Data protection

MSF Switzerland is committed to protecting and respecting the information you share with us. References to "we", “us” or “our” are to MSF Switzerland (registered charity No. CHE-107.373.253), 140 Route de Ferney, PO Box 1224, Geneva 1202, Switzerland.

This privacy statement (the “Statement”) describes how MSF Switzerland collects, uses and stores personal data. This includes the various ways you interact with us, including in person, by email or telephone (including WhatsApp) and through the website https://www.msf.ch (the “Website”).

The term “Personal Data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual.

This Statement has been written in accordance with the applicable data protection legislation, including the Swiss Data Protection Act and European General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR).

If you have any questions about how your Personal Data is used, please contact us in the ways indicated below:

Who is responsible for processing your Personal Data?

MSF Switzerland is the data controller for Personal Data concerned by this Statement. Its registered office is at 140 Route de Ferney, Geneva 1202 (Switzerland); enquiries can be sent by email to DataprotectionOCG.GVA@geneva.msf.org.

 When do we collect information about you? 

We collect your Personal Data:

  • When you give it to us directly
  • When you provide it to us indirectly
  • When you use social media platforms
  • When you use our Website, through cookies

Directly

Your Personal Data may be collected when you make a donation, register for one of our events or e-newsletters, communicate with us or post a comment on our social media accounts.

Indirectly

We also receive certain data rented from address brokers who lawfully collected them in Switzerland, or obtained by reconciling addresses with the Swiss Post and Swisscom telephone directories. We also obtain them through  a fundraising platform (Raisenow), provided that you have informed them that you support MSF Switzerland and you have given your consent, or through the recruitment platform for positions at the headquarters in Geneva, which is hosted by Recruitee.com and HR Path.com for positions in the Field. Please review the privacy policies of these organisations when you provide them with your Personal Data.

When you use social media

We may obtain information about you from your social media accounts or services, such as Facebook and Twitter, provided that you have set up your account to give us this permission. Please check your settings and the privacy policies of these social media platforms, which are not our responsibility.

In some cases, we hold publicly accessible information from social media platforms (such as social media user names or follower numbers) in our FaceLift system for managing social media interactions with our supporters. This gives us an overview of the people who are leading the conversations on topics related to our work. Were we to contact a particular social media user name, we would do so using the contact information made public by that user.

Through the use of our Website and application

When you use the contact form, we usually collect the following information:

  • Title and full name;
  • Email address.

If you register for an information session in Geneva, Zurich or Dakar, we collect:

  • Title and full name;
  • Email address;
  • Place of residence;
  • Occupation.

If you make a donation or tell us that you have included MSF in your will, we collect the following Personal Data:

  • Title and full name;
  • Email address;
  • Place of residence;
  • Your bank or credit card details (which are held in accordance with the applicable legal requirements);
  • Your date of birth via our street fundraising to verify that you are over 18 years of age;
  • Any previous donations you have made;
  • The date and source of the donation.

If you register for a survey or fundraising event, we may also collect:

  • Information about your interests, e.g. the medical fields or countries in which we work;
  • The age bracket you fall into;
  • Information about the social media platforms you use;
  • Information about your health in the case of sporting events in support of MSF;
  • Information about your educational path.

Our legal basis for processing Personal Data

Every organisation needs a legal basis to collect and use Personal Data.

MSF Switzerland uses Personal Data on the basis of:

  • Consent (for example to send certain communications by email or SMS);
  • Processing necessary to comply with a legal obligation (for example to process a tax deduction statement); 
  • MSF’s legitimate interest as a charitable humanitarian organisation, provided that this use of the data does not infringe the rights of the persons concerned.
     
  • Legitimate interests include: 
    • Good charity governance, which includes achieving our humanitarian objectives, statutory and financial reporting, and other regulatory compliance purposes;
    • Transparent administration and operational management, which includes responding to requests for information, providing information and services, research, event management, volunteer management, and employment and recruitment requirements;
    • Responsible fundraising and donation campaigns, which includes managing campaigns and donations, sending direct marketing communications and thank-you letters by post or email.

How do we use your Personal Data?

Online form and feedback

We will use your Personal Data to answer your questions or enquiries or to register you for events.

Surveys

We use surveys to understand who visits our Websites and how they use them, helping us create better content for you and make our Websites easier to use. We may ask for your email address if you are happy to participate in future surveys or testing. We will only use it to ask you to help us with these types of requests.

Donations

We use your Personal Data to process and keep a record of your donation, in accordance with current data retention legislation. We also use your Personal Data to provide you with certain tax documentation should you need it.

Direct marketing

We use direct marketing to let you know what MSF is doing and how your support is making a difference.

We may use it for emergency fundraising or to ask for other types of help.

We will always respect your preferences and will endeavour to send you information that will be of interest to you, in your preferred format.

