Dear Customer,
This data privacy statement provides you with an overview of the personal data that advanti AG (hereinafter referred to as “we”) collects on you, as well as providing information on the purpose for which we process this personal data, how we process it and, where applicable, who we disclose it to. You will also find out what your rights are under data protection legislation and how you can exercise these rights.
If you provide us with personal data concerning other individuals (e.g. members of your family), please ensure that these individuals are familiar with this data privacy statement and make sure that you only provide us with this data if you are authorized to do so, and if the personal data in question is correct.
1. The Decisis Group
advanti AG forms part of the Decisis Group, which includes the parent company Decisis Services AG and the other subsidiaries in the Decisis Group, comparis.ch AG, Optimatis AG, HypoPlus AG, advanti AG and iii AG (hereinafter collectively referred to as “affiliated companies”), all of which offer comparison and consultancy services on the market.
2. What do we do?
BeneCasa is a product brand of advanti AG that offers services on the Swiss property market in collaboration with comparis.ch AG. BeneCasa acts as a partner to its customers when it comes to the valuation or sale of their properties by putting interested property owners in touch with estate agents.
3. What happens to your data?
3.1 What is personal data and what does “processing” mean?
Data protection comes into play whenever personal data is processed. If we do not process personal data, then data protection regulations do not apply.
The term “personal data” refers to all information concerning you that allows you to be identified, either directly or with the help of other sources of information that are reasonably likely to be used. This sort of personal data is collected, for example, if we store your first name and last name, postal address, e-mail address, date of birth, telephone number and other information, for example in connection with a user account or an enquiry that you have sent us. Information that does not allow you to be identified (e.g. statistics on how many people have visited our website) is anonymous data, i.e. does not constitute personal data.
The term “processing” refers to any handling of your personal data, in particular the recording, collection, anonymization, storage, administration, use, transmission or erasure of your personal data.
3.2 What sort of personal data do we process?
The personal data that we collect from you is the data you provide us with via our online forms, apps or other digital channels. We also collect the personal data that you otherwise make available to us when you use our services, for example in correspondence and other forms of communication with you such as telephone or e-mail. Furthermore, we collect data when you use our websites, apps and other digital channels, and those offered by affiliated companies and third-party companies.
We collect the following personal data in particular:
Master data (name, home address, telephone number, e-mail address, date of birth, gender, means of payment, information on your account with us if you have one, etc.);
Data on how you use our websites, apps and other digital channels, and the services offered by us;
Data concerning you which is required, or is useful, for the purposes of providing the individual services and which we either receive from you directly (e.g. information on the products for which you want us to prepare a price comparison or obtain a quote, payment data), receive from our affiliated companies or receive from the other companies that we collaborate with (e.g. a quote concerning you that we pass on to you); all of this data is non-public data.
To the extent permitted, we also consult other publicly accessible sources (e.g. the press, the Internet) to obtain certain data, or receive this data from affiliated companies, authorities and other third parties. In addition to the data concerning you that we receive from you directly, the categories of personal data concerning you that we receive from third parties include, in particular, information from public registers, information relating to your professional positions and activities, information concerning you that comes up in correspondence and meetings with third parties, information concerning you that is made available to us by individuals you know (family members, consultants, legal representatives, etc.) so that we can conclude or execute agreements with you or involving you (e.g. references, your address for deliveries, powers of attorney, information from insurance companies, distribution and other contractual partners of ours on the use or provision of services by you (e.g. payments made, purchases made), information concerning you obtained from the media and the Internet (where this is appropriate in the case in question, e.g. in connection with an application, press review, marketing/sale), your addresses and, where appropriate, your interests and other socio-demographic data (for marketing purposes), data relating to the use of the website (e.g. IP address, information on your device and settings, cookies, date and time of visit, pages and content accessed, functions used, referring website, location information).
The data can be linked, including over the course of several visits and contact points, for example if you are recognized by means of your user name, an e-mail address or a device ID.
3.3 For what purpose and on what legal basis do we process your personal data?
We use the personal data we collect concerning you primarily to allow you to use our services and to execute the agreements we have concluded with you, to enable you to use our websites, apps and other digital channels as part of our legitimate interest in offering attractive services, and to meet our statutory obligations in Switzerland and abroad. This naturally also affects other individuals whose personal data you provide us with.
