RECI logo in English and in color

PRIVACY POLICY

Last updated: 10. July 2025

This privacy policy for RECI – Réseau Suisse Education et Coopération Internationale (‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’) describes how and why we may collect, use, store, share, and process your personal information when you use our services. Reading this privacy policy will help you understand your privacy rights and choices. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our services. If you still have questions or concerns, please contact us here.

1. What information do we collect?

1.1 Personal information you share with us

We collect personal data that you voluntarily and directly share with us, such as when expressing interest in our services, participating in our activities, or contacting us. The personal information we collect depends on how you interact with us, the choices you make, and the features you use. This may include your name, contact details, location and any other data you provide. 

We do not process any sensitive information.

1.2 Automatically collected information

When you visit, use or navigate our services, certain information is automatically collected which, depending on the combination, may be considered personal data (e.g. IP address, device identifier). This data, as well as the information collected through cookies and similar technologies is primarily used to ensure the security and smooth operation of our services, as well as for internal, non-personalised analyses and reports.

Automatically collected information includes for example:

  • IP address, device ID, hardware model, operating system, system configuration, browser type
  • Activities on our platform (timestamps, pages visited, searches, interactions)
  • Device events (system activities, error reports, hardware settings)

Depending on your device settings, we may collect accurate or inaccurate location data. You can prevent this by denying access or disabling location services – however, this may affect some features of the services.

1.3 Information gathered from external sources

With your express consent, we use data from public databases, marketing partners, social networks or cooperation partners. We use this data exclusively for the purposes stated in this privacy policy and document all processing steps in accordance with our internal compliance guidelines.

To optimise our offers and update our documents, we collect data from third parties such as contact details, usage information, IP addresses, social media profiles or URLs, in particular for targeted marketing and event promotion.

If you interact with us via social media platforms such as LinkedIn or YouTube, we may receive personal data stored there such as your name, email address or gender. Exactly which data is transferred depends on your data protection settings on these platforms – their data protection guidelines apply in addition to ours.

2.   HOW DO WE PROCESS YOUR INFORMATION?

In summary: We handle your information to operate, enhance, and manage our services, to communicate with you, ensure security and fraud prevention, and comply with legal requirements. We may also process your information for additional purposes with your consent.

We process your personal information for various purposes depending on how you interact with our services, including:

  • If you subscribe to our newsletter, we use your data to manage subscriptions and communications through Mailchimp.
  • We process your information to handle event registrations, confirmations, updates, and follow-ups, using third-party tools such as Infomaniak, Zoom, SurveyMonkey, and Google Forms.
  • We may use your information to request feedback and communicate about your experience with our services.

DISCLAIMER

RECI does not take liability for any material or documents accessible on this website, which have been provided to us for dissemination by RECI members and partners.

3. ON WHAT LEGAL GROUNDS DO WE PROCESS YOUR INFORMATION?

In summary:

We process your personal information only when necessary and when we have a valid legal basis to do so, as required by law. This may include your consent, compliance with legal obligations, fulfilment of our contractual duties, protection of your rights, or pursuit of our legitimate business interests.

The processing of your personal information is based on legal grounds established under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (LPD). Depending on your location and applicable laws, we rely on different legal bases for processing your information, including consent, legal obligations, contractual necessity, legitimate interests, and vital interests.

  • Consent: We process your information with your permission for specific purposes. You may withdraw your consent at any time. See section 8.
  • Legitimate Interests: We may process your information to pursue our legitimate interests in order to pursue our mission, provided these do not override your rights and freedoms. Our interests include optimising our offers, communicating with our contacts and ensuring IT security. 
  • Legal Obligations: We process your information when required to comply with legal responsibilities, such as cooperating with law enforcement, defending our legal rights, or providing information as evidence in legal proceedings.
  • Vital Interests: We may process your information to protect your vital interests or those of another person, such as in situations involving potential safety threats.