We may send you information by email, post, SMS or telephone (including WhatsApp) if you have agreed to hear from us in those ways.

We give you the option of opting out or updating your preferences at the bottom of each marketing email. You can unsubscribe at any time.

If you would like to suggest changes to how we communicate with you, please let us know on 0848 88 8080 or at donateurs@geneva.msf.org 

Who has access to your Personal Data?

Qualified staff

Your Personal Data can only be accessed by our qualified staff. We regularly check who has access to your information. Your Personal Data will only be accessible insofar as is necessary to achieve the purpose for which it was collected.

External service providers

We may also share your Personal Data with individuals and external companies that provide us with services, such as entering donors’ data in our database, newsletter distribution service, marketing analysis service or information and communication technology hosting service.

Such external service providers are bound by a confidentiality obligation and may only use your Personal Data in accordance with our instructions and this Statement.

Third parties

Your Personal Data may be disclosed to government, judicial or administrative authorities if required by law.

Under no circumstances will we sell, rent or exchange your Personal Data to third parties or other organisations.

How do we keep your information safe?

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures and precautions to protect your Personal Data and prevent its loss, misuse or alteration. This includes limiting access to it, as well as technical and organisational measures.

For donations, MSF uses Raisenow and offers the following payment options: Visa, Mastercard, PostFinance Card, PostFinance E-Finance or a payment voucher. Data is encrypted before being transferred. MSF itself does not store card details, as your payment data passes directly through external partners certified by the credit card industry (PCI DSS). Our service providers are only authorised to use this information for the sole purpose of carrying out their tasks and must comply with the Swiss data protection legislation.

Please note, however, that MSF cannot guarantee absolute security of your Personal Data, since the storage and electronic transmission of Personal Data involves certain risks.

Zewo certification

MSF Switzerland is certified by the Zewo Foundation and is committed to observing the highest of standards in the management of the organisation, the delivery of aid and its financial and fundraising activities, which are audited by an independent external body.

How long do we keep your Personal Data?

We keep your personal data for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is being processed.

For example, we only keep your email address for the purpose of sending you a newsletter until such time as you unsubscribe.

If you ask to stop receiving communications from us, we will only keep basic information about you in our suppression list to avoid sending you unwanted materials in the future. In the case of donations, we keep your contact details for the purpose of sending you your donation tax receipt.

What is our cookie policy?

What is a cookie?

Cookies are small pieces of information sent by a web server to a web browser that enable the server to uniquely identify the browser on each page. Other tracking technologies similar to cookies are also used. They may include web beacons and tracking URLs. Web beacons (also known as clear GIFs or pixel tags) are placed on certain pages of our Website and generate a generic notice that you have accessed that page. If you disable cookies, the web beacons simply detect an anonymous visit to our Website. Tracking URLs are used to determine which referral site you accessed our Website from. For the purposes of this policy, these and similar technologies are referred to as “Cookies”.

Cookies perform a number of tasks: for example, they allow you to navigate efficiently between pages while remembering your preferences and optimising your overall user experience. They can also make the advertisements that appear online better match you and your interests.

Cookies themselves do not identify individual users; they only identify the computer or mobile device you are using via a randomly generated identifier.
For more information about cookies, please visit
www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.com where you can find more information about behavioural advertising and online privacy.

What kinds of Cookies do we use?

1/ Our Cookies

The types of Cookies (including those of our external service providers) that we use on our Website and their purposes are set out below:

Category 1: Strictly necessary Cookies

These Cookies are essential to enable you to move around our Website and use its functions. Without these Cookies, many elements of our Website could be blocked and/or may not work properly.

We use these Cookies to enable you to access the features on our Website. The Personal Data collected by these Cookies is processed based on our legitimate interest in the proper functioning of our Website.

Category 2: Performance Cookies

These Cookies gather information about how you or other users use our Website, for example which pages you view most often and whether you get any error messages from the pages.

We use these Cookies to maintain the effectiveness and ease of use of our Website and to see how it is used. Most of the time, these Cookies do not collect information that identifies the user.

If Personal Data is collected by these Cookies, it is processed based on our legitimate interest in understanding and optimising the use of our Website.

Category 3: Functional Cookies

These Cookies allow our Website to remember the choices you have made (such as your user name, language or the region you are in).

We use these Cookies to maintain the effectiveness and ease of use of our Website and to offer you a smooth browsing experience.

The Personal Data collected by these Cookies is processed based on our legitimate interest in creating a pleasant user experience on the Website.

Category 4: Targeting and advertising Cookies

These Cookies are used to obtain knowledge about the users of our Website, adapt its content, compile statistics relating to the use of our Website and show you tailored advertisements on third-party sites, based on the interest you have shown in our services during your visit to our Website. In some cases, they enable us to provide advertisements that are better tailored to you and your interests.