If, for example, you make an enquiry regarding a property valuation, then we record your personal data and process this data in order to, among other things, fulfil and process your request (e.g. forwarding the data to the estate agents) and to manage and maintain the customer relationship (e.g. changes of address).
We also process personal data concerning you and other individuals, insofar as this is permitted and we consider it appropriate, for the following purposes in which we (and also, in some cases, third parties) have a legitimate interest that is consistent with the purpose in question:
Offering and further development of our products, services, website, apps and other platforms on which we have a presence;
Communication with third parties and the processing of their requests (e.g. applications, media enquiries);
Review and optimization of procedures for requirements analysis so that we can approach customers directly, and collection of personal data from publicly available sources for customer acquisition purposes;
Advertising and marketing (including the organization of events) insofar as you have not objected to your data being used (if we send you advertising as an existing customer, you can object to this at any time; we will then add you to a restricted list so that you do not receive any further advertising);
Market research and opinion polling, media monitoring;
Prevention and investigation of criminal offences and other forms of misconduct (e.g. performance of internal investigations, data analysis for fraud prevention purposes);
Safeguarding our operations, in particular IT, our websites, apps and other platforms;
Monitoring in order to safeguard rights to control who can enter and stay at the premises and other measures to ensure IT, building and site protection and to protect our employees and other individuals, as well as the assets that belong, or are entrusted, to us (e.g. access controls, visitor lists, network and e-mail scanners, telephone records);
Purchase and sale of business areas, companies or parts of companies and other transactions under corporate law, and the transfer of personal data in this context;
Business management measures and measures to comply with statutory and regulatory obligations and internal regulations of the Decisis Group and our company.
If you have granted us your consent to the processing of your personal data for certain purposes (e.g. when you subscribe to newsletters), we will process your personal data within the context of, and based on, this consent insofar as no other legal basis applies and we require such a legal basis. Consent granted can be withdrawn at any time, although this withdrawal will not affect data processing operations that have already taken place.
3.4 Direct marketing and profiling
If you have consented to us using your e-mail address or other electronic means of communication for advertising purposes, then we or our affiliated companies will send you newsletters and other advertising information on a regular basis using the channels in question in order to draw your attention to other products and services offered by the Decisis Group. If you register with us, then we can also use your personal data, including data on how you use our websites, apps and other digital channels, in order to personalize our advertising measures. Profiling is also used in connection with the development and optimization of the products and services we offer. This is based on our legitimate interest in more effective direct marketing, unless we obtain your consent separately in this regard.
If you have registered for our services/created an account, or if you are one of our customers, we can provide you with information on the areas of business that we cover using your e-mail address and other electronic means of communication. No separate consent is required.
You have the right to object to being sent these newsletters and this advertising, and to the further processing of your e-mail address and other electronic means of communication for this purpose at any time, by clicking on the link at the end of the newsletter to unsubscribe, or by following the other instructions provided at the end of the message.
If you do not wish to receive any personalized advertising communications, you can also object to this at any time (see section 6).
3.5 Disclosure of personal data to third parties and abroad
To the extent permitted and if we consider it appropriate, we also pass personal data on to third parties as part of our business activities and within the context of the purposes set out in section 3.3, either because these third parties process the data on our behalf or because they wish to use it for their own purposes. These third parties include the following, in particular:
Our service providers (within the Decisis Group and external providers such as banks and insurance companies), including contract data processors (e.g. IT providers);
Subcontractors and other business partners;
Providers (e.g. insurance companies, banks, commercial enterprises);
Other companies in the Decisis Group that are entitled to process the data for the purposes set out in section 3.3 or otherwise for their own purposes (pursuant to their separate data privacy statements);
These third parties are hereinafter collectively referred to as “recipients”. While some of these recipients are based in Switzerland, they can be located anywhere in the world. In particular, you must be aware that your data may be transferred to other European countries and to the US, where the service providers we use are based (e.g. Microsoft). If we transmit data to a country without an adequate level of statutory data protection, we use corresponding agreements as provided for by law (namely based on the standard contractual clauses of the European Commission, which can be accessed here, here and here) to ensure an adequate level of protection, or we rely on the statutory exceptions of consent, the performance of contracts, the establishment, exercise or enforcement of legal claims, overriding public interests, published personal data or because it is necessary to protect the integrity of the persons affected. You can obtain a copy of these contractual safeguards at any time by sending a request to the address set out in section 6, if they cannot be accessed by following the links provided above. We reserve the right, however, to render copies illegible, or only to provide excerpts, for data protection law or confidentiality reasons.
