Scope of application

  • This Privacy Policy applies if you are a customer, a visitor to our website and/or a candidate applying for a job at Aequivalent.
  • This Privacy Policy does not apply to individuals who undergo our background check services at the request of their (future) employer. In this case, it is the employer who is responsible for processing your personal data, and you can contact them directly for further information.

Preamble

The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to tell you how Aequivalent SA/AG (“Aequivalent”, “we”, “us” or “our”) uses the Personal Data (as defined below) that it processes.

What is Personal Data?

“Personal Data” means any personally identifiable information that can be linked to a natural person, such as a name, e-mail address or IP address.

How does Aequivalent collect Personal Data?

We collect Personal Data when you visit our websites, submit information through our contact forms, contact us by phone, send us information directly by mail or e-mail.

How does Aequivalent use Personal Data?

Aequivalent uses Personal Data to respond to your requests, to provide you with information about our services, to operate our websites, to respond to your applications as part of the recruitment process, to provide its services to its customers and to comply with legal obligations.

Your rights

  • • If you are a customer, a visitor to our website and/or a candidate applying for a job at Aequivalent, Aequivalent is responsible for processing your Personal Data, hereinafter “Data Controller”. In this case, please send an e-mail to dpo@aequivalent.ch to access, modify, delete, rectify, withdraw your consent, if applicable, or object to the processing of your Personal Data;
  • If you are subject to our background check services commissioned by your (future) employer, the latter is responsible for processing your Personal Data. In this case, please contact your (future) employer to exercise your rights. You can also send an e-mail to dpo@aequivalent.ch and we will forward your request to our client. For further information, please refer to the Authorization Statement and/or the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

Contact us

Please direct any complaints, requests or inquiries to dpo@aequivalent.ch. We are committed to working with you to obtain a fair resolution of any complaint or concern about the privacy of your personal data. If, however, you feel that we have been unable to assist you in resolving your complaint or concern, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority.

Privacy notice when Aequivalent is the data controller

Important information

At Aequivalent, we are committed to protecting your personal data. The personal data protection practices set out in this Privacy Notice relate to our Services and our various processes in which we process your personal data (recruitment, advertising, training, etc.), hereinafter “Services”.

By using our Services, you consent to the practices described in this Privacy Notice. If you do not agree with the data practices provided in this Privacy Notice, you should not use the Services provided by Aequivalent. We may make changes to this Privacy Notice at our sole discretion and at any time. We will notify you in the event of a material change to this Privacy Notice. Your continued use of the Services after we have made changes to the Privacy Notice will be considered acceptance of those changes.

For the avoidance of doubt, this Privacy Notice does not apply to the extent that we process personal data as a subcontractor, in particular as part of our background check services.

Personal data collected by Aequivalent

The Personal Data we collect directly includes the following:

  • If you are a customer: first name, last name, organization, title, city, state, country, telephone number, IP address and business e-mail addresses. Automatically collected information: information collected through cookies and web beacons, including IP address, browser name, operating system details, domain name, date and time of visit, pages viewed or other similar information.
  • If you are a visitor to our websites: information you submit via our contact forms, if applicable, IP address. Automatically collected information: information collected through cookies and web beacons, including IP address, browser name, operating system details, domain name, date and time of visit, pages viewed or other similar information.
  • If you are a prospect: any information you may have sent us, and any personal data you may have made publicly available.
  • If you are a candidate for an open position at Aequivalent: first name, last name, organization, title, city, state, country, telephone number, IP address, private and/or professional e-mail addresses and any other information enabling us to verify your suitability for your potential job or necessary for the performance of the potential employment contract. Automatically collected information: information collected through cookies and web beacons, including IP address, browser name, operating system details, domain name, date and time of visit, pages viewed or other similar information.

How do we use your personal data?

We collect and process your Personal Data for the purposes, and on the legal bases, identified in the following:

  1. When we have entered into a contract
  • For your use of our tools or other Services provided to you under our current Terms and Conditions or the applicable contract between you and Aequivalent.
  • For the use of our website.
  • To manage payments in order to complete a transaction with you.
  • To provide support for our Services (you can contact us by telephone or e-mail).
  • For the training courses you have enrolled in.
  • For your employment with Aequivalent.
  1. Where Aequivalent has an overriding interest in processing your personal data

For security purposes, such as investigating suspicious activity or for compliance purposes (such as investigating fraud or misuse of our website).

  1. When Aequivalent must cooperate with competent authorities

Aequivalent processes and discloses Personal Data to the extent that it is required to cooperate with appropriate regulatory and governmental authorities. Where Aequivalent processes Personal Data for this purpose, the legal basis for the processing is compliance with a legal obligation to which Aequivalent is subject.

  1. When you consent to the processing of your personal data by Aequivalent
  • When you accept cookies on our websites. For more information, please refer to our Cookie policy.
  • When your consent is explicitly required for the processing of your personal data.

In this case, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. You can either use the tool to do this directly or send an e-mail to dpo@aequivalent.ch.

Opt-out

In the specific case of newsletters, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe button, or by sending us an e-mail at dpo@aequivalent.ch.

With whom do we share personal data?

