Data Protection Policy

When you visit Our Website, certain data is collected; you also have the possibility of entering data at various points on Our Website. We process this data with care and confidentiality, for the purposes described in this Data Protection Policy, only to the extent necessary and within the scope of the applicable legal provisions.

We only store your data to such an extent and for as long as is necessary to provide our services or as required by law. In close cooperation with our hosting providers, we do our utmost to protect the databases from unauthorized access, data loss, misuse or falsification.

The documents and data submitted or transmitted by you in connection with a funding application or an ongoing funding measure will be used exclusively for the assessment of your funding application or handling of the funding measure; these will be available for inspection by the persons responsible for the respective process step.

We have also provided forms for certain subsidies at various points on Our Website. In addition to your contact details, you will be asked to provide specialist information here, such as a brief description of your business idea and other details about your company. When you send the form, the data will be transmitted to the responsible division of Innosuisse.

In particular for international programmes, the input platforms of our partners must be used, which are also linked accordingly. When using these, please observe the data protection provisions that are specified there.

If you have registered for an Innosuisse newsletter on Our Website and have agreed to receive it in the confirmation e-mail that is then sent to you (“double opt-in”), we will add your contact details to the relevant distribution list. The data is used exclusively for the dispatch of our newsletter. For the dispatch and mangement of the newsletter, we use the software Mailweaver¹. Among other things, this allows anonymous evaluations to be carried out to measure the success of the mailing. We are able to track how many of our recipients have opened newsletter content, for example. This is necessary in order to better adapt our newsletter content to the needs of our audience and thus to comply with our legal mandate to provide information on existing subsidies in the best possible way. If you would like to prevent this from happening, we ask that you unsubscribe from the newsletter. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time from the settings. A corresponding link can be found in the footer of each newsletter as well as in the confirmation e-mail following initial registration.

¹ Further information available at: https://mailweaver.ch/en/.

We may publish job vacancies on Our Website. If you apply for one of these vacancies, you will be redirected to an external portal. For use of the portal, the data protection provisions specified in the portal apply.

We typically use “cookies” and similar technologies on Our Website to identify your browser or device. A cookie is a small file that is sent to your computer or automatically stored on your computer or mobile device by the web browser you are using when you visit Our Website. If you visit this website again, we can recognise you even if we do not know who you are. In addition to cookies that are used during one session only and are deleted after your visit to the website (“session cookies”), cookies can also be used to store user settings and other information over a certain period of time (e.g. two years) (“permanent cookies”). However, you can set your browser to reject cookies, to save them for one session only or to otherwise delete them prematurely. Most browsers are preset to accept cookies. Only “session cookies” are used on Our Website by default. Analysis applications and social plugins are an exception to this rule and set their own cookies: See sections 4.3 and 5 onwards.

When you access Our Website, information of a general nature is automatically recorded. This information is recorded in the server log file and includes the type of web browser, the operating system used, the domain name of your internet service provider, your IP address and the like.

This is in particular for the following reasons:

• Ensuring a website connection is established without any problems
• Ensuring seamless use of Our Website
• Evaluating system security and stability

The data is deleted as soon as it is no longer required for the purpose of collection. For the data used to deliver Our Website, this is generally the case once the respective session has ended or once the data has reached a certain size (by default: 200MB).

In order to provide you with an optimal tool through Our Website and continuously adapt our funding opportunities to the needs of our stakeholders, we analyse the user behaviour of visitors to Our Website. To do so, we use the web analysis service Matomo².

The service uses cookies that enable a statistical analysis of the use of Our Website by its visitors. For this purpose, the information generated by the cookie about how Our Website is used is stored on the server on our behalf. Your IP address is anonymised prior to the data being stored.

Matomo cookies remain on your device until you delete them. The information generated by the cookie about how this website is used is not passed on to third parties. You may stop cookies from being stored by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser; however, please note that by doing so you may not be able to make full use of all the functions on this website.

² Available at: www.matomo.org.

Features on Our Website may contain embedded content from third parties (e.g. videos, pictures, articles etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves exactly the way it would if the visitor had visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking services and record your interaction with said embedded content, including your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged on to this website.

Please also note that we cannot accept any liability for the content of linked sites (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.). If you access a website of a third party (i.e. not Innosuisse) via a link, its terms of use and data protection provisions shall apply.

We use the social plugins below on Our Website to make our agency and the programmes and subsidies we offer better known and thus fulfil our legal mandate to provide information about existing subsidies in the best possible way. Responsibility for operation being compliant with data protection must be ensured by their respective providers. Data processing in connection with these plugins is carried out with your consent when you use these plugins (e.g. by clicking on them). If you use the services of these social networks, either independently or in connection with Our Website, the social networks will evaluate your use of the plugin. In this case, information about the plugin is passed on to the social networks.

The following “social plugins” are used on Our Website:

We embed YouTube videos on Our Website in order to better inform you about our funding opportunities and simplify administrative processes. The operator of the corresponding plugins is YouTube, LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA (hereinafter referred to as “YouTube”).

When you visit a page with the YouTube plugin (e.g. by clicking on the corresponding video), a connection to YouTube servers is established. This tells YouTube which pages you visit. If you are logged in to your YouTube account, YouTube can assign your surfing behaviour to you personally. You can prevent this by first logging out of your YouTube account. When a YouTube video is started, the provider uses cookies that collect information about user behaviour.

For more information about data processing by Youtube, please refer to YouTube's Terms of Service⁶. There you can also change your personal data protection settings in the data protection center.

⁶ Available at: https://www.youtube.com/t/terms.

We use Google Maps on Our Website. Google Maps is operated by Google LLC, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA (hereinafter referred to as “Google”). This allows us to display interactive maps on Our Website directly and enables you to conveniently use the map function.

For more information about data processing by Google, please refer to Google's Privacy Policy⁷. There you can also change your personal data protection settings in the data protection center.

⁷ Available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.

You have the right to know what data we process about you. Please address your written request to the address specified in section 2 (Innosuisse Legal Services). Please enclose a copy of a valid identification document together with your request.

You also have the right to correct data, supplement incomplete data or delete it. Furthermore, you have the right to object and can demand restrictions in the processing and passing on of data.

The Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner acts as the supervisory authority in Switzerland. As a citizen of the Union, you may also apply to the supervisory authority of your member state.

Your rights may be restricted where this is provided for by law or necessary due to overriding public or private interests. In particular, data that we are required to store due to legal retention obligations will be blocked, rather than deleted, to prevent use for other purposes.