests. Our legitimate interest lies in particular in optimising our online services and our web presence.

We collect and process this data for various purposes: to enable the use of our website (establishing a connection), to ensure long-term system security and stability and to optimise Internet services as well as for internal statistical purposes. IP addresses and countries are evaluated only in the event of attacks on the website’s network infrastructure and for statistical purposes.

5. Newsletter

You will only receive our newsletter upon explicit request. We dispatch our newsletter using the so-called «double opt-in procedure,» i.e. we will only send you a newsletter by e-mail if you have expressly confirmed to us beforehand that we should activate the newsletter service. To this end, we will send you a confirmation e-mail upon registration. We will ask you to confirm that you wish to receive our newsletter by clicking a designated link enclosed in our confirmation e-mail. If you register for the newsletter, your e-mail address will be used together with your consent for our advertising purposes until you unsubscribe from the newsletter. You can unsubscribe at any time, but this will not affect the data processed before you unsubscribed. We are entitled to commission third parties with the technical handling of advertising measures and are entitled to pass on your data for this purpose. We will, however, not pass on your data for other purposes without your explicit consent.

6. Job advertisements and applications

We post job advertisements on prohelvetia.ch and online job exchanges at irregular intervals. This enables you to apply for vacancies by e-mail. Using these digital applications, and also in the case of unsolicited applications, we electronically store and process your applicant and application data in order to handle the application process. In addition, data may be exchanged within Pro Helvetia’s network (domestic and foreign partners in connection with applications), among Pro Helvetia’s branches in Switzerland and abroad, with the respective Swiss embassies abroad, as well as with postal services, transport companies and similar service providers in Switzerland and abroad. Data may be passed on to and used by these subjects.

If an employment contract is concluded after the application procedure, we will store the personal data you provided during the application process in your personnel file for the purposes of the customary organisational and administrative processes — in compliance with the further legal obligations.

If an application is rejected, we will automatically delete the data transmitted to us thirteen weeks after completion of the recruitment process. Exceptionally, data will not be deleted if storage is required for a longer period of time due to statutory provisions or if longer storage is required for other reasons, for instance, until the conclusion of legal proceedings.

If you expressly consent to the longer storage of your data, for instance, for inclusion in an applicant database, the data will be processed further on the basis of your consent. You may revoke your consent at any time by declaring same with future effect. It is sufficient to e-mail humanresources@prohelvetia.ch. However, any data processed until this point in time will not be affected by your revocation.

7. Data storage duration

We will retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to comply with applicable laws, or as we deem appropriate, or for as long as this is necessary for the purposes for which your data was originally collected. We will block or delete your personal data as soon as it is no longer needed and in any event after the maximum retention period required by law has expired.

You may request the deletion of your personal data at any time by e-emailing us at privacy@prohelvetia.ch. We will comply with your request with immediate effect, unless we are obliged to retain your data for other reasons, such as statutory provisions, or unless we need this data to enforce legal claims.

If you expressly consent to longer storage, your data will be further processed based of your consent. You may revoke your consent at any time by declaring the same with future effect. It is sufficient to e-mail privacy@prohelvetia.ch. However, any data processed until this point in time will not be affected by your revocation.

You may submit funding requests via our application portal. Any data you provide in connection with an application will only be used to process your application and will not be passed on to unauthorised third parties. If we approve your application, we will store the submitted data in your application file for the purposes of the customary organisational and administrative processes — and in compliance with further legal obligations. All applications processed in terms of substance must be stored by Pro Helvetia in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Act on Archiving.

8. Sharing of information

We will pass on your personal data only with your explicit consent, or if there is a legal obligation to do so or if this is necessary to enforce our rights, in particular to enforce claims arising from a contractual relationship. In addition, we will only pass on your data to third parties if this is necessary for contract execution. To this end, we may pass on the necessary data to external service providers. These service providers will use your data solely to process orders and for no further purposes.

In addition, data may be exchanged within Pro Helvetia’s network (domestic and foreign partners in connection with applications), among Pro Helvetia’s branches in Switzerland and abroad, with the respective Swiss embassies abroad, as well as with postal services, transport companies and similar service providers in Switzerland and abroad. Data may be passed on to and used by these subjects.