We use third-party partners to help us provide our Services and perform specialized data processing services. When we provide Personal Data to these partners, they are not permitted to use the Personal Data for any purpose outside the scope for which we have contracted with them.

The ways in which we share your Personal Data are as follows:

  • When we use third-party servers as part of the execution of our Services. This is necessary for us to provide you with our Services. We execute contracts with our partners to ensure that they fulfill their data protection obligations;
  • We will disclose your information to a purchaser or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution or other sale or transfer of all or a portion of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of a bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding.

Aequivalent reserves the right to disclose your Personal Data under the following conditions: (1) when permitted or required by law; (2) when we are trying to protect against or prevent actual or potential fraud or unauthorized transactions or (3) when we are investigating suspected fraud or fraud that has already occurred.

Sale of personal data

Aequivalent does not and will never sell Personal Data.

Account administrator

As an account administrator, your Personal Data will be used to communicate with you for support purposes or to follow up on requests made by you or another user of our Services. An account administrator manages the Services and provides them to members of an organization. When you upload information (such as e-mail addresses of your (future) colleagues) to our Services, this is done entirely at your discretion and on behalf of the organization you represent.

The Account Administrator is the Personal Data Processor and Aequivalent acts as the Personal Data Subcontractor. Aequivalent is legally bound by the terms and conditions applicable to the Services purchased, such as Aequivalent’s current terms and conditions, other agreements applicable to the Services between Aequivalent and your organization, and/or personal data processing agreements.

If you have any detailed questions about these agreements, please contact the relevant departments at your organization or send an e-mail to dpo@aequivalent.ch.

International transfers of Personal Data

Your Personal Data will be collected, transferred and stored by Aequivalent in Switzerland. In the event that your Personal Data is processed outside Switzerland, the EEA or a country not recognized as having an adequate level of protection for Personal Data by the Swiss Federal Data Protection Commissioner or the European Commission, we will ensure that a mechanism approved by the appropriate regulatory bodies is in place, for example in accordance with Article 46 of the General Data Protection Regulation.

Security and storage of personal data

Your personal data is kept securely. Only our authorized employees, agents and subcontractors (who have agreed to keep personal data secure and confidential) have access to this information. To provide our Services, we use third-party partners (“Third Parties”) to perform specialized data processing Services, including data hosting. When we provide Personal Data to these Third Parties, they are not authorized to use the data outside the scope for which we have contracted them.

We use a variety of industry-standard security measures to prevent unauthorized access, use or disclosure of your Personal Data. These security measures include, but are not limited to, data encryption and physical security. Although no method of electronic transmission or storage over the Internet is 100% secure, we strive to implement best practices to protect your Personal Data, including maintaining ISO 27001 certification.

Aequivalent will retain your Personal Data for the period necessary to fulfill the purpose described in this Privacy Notice or until you request its deletion, unless a longer retention period is required by a legal and/or regulatory requirement.

If Aequivalent becomes aware that any of our Third Parties or employees are in breach of this Privacy Notice, Aequivalent will take appropriate steps to prevent or stop the unauthorized use or disclosure of your Personal Data.

Your rights

You have certain rights in relation to your Personal Data, subject to local data protection laws. Depending on the applicable laws and, in particular, if you are located in the EEA, these rights include:

  • Access, correction, modification, deletion of your Personal Data;
  • To object to any processing of your Personal Data carried out on the basis of our legitimate interests (right of objection). Where we process your Personal Data for direct marketing purposes or share it with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes, you may exercise your right to object to such processing at any time without having to provide any specific reason for such objection.
  • Not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects (“Automated decision-making”). Automated decision-making does not currently take place in our Services;
  • To the extent that we base the collection, processing and sharing of your Personal Data on your consent, withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of the processing based on that consent prior to its withdrawal.

How to exercise your rights

To exercise your rights, please contact us at dpo@aequivalent.ch.

Protected health information, payment card information and other sensitive information.

Aequivalent does not need or request protected health information (“PHI”) governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and its implementing regulations (“HIPAA”), nor does it need or request non-public personally identifiable information or financial information governed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (“GLBA”) or payment card information covered by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (“PCI DSS”) in order to provide its Services. You must never disclose, or allow to be disclosed, PHI, PCI DSS or GLBA protected information, or any other sensitive information to Aequivalent. In the event that an end user discloses such information (which would constitute a violation of this Privacy Notice), you acknowledge, on behalf of your organization, that Aequivalent does not take steps to ensure that its Services are HIPAA or PCI DSS compliant. All obligations under the aforementioned regulations remain solely with you, on behalf of your organization.

Persons under 16 years of age

Our Services, such as our website, are not intended for persons under the age of 16. Therefore, we do not intentionally collect personal data from visitors under the age of 16. If you are under 16, please do not submit your personal data via our submission forms.

How to contact us

To exercise your rights regarding your Personal Data, or if you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or our Personal Data protection practices, please send an e-mail to dpo@aequivalent.ch. You can also send a notice by post to the address below:

Aequivalent SA/AG
Y-Parc, Rue Galilée 6
Building CEI-3
CH-1400 Yverdon-les-Bains

Address in Bern : Gurtengasse 3, CH-3011 Bern