Your personal data will not be disclosed, transmitted or sold to third parties outside of the Decisis Group in any other way, unless this is necessary in connection with one of our services or you have granted your consent.
3.6 How long do we store your personal data for?
We process and store your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil our contractual and statutory obligations or to achieve the purposes that the processing is designed to achieve, for example for the duration of the entire business relationship (from the initiation to the execution and termination of an agreement) and thereafter in line with the statutory retention and documentation obligations. Within this context, it is possible that personal data will be retained for the period during which claims can be asserted against our company and to the extent that we are otherwise subject to a statutory retention obligation, or if legitimate business interests require such retention (e.g. for evidence and documentation purposes). If your personal data is no longer required for the purposes set out above, it will be erased or rendered anonymous insofar as is possible. Shorter retention periods of 12 months or less apply to operating data (e.g. [system] logs).
3.7 Are you obliged to provide us with personal data?
In some cases, you can use our websites, apps and digital channels without registering. As part of our business relationship, you must provide us with the personal data that is required for the initiation and performance of a business relationship and for the fulfilment of the associated contractual obligations (in general, you are not under any statutory obligation to make data available to us). However, as a rule, without this data we will not be able to conclude an agreement with you (or with the entity or individual you are representing) or process an order placed by you.
It is also not possible to use the website if certain information designed to secure data traffic (e.g. your IP address) is not disclosed. The question as to whether this information always constitutes personal data is another matter.
3.8 Cookies/tracking and other technologies relating to the use of our websites
3.8.1 What data do we collect?
When you contact us, various technologies are used by us and by third parties on our websites and in our applications to collect data that we generally link with other data that we collect, such as your user account. This is:
Data that is transmitted or generated automatically (e.g. date and time of use, previous page and page accessed, IP address, data on the browser used, device ID, current location, insofar as this information has been released); and
Interaction data insofar as this data can be collected without installing additional programs on the computer (e.g. mouse movements and clicks, and keystrokes on the website).
We collect and process this data so that we can continuously improve our products and services and adapt them to suit your needs, identify trends and prepare and evaluate statistics on the use of our digital services. The data is also used to provide you with a positive user experience. You can opt to prohibit the processing of non-personal data at any time. Please refer to section 3.8.3 for information on how to do this.
3.8.2 What technologies do we use and why do we use them?
We typically use cookies and similar technologies on our websites to allow your browser or your device to be identified. A cookie is a small file that is sent to your computer/saved automatically on your computer or mobile device by the web browser you are using when you visit our website. This allows us to recognize you if you access this website again, even if we do not know who you are. In addition to cookies that are only used during a single session and are deleted after you leave our website (session cookies), there are also cookies that save user settings and other information over a certain period of time (e.g. two years) (permanent cookies). You can, however, configure your browser to reject cookies, save them for one session only or otherwise delete them before the end of the normal period. The default setting on most browsers is to accept cookies. We use permanent cookies to give us a better understanding of how you use our services and content, and to allow us to offer you services and advertising that are tailored to suit you.
In some cases, we use elements and third-party services on our website, in our apps and in other digital products that provide us with usage statistics that are used to display third-party advertising or enable users to access social networks and other third-party websites. In particular, these third parties include Facebook, Twitter and Google (YouTube). We use these third-party services, the providers of which can be based in any country worldwide (in Google’s case, the provider is Google LLC in the US, www.google.com), to measure and evaluate the use of the website (without any link to specific individuals). Permanent cookies set by the service provider are also used for this purpose. While service providers do not receive any personal data from us, and do not store any IP addresses either, they can track your use of the website, combine this data with data from other websites that you have visited and that are also tracked by them, and then use this information for their own purposes, such as to manage advertising. If you have registered with the service provider in question itself, then the service provider will also know who you are. Your personal data is then processed by the service provider on the latter’s responsibility and based on its data privacy provisions. The service provider only provides us with information on how our website is used. It does not forward any information on you as an individual.
