Privacy policy

Privacy policy

Data protection and data security are important to Greater Zurich Area AG ("GZA", "we", "us"). GZA processes your personal data responsibly and in compliance with legal obligations. In this Privacy Policy we describe how we collect and process your personal data when you visit greaterzuricharea.com ("Website") or use our services.

Controller of the data processing

GZA is the controller of the data processing described in this Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions or would like to exercise your statutory data protection rights, please contact us at: privacy@greaterzuricharea.com or write to: Greater Zurich Area AG, Limmatquai 122, CH-8001 Zurich.

Personal data processed when communicating or providing services

When you use the contact form on the Website, register for our events or newsletters, or inquire about our services by email or telephone, we collect the information you provide.

In order to respond to your inquiries, we routinely require general personal data such as your first name, last name, email address and telephone number, as well as information about your position or role at the organization on whose behalf you are contacting us. We also regularly ask about the country of origin of your company or organization.

In the contact form, we ask for further information about your company or organization (e.g. industry and size) as well as the purpose of your inquiry (e.g. company establishment or market analyses). This additional information makes it easier for us to answer your inquiry.

When you register for an event organized by us or for our newsletters, we ask for your first name, last name and email address as well as the desired salutation, your job title and the name of your organization or company. You also have the option of providing us with further information about your company.

When you apply for a job, we collect your resume and other information about your qualifications, which you submit to us as part of your application.

We also process personal data that we receive from third parties. This regularly includes personal data that we receive in correspondence or in meetings with customers or business partners, e.g. your name and details of your activity as an employee of the customer or business partner.

To the extent necessary to achieve the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, we also collect general personal data from publicly accessible registers, Websites or platforms (e.g. to verify your authorization to sign) or by obtaining information from third parties (e.g. for reference purposes in the application process if you consent to this).

Making available and using our Website

Informative use:

You can visit the Website and find out about our services without telling us who you are. As with any connection to a web server, however, the server of our web hosting provider logs and automatically stores certain technical data.

This data includes the IP address and operating system of your device, the date and time of use, and the type of browser you use to access the Website.

Web analysis

We use Google Analytics, an analysis service provided by Google LLC ("Google"), to evaluate the use of our Website and to obtain information for its optimization. Google Analytics collects and stores user data using cookies. Prior to their transmission to a server in the USA, Google truncates the requesting IP addresses. Thus, in the context of our use of Google Analytics, no personal data is transmitted to the USA.

Social Plug-ins

The social plug-ins (share buttons) used on the Website enable you to recommend and share our content on social networks. You can recognize the social plug-ins on the Website by the logos of the respective social network. When you interact with the social plugin, data is sent to the respective provider of the social network. This is done using cookies. Please refer to the data protection information of the respective provider.

Advertising technologies

We use advertising technologies from Google, Facebook and other providers. This enables us, for example, to target users of our Website with relevant advertising (e.g., about events that might interest you) when they visit other Websites. The advertising materials are displayed on the Websites you visit based on an analysis of your previous use of our Website. For this purpose, the providers of the advertising technologies set cookies when you visit our Website.

Use of cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies on the Website to provide you with the best possible user experience, to help us improve our services, and to promote our services. Cookies are text files that are downloaded to your computer or mobile device when you visit a website or use an app.

Some of the cookies used are necessary in order to make available certain features of the Website (e.g. the contact form, the integration of YouTube videos and features that facilitate the sharing of our content on social media). We also use cookies to analyze the use of the Website, to optimize our services and to enable the use of advertising technologies.

For further information, please refer to our transparency statement on the integration of third-party services.

You can set your browser not to accept cookies or to ask each time before storing a cookie. You can also delete cookies on your device by using the corresponding function of your browser.

Use of our social media company pages

On our company pages on social media (currently Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and WeChat) you will find news from the Zurich economic area and about our services and events. The social media platforms collect and analyze usage data such as the number of visitors and demographic information about visitors to our company page.

We receive evaluations generated by the social media platforms based on this analysis. These only contain aggregated or otherwise sufficiently anonymized data. Only the respective social media platform can identify you based on the usage data collected.

Use and optimization of our newsletter

We are pleased if you subscribe to our newsletter. When you subscribe, we collect the information you provide to us. This includes general personal data such as first name, last name and email address. To complete the registration, please activate the confirmation link sent to you (double opt-in).

We use analytics services to measure and analyze the use of our newsletter. The analytics services collect and analyze usage data such as the number of newsletter recipients who have opened the newsletter or clicked on certain articles. We receive evaluations based on this data. These allow us to optimize our newsletter and to provide you with content that interests you.

If you click on the opt-out link at the end of the newsletter, we will no longer measure and analyze your use of the newsletter in the future. You can also let us know at any time that you would like to stop receiving our newsletter in the future. To do so, please activate the unsubscribe link at the end of the newsletter.

For what purposes we process your personal data and on which basis

We process your personal data as part of the activities described in this Privacy Policy primarily in order to inform you about our services and events and to provide, document and bill our services in accordance with our contractual and legal obligations. This includes the following purposes:

• answering your inquiries and communicating with you
• processing registrations for events
• carrying out events

In addition, we process your personal data for the following purposes:

• making the Website available
• analysis and optimization of the use of the Website
• optimization of our posts on social media
• analysis and optimization of the use of our newsletter
• marketing and advertising
• informing you about new developments in the Zurich economic area and about new services (e.g. in our newsletter)
• processing of job applications
• complying with legal obligations
• enforcing legal claims.

We or third parties (e.g. your organization or our other customers) have a legitimate interest corresponding to the aforementioned purposes in processing your personal data. Some processing is also necessary for us to comply with contractual obligations to you (e.g. when carrying out events) or with our legal obligations (e.g. data retention obligations). On this basis, we process your personal data if and to the extent that the applicable data protection law requires a legal basis or justification for the lawfulness of the data processing in general or for specific processing activities.

How we store and protect your personal data

We store your personal data only to the extent and for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or to comply with legal obligations.

In the interest of the confidentiality and integrity of personal data, we take appropriate technical and organizational measures. In particular, we implement physical and logical access controls and procedures for the regular review, assessment and evaluation of the effectiveness of the measures in accordance with our risk assessment.

With whom we share your personal data

In order to achieve the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, it may be necessary for us to share your personal data with other companies or organizations. The categories of recipients are as follows:

• external service providers
• other customers
• suppliers and business partners with whom we may need to coordinate in the course of processing your inquiry or registration for events
• authorities and courts (if applicable)

For further information, please refer to our transparency statement on the integration of third-party services. 

Place of processing

We store and process your personal data primarily in Switzerland and the EU. In order to achieve some of the purposes described above, it may also be necessary for us to process your personal data in countries outside Switzerland and the EU or to transfer it to such countries. We transfer data to countries without adequate data protection on the basis of standard data protection clauses or legal exceptions (necessity for performance of a contract).

Your rights in relation to your personal data

You have the following rights in relation to personal data relating to you:

• the right to obtain information about what personal data we hold about you and how we process it
• the right to receive a copy of your personal data in a commonly used format, or to have such copy transferred to another organization
• the right to have your personal data rectified
• the right to deletion of your personal data (or restriction of its processing)
• the right to object to the processing of your personal data.

Please note that you are entitled to these rights to different extents depending on the applicable data protection law, and that exceptions apply. To the extent permitted by applicable law, we may therefore refuse your request to exercise these rights. However, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a competent supervisory authority.

How we can change this Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy at any time, in particular if we change our data processing practices or if new legal obligations become applicable. The version published on our Website is the applicable version.

Last updated: April 18, 2024