This privacy policy informs you about how CARINDEX AG handles your personal data when using our platform, portals, or mobile applications (hereinafter collectively referred to as “services“), as well as in the context of cooperation, to whom we may disclose your data, and what rights you have regarding the use of your data by us.
We may provide you with additional privacy policies if we deem it appropriate. Such additional privacy policies supplement this privacy policy and must be read together with it.
We always process your personal data in accordance with the applicable data protection regulations (including the Swiss Data Protection Act, “DSG“, and, if applicable, the EU General Data Protection Regulation, “GDPR“; hereinafter collectively referred to as “applicable data protection law“).
“Personal data“ refers to any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person or, if protected by the DSG, legal entity. This may include, for example, your first name and surname, postal address, email address, date of birth, telephone number, as well as data about your use of our website, purchases made through our portals, and your preferences. These privacy provisions also use the term “your data“ for this purpose. Information that cannot be directly or indirectly associated with your person, thus not with your identity, is generally not considered personal data.
“Processing“ means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organization, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination, or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure, or destruction of your data.
Please note that third-party websites accessible through our services have their own privacy policies regarding data processing by them. We do not assume any responsibility or liability for compliance with data protection by these third parties and recommend that you consult the privacy policies of these third-party websites.
A Who is responsible for processing your data?
CARINDEX AG is responsible for processing your data collected or received within the scope of our services or cooperation with you or for other purposes as defined in this privacy policy.
B How do we collect your data?
We collect your data either directly from you or receive your data from third parties, such as affiliated companies, authorities, advisors, our service providers, or from publicly available sources.
C Scope, purpose, and legal basis of processing your data
We process your data when you use our services, cooperate with us, or otherwise get in touch with us. In principle, we process your data for the following purposes:
• To fulfill and execute contractual or legal obligations.
• To verify access authorization and manage user accounts (if applicable).
• To inform about updates or changes to our offerings or events, as well as adjustments to our terms and conditions, privacy policies, guidelines on how to advertise on our platform.
• To prevent fraud and abuse.
• To develop and maintain customer relationships.
• For marketing purposes by us and third parties, meaning all sales-promoting measures, e.g., newsletters, telephone calls, online advertising, SMS, and push notifications, for market research, conducting analyses and surveys, as well as for statistical purposes.
• For tailored design and improvement of offerings.
• For evaluation of user behavior.
Below, we have summarized in detail which data we process within the scope of our offerings, why we process it, and on which legal basis we rely for this processing.
I Visit to our offerings (Log Files)
When you use our offerings without further information from you, the web server technology we use automatically logs general technical visit information in so-called log files. This includes, among other things, the IP address of the device used to access, browser type, internet service provider, operating system used, offerings accessed on our platform, reference/exit pages, the time, and duration of the visit.
The collection and processing of this information serve the purpose of enabling the use of our website (establishing a connection), ensuring and increasing the security and stability of our systems and offerings, analyzing the use of our offerings and services, collecting general demographic information, enabling the optimization of our offerings, and for internal statistical purposes. User identification does not take place. Likewise, no connection is generally made between this automatically collected information and personal data stored by us. However, the automatically collected information and personal data stored by us can be linked if you have a registered user account on our platform or use certain functions of our website as a guest, such as our contact form or inquiry function. The connection of this information can be made to analyze the use of our offerings and services, collect general demographic information, and enable the optimization of our internet offerings:
• If you send a message to a third party (e.g., an advertiser) via a corresponding function of our portal, these messages including content may be stored by us.
• You can also receive free services on our portal. Your personal data (e.g., email address, telephone number, etc.) disclosed when using a free service or sending a message may be used by us, for example, for marketing and analysis purposes (see below in Chapter CIX).
If personal data is processed by us during the visit to our offerings for the purposes described above, this processing is carried out in our legitimate interest in enabling the use of our website (establishing a connection), ensuring and increasing the security and stability of our systems and offerings, analyzing the use of our offerings, statistically evaluating, adapting, and improving them, as well as enabling the optimization of our internet offerings.