4. WHEN AND WITH WHOM DO WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION?

We may need to share your personal information with following third parties in the following situations:

We may share your personal data with our members or partners in the course of joint collaboration, projects, or initiatives. In these cases, your information will only be used by the third party if you have granted explicit consent for its use.

In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or part of our organisation, we may share or transfer your personal information to the acquiring entity or as part of the negotiation process. In such instances, we will ensure that your personal information is handled securely and in accordance with applicable privacy laws.

4.1 Transmitting data outside of Switzerland and the EEA

Some of our service providers (e.g. Mailchimp, Zoom, Google) process data in countries outside of Switzerland and the EEA. In such cases, we ensure that suitable guarantees are in place in accordance with the LDP (Art. 16 et seq.) and the GDPR (Art. 46 et seq.), for example by concluding standard contractual clauses or using service providers with an adequacy clause.

5. DO WE USE COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES?

We use cookies and similar technologies to collect and store your information. We may use cookies and other tracking technologies to gather information when you interact with our services. These technologies help us maintain the security of our services, prevent crashes, fix bugs, store your preferences, and support basic site functions. 

5.1. COOKIE NOTICE

When you visit our website for the first time, you will be shown a cookie banner which you can use to activate or deactivate certain categories of cookies. Only technically necessary cookies are set without your consent. You can change your selection at any time.

Our cookies can be:

  • Session cookies (temporary, deleted after the visit) 
  • Permanent cookies (remain until deleted or expired) 
  • First-party cookies (set by us) 
  • Third-party cookies (e.g. from payment service providers or analysis tools) 

We store functionally necessary cookies on the basis of our legitimate interest, for others we need your consent. You can manage or deactivate cookies in your browser settings at any time, although this may impair functionality.

5.2. CONTROLS FOR DO-NOT-TRACK FEATURES

Many browsers and apps offer a Do Not Track (DNT) function. However, as there is no binding technical standard, we do not currently recognise or respect DNT signals.

6. HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION?

We retain your information only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this privacy policy, unless a longer retention period is required by law (such as for tax, accounting, or other legal obligations).

If there is no ongoing legitimate reason to process your personal information, we will delete or anonymise it. If this is not possible (e.g., if the information is stored in backup archives), we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from further processing until deletion is possible.

7. HOW DO WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION?

We use administrative, technical, and physical security measures to protect your personal information. While we have taken reasonable steps to secure your personal information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and no method of transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

8. WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?

If you are located in regions like the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, you have certain rights under applicable data protection laws, including:

  • The right to request access to and obtain a copy of your personal information.
  • The right to request correction or deletion of your data.
  • The right to restrict the processing of your information.
  • The right to data portability, if applicable.
  • The right to object to automated decision-making, if applicable.
  • In some cases, you may also have the right to object to the processing of your personal data.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info@reci-education.ch. We will review and respond to any request in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

  • If you are in the EEA or UK and believe we are processing your personal information unlawfully, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.
  • If you are in Switzerland, you may contact the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner.

If we rely on your consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Contact us at info@reci-education.ch. Please note that withdrawing your consent will not affect the legality of any processing carried out before the withdrawal, nor will it affect any processing of your data based on other legal grounds.

You can opt out of promotional communications at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in our emails sent via Mailchimp or contacting us at info@reci-education.ch. Once unsubscribed, you will be removed from our mailing lists. However, we may still send you service-related communications, such as messages necessary for the administration of your account, responding to service requests, or for other non-marketing purposes.

9. DO WE MAKE UPDATES TO THIS NOTICE?

We may update this privacy policy periodically. At the top you can find the date of the last revision. We recommend reviewing this privacy policy regularly to stay informed about how we protect your information.

10. CONTACT US

If you have any questions or comments regarding this notice, please contact us here. 

RECI — Reseau Suisse Education et Cooperation Internationale

7 Route de Recolaine, Vicques 2824, Switzerland

Contact Person: Beatrice Schulter

Email: info (at) reci-education.ch