We are also entitled to pass on your data to external service providers in order to safeguard your economic, legal and non-material interests (e.g. for marketing purposes or to improve online services). In connection with software tools, we utilise services provided by Google Inc. («Google Analytics»), Google Maps and Campaign Monitor. Data collected in connection with using these software tools may be transferred to servers in the United States. More detailed information about any data collected and shared is available at:

You may prevent any data (including your IP address) gathered while using our website from being processed by the above companies by downloading and installing browser plug-ins that block the functionality of such software tools, e.g.: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.

9. User rights

9.1 Right of revocation

If you have given us your consent to process any personal data provided while using our website, or when submitting a request or ordering products, you may revoke this consent at any time. You may send us your revocation by e-mail or in writing to the address stated in Section 2. Revocation is limited to the handling of personal data already processed based on legal permission even without your consent. In addition, revocation does not apply to data processed prior to revocation.

9.2 Data Subject Rights under GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)

You are entitled:

  • To request information about your personal data as processed by us. In particular, you may request information about the purposes of processing, the category of personal data, the categories of recipients to whom your data has been or will be disclosed, the envisaged retention period, the existence of a right to rectification, deletion, limitation of processing or objection, the existence of a right of complaint, the origin of your data unless gathered by us, as well as the existence of an automated decision making process including profiling and, if applicable, meaningful information on its details;
  • To request that incorrect or incomplete personal data stored by us be rectified with immediate effect;
  • To request the deletion of your personal data stored by us, unless processing is necessary for exercising the freedom of speech and information, for fulfilling a legal obligation, for reasons of public interest or for asserting, exercising or defending legal claims;
  • To request that the processing of your personal data be restricted, insofar as you dispute data accuracy, that processing is unlawful, whereas you refuse its deletion and we no longer need the data, whereas you need the data to assert, exercise or defend legal claims or have objected to processing;
  • To receive the personal data you have provided us in a structured, customary and machine-readable format or to request transmission to another responsible person;
  • To revoke your consent at any time. In consequence, we will no longer be entitled to continue processing your data as we were previously based on your prior consent;
  • To lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

If your personal data is processed on the basis of legitimate interests, you are entitled to object to the processing of your personal data if there are reasons for doing so which arise from your particular situation or if you object to direct advertising. In the latter case, you possess a general right of objection, which we implement without stating a particular situation. If you wish to exercise your right of revocation or objection, please e-mail us at privacy@prohelvetia.ch.

10. Collecting data from children

As far as we are able to establish, we collect, process and use the personal data of children solely with the explicit consent of their legal representative. Persons under the age of 16 must obtain permission from their legal representative before submitting personal data to us. Accordingly, the use of our website by persons under the age of 16 without parental consent is strictly prohibited. In addition, persons under the age of 13 may not register for our newsletter — not even with the consent of their legal representatives.

11. Liability for links

We hereby expressly declare that at the time of creating links, no illegal content was discernible on the linked pages. We have no influence whatsoever on the current and future design, content or authorship of linked pages. Therefore we dissociate ourselves explicitly from the contents of linked pages altered after the creation of links. This applies to all links and references within our website. For illegal, incorrect or incomplete contents and in particular for damages arising from the use or non-use of such information, the provider of the page to which reference is made shall be solely liable, and not the party merely referring to the respective publication via links.

12. Use of cookies

To improve our products and services, we use so-called «cookies» on our web pages. A «cookie» is a small text file that is transferred to your computer when you surf our site. Cookies only contain information sent to your computer by us — no private data can be selected in this way. If you accept the cookies on our site, we will be unable to access your personal information. We will, however, be able to identify your computer with the help of cookies. No personal data is stored in the cookies used. We are thus unable to draw any conclusions about your identity based on cookie technology. Only pseudonymised information is generated in this way.

To manage the cookies and similar technologies used (tracking pixels, web beacons, etc.) and related consents, we use the consent tool “Real Cookie Banner”. Details on how “Real Cookie Banner” works can be found at https://devowl.io/rcb/data-processing/.

The legal basis for the processing of personal data in this context are Art. 6 (1) lit. c GDPR and Art. 6 (1) lit. f GDPR. Our legitimate interest is the management of the cookies and similar technologies used and the related consents.

The provision of personal data is neither contractually required nor necessary for the conclusion of a contract. You are not obliged to provide the personal data. If you do not provide the personal data, we will not be able to manage your consents.

13. Changes

We reserve the right to change this Data Protection Policy at any time. If you are affected by changes to this Policy, we will notify you of any such change in an appropriate manner. This Data Protection Policy does not establish any contractual or other formal legal relationship with or on behalf of any party.


Zürich, May 2019

In the case of discrepancies between the English and German version, the German version shall prevail.