You can disable these Cookies at any time through your browser settings. If so required by the applicable legislation, these Cookies will only be placed on your device with your consent. We keep track of your consent by using a technical Cookie; therefore, if you delete Cookies from your device, we will need to ask you again if you consent to those Cookies.

In particular, we use Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics Advertising Features to anonymously track usage and activity on our Website. Google Analytics is a web analytics service provided by Google LLC (“Google”). Google Analytics uses Cookies to analyse how you use the Website.

You can visit https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites?hl=en to find out how your Personal Data is used by Google. You can refuse the use of these Cookies by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en. An opt-out Cookie will be place on your device to prevent future collection of your Personal Data. Additional information on the terms of use and privacy can be found at https://www.google.com/analytics/terms/fr.html or https://policies.google.com/?hl=en&gl=uk.

2/ Cookies issued by third parties

We may include on our Website computer applications from third parties that enable you to share content from our Website with other people or to let other people know what content you have viewed on our Website or your opinion of such content.

The issuance and use of Cookies by third parties is subject to the privacy policies of those third parties. Those Cookies are not under our control. Please refer to the privacy policies of the respective social media platforms to ascertain how their Cookies work.

Transferring data abroad

Both this Website and the online fundraising platform are hosted in Switzerland. The hosting sites of recruitment platforms are in France and Germany. Our partner for donors’ data entering in our database is in Poland. 

How can you change your data and what are your rights?

These rights include: 

  • The right of access: you have the right to know what Personal Data we hold about you and to ask, in writing, to consult that Personal Data. We will provide you with this information as swiftly as possible, within no more than one month, unless the request is complex. We may request proof of identity before we can disclose Personal Data.
  • The right to be informed: you have the right to be informed about how your Personal Data will be used. This Statement, together with any additional information or notice provided to you either at the time you provided your contact details, or at another time, is intended to provide you with that information.
  • The right to withdraw consent: when we process your Personal Data subject to your consent (for example to send you SMS messages or marketing emails), you can withdraw that consent at any time.
  • The right to object: you also have the right to object to the processing of your Personal Data when we use it in our legitimate interest.
  • The right to restrict processing: in certain situations, you have the right to request that the processing of your Personal Data be restricted due to a disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate use.
  • The right to be forgotten: in some cases, you have the right to have your Personal Data erased. When you ask not to receive marketing materials from us, we will need to retain certain information to ensure that you will not be contacted in future.
  • The right to correction: if you believe that your Personal Data is inaccurate, you have the right to ask for it to be updated.
  • The right to data portability: where we process your Personal Data because you have given us your consent or where such processing is necessary for performance of the contract, you have the right to ask for the Personal Data to be transferred from one service provider to another.
  • The right to lodge a complaint: if you are not satisfied with how we have processed your Personal Data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), 1 Feldeggweg, CH-3003 Bern (Tel.: +41 (0)58 462 4395) or the supervisory authority in your country of residence.

For all enquiries, please use the contact details indicated above.

ACT FOR

1/Terms and Conditions

  • You must be over 18 years old or be supervised by an adult who will take responsibility for the event.

  • Do not damage the image of Médecins Sans Frontières.

  • By creating a fundraiser, you commit to ensuring that your contributions, links, and photos do not contain any content that is contrary to applicable laws or public decency. In particular, you declare that you hold all the rights to use, respectively to publish, the content, links, and images appearing in your materials. In case of violation of these terms of use, MSF may temporarily or permanently exclude individuals from this platform. MSF is not responsible for contributions that it did not create itself or of which it was not aware. MSF reserves the right to delete or block user accounts, contributions, or photos, as well as to modify contributions, if they violate these rules or the law, or if they could cause material or immaterial damage to the operator or third parties.

2/Communication

The logo, the name "Médecins Sans Frontières," and the acronym "MSF" are registered trademarks, and you may only use them with the written permission of Médecins Sans Frontières.

The Event Organizer agrees to:

Strictly use the Médecins Sans Frontières visuals provided below (logo, name, and acronym) identically, in any context, only within the scope and duration of the fundraising operation.

ACT FOR logo

 

To help you organize your event, we can also send you materials: posters, collection boxes, stickers, T-shirts. Please feel free to contact us by email at katia.gogniat@geneva.msf.org or by phone at +41 22 849 89 35

3/Processing of Personal Data

We only use your personal data in connection with our activities and the pursuit of our social mission. Some of your personal data appearing on this fundraising page (name, first name, uploaded photos) will be published on our website. You have rights over your data (including access and deletion). Contact: donateurs@geneva.msf.org.

When will we update this Statement?

We will amend this privacy statement as necessary, without notice. Please check it regularly. However, we will take steps to bring to any significant changes to your attention.

All rights to this document belong to MSF. Reproduction without written permission is strictly prohibited.