II Registration of a CARINDEX User Account
For personalized services or access-restricted areas or for processing inquiries and administration of your subscriptions, your registration and thus the establishment of a user account may be required. This involves entering specific personal data. This may include, for example:
• Your email address, which can also serve as a username
• Password, as well as, depending on the context and offer, additional information such as:
• First and last name
• Address (full postal address, zip code, city)
• Phone number
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Information about subscribed newsletters or other advertisements
• Language preferences
In addition to the information marked as mandatory for using a specific offering, you may voluntarily enter and store further personal data. By confirming at the completion of the registration for the collection and modification of your user account information, you ensure the accuracy of the information you have provided. We use the data for processing and administering our digital offerings, checking the entered data for plausibility, i.e., for establishing, structuring, executing, and amending the contractual relationships concluded with you via your user account, as well as for proper invoicing of paid services. Accordingly, we process your data in this context in accordance with applicable data protection law.
III Use of our offerings as a registered user
During the use of the offering by registered users, we collect data for statistical purposes to enable the smooth functionality of the portal and for analysis and optimization of our offerings and services. We collect data on whether and how you use our digital offerings, especially which functions and advertisements you perceive. It is in our legitimate interest, according to applicable data protection law, to optimize, develop, and improve our offering. If you use our offering as a registered user, statistical data may be visible to other registered users. Such data is made available to other registered users only in anonymized and/or aggregated form.
IV Use of Mobile Applications
If you use our mobile applications with a mobile device and have enabled the transmission of your GPS signal data to third parties in the settings of your mobile device, we may collect information about the location of your mobile device (longitude and latitude, information about horizontal accuracy) using GPS signal data.
We use the location data to enhance your user experience by displaying location-based online advertising and other location-based digital content (such as location-based weather information and news) via the mobile application(s) on your mobile device. We will ask for your consent in accordance with applicable data protection law before collecting your location data for the mentioned applications. Even after giving consent, you have the option to revoke your consent or disable or object to the collection, processing, and sharing of your location data at any time. If you do not want to receive location-based online advertising and content, you can either decline access to your location or disable location services in the settings of your mobile device at any time. To disable location services, please follow the instructions provided by the device manufacturers:
For Apple devices:
https://support.apple.com/de-ch/HT207092
For Android devices:
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3467281?hl=de
V Purchase / Acquisition of a Paid Offering
When you purchase a product or obtain a paid service, providing data such as first and last names, address (full postal address, zip code, city), and possibly other data (such as delivery address, billing address, payment information, etc.) is mandatory, as we need this information for processing the contract with you in accordance with applicable data protection law.
If you choose an online payment option such as credit card, TWINT, or PayPal to purchase a product or service, the payment is processed through the online payment system of the respective provider. The processing of personal and payment data takes place directly through the provider of the respective payment system. We do not know or store your payment details. The privacy policies of the respective provider of the online payment system also apply.
We may store your data collected for the purchase or acquisition of a paid offering in the user account for the next purchase / contract conclusion according to our internal archiving and data protection policies or based on legal requirements. We use this information for optimizing, improving, and further developing our offering, for marketing purposes, as well as for statistical purposes. For this purpose, we can store all information about your current and previous purchases and contract conclusions, i.e., the products, the services, the number of products and services per purchase, as well as the payment amount.
VI Contacting Customer Service or via Contact Form
If you contact our customer service, we may process your contact details (such as title, first and last name, phone number, email address, or postal address) as well as the content of the conversation to respond to your inquiry. This is in our legitimate interest in accordance with applicable data protection law to provide you with competent information and to process your inquiry correctly.
Incoming and outgoing advisory conversations with our customer service may be recorded and stored for training and quality purposes if you have consented to it.
If you fill out a contact form on our offerings, we process the provided personal data (such as title, first and last name, phone number, email address, or postal address, as well as the content of the inquiry). This is also in our legitimate interest to provide you with competent information and to process your inquiry correctly (in accordance with applicable data protection law).
VII Participation in Contests or Competitions (hereinafter collectively referred to as “Events“)
For voluntary participation in events, we use the data provided by you, such as title, first and last name, email address, postal address. This data is used for the organization and implementation of the events as well as for notifying and/or publishing the winners through direct notification or on social networks. In this context, your data may also be disclosed in accordance with Chapter E, for example, if we have commissioned a third party to conduct or evaluate the event or if the event is conducted by a third party via our offerings.