We also use what are known as plug-ins offered by social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest or Instagram on our websites. You can see that these plug-ins are being used, in most cases because the corresponding icons appear on screen. The operators of the social networks in question can register the fact that you are on our website and where you are on our website, and can use this information for their own purposes. Your personal data is then processed by this operator on the latter’s responsibility and based on its data privacy provisions. We do not receive any information on you from the operator.
3.8.3 How can I prevent tracking and the use of cookies?
In order to protect your privacy, we take account of browser settings indicating that tracking is not to be used; in such cases, we only work with third parties that also take these settings into account (more information can be found here for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari). If, however, you click on a link in an advert or other third-party offering, you will leave our sphere of influence and we cannot control what data will then be collected. In these cases, you must refer to the policy of the third party in question.
Most Internet browsers accept cookies automatically as a default setting. You have the option, however, of configuring your browser settings to reject cookies in general by selecting “Block all cookies” in your browser settings, or by configuring your settings so that you are always prompted before a cookie set by a website that you have visited is accepted. You can also delete cookies on your computer or mobile device by selecting the corresponding function in your browser. Please be aware that you have to deactivate or delete the cookies on all of your devices. If you decide to use one of the options described above, you may no longer be able to use all of the website functions in full. We would also like to remind you that you cannot object to general, i.e. non-personalized, advertising on our websites.
4. What are your rights with regard to your personal data?
Within the context of the data protection legislation that applies to you and insofar as this legislation contains corresponding provisions (such as in cases involving the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and, in some cases, also the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), you have the right of access (the right to information, free of charge, on whether or not we process personal data concerning you and, if so, which data we process, among other things), rectification (if the personal data concerning you that we process is incorrect), erasure (if you want us to erase the data we have stored), the right to the restriction of processing or the right to object to our data processing operations (e.g. if you want us to stop using your data in a certain way, for instance so that it is not used for direct marketing purposes), and the right to be provided with certain personal data so that it can be transferred to another entity (data portability).
Please note, however, that we, in turn, reserve the right to apply the restrictions provided for by law, for example if we are obliged to retain or process certain data, have an overriding interest in the data (where we are entitled to invoke it) or require the data in order to assert claims. If you are required to pay any costs, we will notify you in advance.
We have already informed you of your right to withdraw your consent in sections 3.3 and 3.4.
Please note that exercising these rights may conflict with contractual agreements, resulting, for example, in the agreement being terminated early, or costs being incurred. We will inform you in advance in such cases, unless such information is already set out in the contractual provisions.
As a rule you must be able to clearly prove your identity in order to exercise these rights, for example by presenting a copy of a recognized identity document if your identity is not otherwise clear or cannot otherwise be verified. You can use the address set out in section 6 to contact us in order to assert your rights.
In addition, all data subjects have the right to enforce their rights in court or to lodge a complaint with the competent data protection authority. The competent data protection authority in Switzerland is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner.
5. Data security
We operate data networks and systems that comply with the usual technological standards. Appropriate technical and organizational protection measures have been implemented to carefully protect your data from loss, destruction, falsification, manipulation or unauthorized access. These include directives, training, IT and network security solutions, access controls and restrictions, encrypted data transmission and other controls. Nevertheless, the Internet is an open network that can be accessed by anyone. Consequently, neither we nor our service providers guarantee confidentiality when data is transmitted via the Internet, nor your anonymity when you use our websites, apps and other digital channels.
6. Who can you contact? Who is responsible?
The entity responsible for the data processing operations described in this document is advanti AG.
If you have an enquiry relating to data protection, you can send an e-mail to info@benecasa.ch. Naturally, you can also send us a letter: advanti AG, Datenschutzanfrage, Birmensdorferstrasse 108, 8003 Zurich.
Our representative in the EEA pursuant to Article 27 GDPR (if necessary) is: activeMind.legal, Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft m.b.H., Potsdamer Straße 3, 80802 Munich, Germany, e-mail: comparis@ActiveMind.Legal.
7. Legal basis
This data privacy statement is based on the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Although the GDPR is European Union legislation, it is relevant to us. The Swiss DPA is heavily influenced by EU law and companies outside of the European Union/EEA must comply with the GDPR in certain circumstances.
8. Amendments to this data privacy statement
We have the right to amend this data privacy statement at any time without prior notice. The version most recently published on our website applies. If the data privacy statement forms part of an agreement with you, then we will inform you of any updates or changes by e-mail or using other suitable means.
Version dated 28 November 2018