VIII User Surveys and Market Research
If you voluntarily participate in a user survey or other market research activities conducted by us, we collect personal data from you, such as title, first and last name, contact details, and further information requested during the survey. We use the data provided by you exclusively to improve user experience and to further develop our products, which represents a legitimate interest of ours (according to applicable data protection law). The results of the surveys consist exclusively of aggregated and anonymous data.
IX Marketing and Analytical Purposes
By registering through one of our offerings, we may also use your data for personalized advertising measures by us as well as by affiliated companies, third parties, and our shareholders. Personalized advertising measures include, in particular, the customization of advertising through digital advertisements on our web offerings and mobile applications, via email, such as emails with general information or promotional content (newsletters), via telephone, postal mail, fax, text messages, picture messages, as well as on instant messaging services. At the end of each email sent by us, there is a link through which you can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time. You can also unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time by emailing dpo@carindex.ch.
We will only send you newsletters if they relate to similar offers or if you have expressly consented. Otherwise, the delivery of personalized content and advertising, for example, on our portals or portals of affiliated companies, is in our legitimate interest according to applicable data protection law to offer you products or services that may interest you and to market our offerings optimally. If prior consent, especially for processing your data by affiliated companies or by our shareholders, is necessary, we will obtain it in advance.
For this purpose, ongoing user-specific historical and future data available to us may be linked using various analytical tools, and user behavior may be analyzed, aggregated, pseudonymized, and anonymized across offerings. To improve our database, we may also use publicly available data or data from third-party providers. The insights from your use of our offering may be used and exploited within the scope of analyzing user behavior at other participating companies. Such data processing generally takes place with pseudonymized or anonymized data. You can object to the processing of your data for these purposes at any time by contacting dpo@carindex.ch via email.
Furthermore, we process your data for analytical purposes, such as continuously improving our digital offerings and making them more tailored and secure. This is in our legitimate interest according to applicable data protection law to align our offerings with the needs of our customers, to improve them according to market requirements, and to ensure the security of our offerings. By registering a user account, you are automatically subscribed to one of our newsletters, and your email address can accordingly be used to promote similar offers until you unsubscribe from the corresponding newsletter. For the purposes described here, we may also engage contract data processors to handle advertising measures and advertising for us, who process your data exclusively for the purposes described above at our direction (see Chapter E below).
X Fraud Prevention, Disputes, and Legal Processing Obligations
We may also process your data collected and processed according to Chapters CI-CIX for fraud prevention or in the event of a dispute, which is in our legitimate interest according to applicable data protection law to protect our business and enforce or assert any claims from us. Likewise, we may process your data to fulfill our legal obligations in accordance with applicable data protection law.
D Profiling and Personal Profiles
Within the specified purposes, it is possible that personal profiles are created and/or profiling is carried out. If personal profiles are to be shared with third parties, we will obtain your explicit consent beforehand.
E Disclosure of Your Data to Third Parties
We collaborate with other companies or individuals and may engage other companies or individuals to process and store data in accordance with this privacy policy. These may include shareholders of CARINDEX AG including their subsidiaries, other third parties, or data processors contracted by us. These third parties may have access to your personal data or usage data, but only to the extent necessary to fulfill the tasks assigned by us or to achieve the purposes described in this privacy policy.
The disclosure of your data remains subject to mandatory legal obligations.
I. Disclosure to Partners
Disclosure to partners of CARINDEX AG under this Chapter E generally occurs with pseudonymized or anonymized data. To the extent compatible with the purposes described in Chapter C above or legally permissible, your data as well as usage data related to your person or user account may be used and disclosed to partners of CARINDEX AG for evaluation, improvement, and customized design of our offerings, customer care, personalization, and marketing purposes. If your consent is required for this purpose, we will obtain it from you in advance. Such consent can be revoked at any time. If no consent is required, the disclosure of your data is based on our legitimate interest or the legitimate interests of a partner of CARINDEX AG, in accordance with applicable data protection law, to enable the use of our website (establishing connections), to ensure and enhance the security and stability of our systems and offerings, to analyze, statistically evaluate, adapt, and improve the use of our offerings, to display or send you advertising, and to enable the optimization of our internet offerings.
We may disclose your data to shareholders of CARINDEX AG in accordance with Chapter E. The shareholders may in turn pass on the data to their held subsidiaries, provided they process your data only for the same purposes (described below) as the shareholders themselves are permitted to do.
Such disclosure is for the evaluation, improvement, and customized design of the products and services of our shareholders, personalization, marketing purposes, as well as fraud and abuse prevention. The disclosure of data as described herein is only made if legally permissible or if we have obtained your consent in advance. Such consent can be revoked at any time.
II. Disclosure to Service Providers
Furthermore, we may disclose your data to third parties to the extent required for contract processing in accordance with applicable data protection law. For this purpose, we may disclose the necessary data to other service providers, such as hardware and software providers. These service providers use your data exclusively for contract processing and not for other purposes. If necessary for the purposes stated in sentence 1, the disclosure may also be made abroad, for example, to enable the delivery of goods. For more information regarding transfers abroad, please refer to Chapter G.
III. Disclosure to Other Third Parties
If you click on integrated offers from third parties or use integrated contact forms from third parties, we may disclose your data according to the offer or contact form. In addition, we may disclose your data to third parties when offering personalized advertising or advertisements on our offerings. Furthermore, your data may be disclosed to third parties when we offer an offer together with a third party.
Apart from the disclosure of your data as described above, we will only disclose your data if you have expressly consented to it in accordance with applicable data protection law, if there is a legal obligation to do so, or if it is necessary to enforce our rights, especially to enforce claims from the contractual relationship, which represents a predominant interest of ours.
In the event of a sale, merger, or other reorganization of some or all of our company“s assets, personal data may be transferred, sold, or otherwise shared with third parties as part of such transaction or reorganization.
If we advance payments, for example, in the case of a purchase on account, we may, if necessary for the protection of our legitimate interests in concluding contracts with solvent customers (in accordance with applicable data protection law), obtain credit information based on mathematical-statistical methods from a credit agency. For this purpose, we transmit the personal data required for a credit check to a credit agency and use the information obtained about the statistical probability of a payment default to make a decision about the establishment, execution, or termination of the contractual relationship. The credit report may include probability values (score values) calculated on the basis of scientifically recognized mathematical-statistical methods, which, among other things, incorporate contact data into their calculation. Your legitimate interests will be taken into account in accordance with legal provisions.
Any other disclosure, transmission, or sale of your personal data to third parties outside of CARINDEX AG and our shareholders will not occur unless it is necessary for the processing of a contract you have concluded with us or you have expressly consented to it.
F Use of Cookies, Tracking and Analysis Tools, as well as Plug-Ins and other Integrations of Third-Party Offerings
I. Cookies
Cookies help to make your visit to our website easier, more pleasant, and more meaningful, as well as to ensure the functioning of our offerings and portals and to provide you with interest-based advertising. Cookies are information files that your web browser automatically stores on the hard drive of your computer when you visit our website. Our digital offerings can generally be used without accepting cookies, but individual functionalities may be restricted.
When using our website, the cookies used by us may collect and store usage data such as the IP address of your device, visited pages, browser used, date, time, etc. These data generally do not allow conclusions to be drawn about your person, unless you are logged into your user account. Cookies are stored in a text file on the computer when the browser is closed and are retrieved when the web server is accessed again. Cookies do not damage the hard drive of your computer, nor do they transmit personal data of users to us.
For example, we use cookies to recognize you after your first visit to our websites, offerings, or portals; in this case, the user is generally not recognized, only the computer used or the mobile device or the browser used. Furthermore, we use them to track who has visited our offerings and portals and to derive how frequently certain pages or offerings are visited, which parts of the portal are particularly popular, and to generally collect information about how the portal is used. We also use other cookies to allow you to move freely on our portal and use its functionalities, for example, when accessing protected areas, for efficient navigation between different pages, and for storing preferences. Such cookies may also be necessary to use shopping carts or payment functions. Cookies can also be used to use options chosen by you or decisions made as settings to make your visit to the portal more convenient. In general, the use of cookies is intended to improve our services, make them more effective and secure.
Using cookies also enables us to gather information to offer you advertising that may be of interest to you. Ultimately, our cookies help tailor online advertisements more closely to your potential interests, thereby reducing the display of advertising that may not be of interest to you or may be of minimal interest. Most internet browsers accept cookies automatically. However, you can configure your browser at any time to prevent cookies from being stored on your computer or to receive a notification whenever a new cookie is received (visit the corresponding settings in your browser for this purpose). You can also delete cookies on your computer or mobile device by using your browser's corresponding function.
You can decide at any time whether you want to benefit from targeted advertising tailored to your potential interests or not. However, rejecting targeted advertising does not mean that you will no longer see online advertisements. It simply means that the advertising displayed on the websites may not be tailored to your presumed interests and may therefore be less relevant to you. For further information about the cookies we use and corresponding links, please visit www.carindex.ch. Most of the cookies we use are temporary session cookies that are automatically deleted from your computer or mobile device after the end of the browsing session. However, we also use permanent cookies. These cookies remain stored on your computer or mobile device after the end of the browsing session. Depending on the type of cookie, these permanent cookies remain stored on your computer or mobile device for a period between one month and ten years and are only automatically deactivated after the programmed time has elapsed.
II. Tracking and Analysis Tools
The use of our digital offerings is also measured and evaluated using various technical systems, mostly provided by third parties such as Google Analytics. These measurements can be both anonymous and personally identifiable. It is possible that the data collected by us or the third-party providers using these technical systems may be further passed on to third parties for processing.
We use Google Analytics, a service provided by Google Inc. With this service, the collected data can generally be transmitted to a Google server in the United States, with IP addresses being anonymized using IP anonymization, making identification impossible. The IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Analytics will not be merged with any other data from Google. You can opt out of the collection and processing of this data using Google Analytics by setting an opt-out cookie that prevents the future collection of your data when visiting this website: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=de. For the non-personal analysis of the usage of our portals and for statistical evaluation, the tool “Hotjar“ is used on the websites. Information such as operating system, browser, geographical origin (country only), pages visited during the current visit, and interactions (e.g., mouse movements, clicks, and inputs on the website) are recorded. For further information about the systems used by us, especially regarding opt-out options, please visit www.carindex.ch.
III. Plug-Ins and other Integrations of Third-Party Offerings
Our digital offerings are connected in various ways with functions and systems of third parties, such as through the integration of plug-ins from third-party social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, or X (Twitter).
If you have a user account with these third parties, it may also be possible for them to measure and evaluate your use of our digital offerings. Further personal data, such as IP address, personal browser settings, and other parameters, may be transmitted to these third parties and stored there. When using a social login service such as Facebook Connect, the provider may transmit to us personal data such as name, email address, and profile picture that they have stored about you. We have no control over the use of personal data collected by third parties in this way and assume no responsibility or liability. We refer to the detailed additional information linked above. Information on the collection and use of data by third-party providers can be found in the data protection notices of the respective third-party providers.
G Transfer of Personal Data Abroad
We may also transfer your personal data to third-party companies or commissioned service providers abroad, especially in Europe, Asia, and the United States, if this is appropriate for the data processing described in this privacy policy. These companies are bound to data protection to the same extent as we are. If the level of data protection in a country does not correspond to that of Switzerland, we contractually ensure that the protection of your personal data always corresponds to that in Switzerland. We do this by concluding EU Model Clauses or other contracts approved by the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner with the commissioned service providers.
H How Long Do We Store Your Data?
We only keep your data for as long as it is legally necessary or required according to the processing purpose, especially for fulfilling the order or contract and for complying with legal obligations.
When analyzing your data, we store your data until the analysis is completed or until you object to further processing. If we store data based on a contractual relationship with you, this data will be stored for at least as long as the contractual relationship exists and for as long as the statute of limitations for possible claims from us is running or legal or contractual retention obligations exist.
The contents of the contact form and the subsequent email correspondence must be retained by us for six months by law. Data collected via the contact form on the carindex.com platform for fraud prevention purposes will be retained for 13 months.
Subsequently, we aim to anonymize the data to continue using it for statistical purposes. If this is not possible for any reason, deletion will occur, provided that we no longer need your data for the specified processing purposes and are no longer legally obliged to store it.
I How Do We Protect Your Data?
We take appropriate technical and organizational measures to conscientiously protect your data from loss, destruction, falsification, manipulation, or unauthorized access. We operate secure data networks that comply with the current technical standards. Our security measures are continuously adapted and improved in accordance with technological developments.
When you register as a user with us, access to your user account is only possible after entering your personal password. You should always treat payment and access information confidentially and close the browser window when you have finished communicating with us, especially if you share the computer with others.
Our employees and the service companies commissioned by us have been obligated by us to maintain confidentiality and comply with data protection regulations.
J What Rights Do You Have Regarding Your Data?
According to applicable data protection law, you have the following rights:
Right to information:
You have the right to know at any time whether and which personal data we process about you.
Right to correction of your data:
You are entitled at any time to have your personal data corrected if you notice that we are processing incorrect data about you.
Right to deletion of your data:
If the processing of your data is no longer necessary, for example, because you no longer have a contractual relationship with us or because you no longer agree to the processing of your data, you may request the deletion of your personal data. We will delete your personal data provided that we have no other obligation (e.g., legal retention obligation) or overriding interest (e.g., in connection with legal proceedings) in storing or processing your personal data for a certain period. In this case, we will only keep your data for these purposes and will not process it in any other way. Deletion of your personal data may result in you no longer being able to receive or use the services you have registered for.
Right to restriction or blocking of the processing of your data:
You have the right at any time to restrict or block the processing of your data, provided that we have no other obligation to store and process your data for a certain period.
Right to data portability:
Under certain conditions, you have the right to request that we provide you or a third party designated by you with your personal data in a common format or to hand over your data to you in a common format.
Right to object:
You can object to the processing of your data for marketing and analysis purposes, as well as the transfer of your data within the CARINDEX AG according to Chapter CIX, at any time by emailing dpo@carindex.ch. Such an objection does not completely exclude the collection of personal data but only for marketing and analysis purposes and for the transfer of your data within the CARINDEX AG according to Chapter CIX.
Furthermore, you can object to any data processing based on our legitimate interest by emailing dpo@carindex.ch, if you can provide reasons arising from your particular situation.
Revocation of your consent:
You have the right to revoke any consent given at any time. If we receive notification that you are withdrawing your consent, we will no longer process your personal data for those specific purposes, unless there is another legitimate interest. Revoking your consent does not affect data processing carried out before the revocation.
Complaint to a supervisory authority:
Furthermore, you have the right to lodge a complaint regarding data processing with the competent supervisory authority. In Switzerland, this authority is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner. You can lodge your complaint with the supervisory authority at your place of residence, workplace, or the location of the alleged data protection violation. You can exercise your rights at any time by sending a written notification and providing appropriate proof of your identity to the address below.
Please use the email account with which you registered with us to facilitate identity verification. Additionally, we reserve the right to verify your identity by requesting a copy of your passport, a copy of the front and back of your ID card, a copy of your Swiss driver's license, or by other means. In connection with your contact to exercise your rights, we may correspond with you.
Please note that the granting of your rights may be partially denied or restricted for legal reasons or based on data protection law. If legally required or permitted, we will inform you of the reasons for our decision.
How can you contact us?
If you have any questions regarding the processing of your data, wish to request information, or apply for the deletion of your data, please contact our data protection officer by sending an email to dpo@carindex.ch.
The contact details of our data protection officer are as follows:
Data Protection Officer
Switzerland
Changes to this privacy policy
The current privacy policy published on our website applies at all times. We update this privacy policy to reflect the latest measures concerning the use and protection of personal data. Any significant changes to the privacy policy will be communicated to registered users via email to the email address provided during registration or through a corresponding notice at an appropriate location after logging into the user account.
Please revisit this privacy policy at regular intervals to stay informed about what we do with your personal data and how you can exercise your rights.