Privacy Policy
Data Protection Statement World Tourism Forum Lucerne
Version effective as of 12 June, 2018
With this Data Protection Statement we, the World Tourism Forum Lucerne AG (World Tourism Forum Lucerne, we or us), describe how we collect and further process personal data. This Data Protection Statement is not necessarily a comprehensive description of our data processing. It is possible that other data protection statements (or Conditions of Participation or similar documents) are applicable to specific circumstances.
The term "personal data" in this Data Protection Statement shall mean any information that identifies, or could reasonably be used to identify any person.
If you provide us with personal data of other persons (such as family members, work colleagues), please make sure the respective persons are aware of this Data Protection Statement and only provide us with their data if you are allowed to do so and such personal data is correct.
Our website and activities are directed at an adult audience. We do not collect any personal information from anyone we know to be under the age of 16 years without the prior, verifiable consent of his or her legal representative. Such legal representative has the right, upon request, to access the information provided by the child and|or to require that it be deleted.
This Data Protection Statement is in line with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Although the GDPR is a regulation of the European Union (EU), it may be relevant for us. The Swiss data protection legislation (FADP) is heavily influenced by the law of the European Union. In addition, companies outside of the EU or the European Economic Area (EEA) must comply with the GDPR in certain cases.
1. Controller
The "controller" of data processing as described in this data protection statement (i.e. the responsible person) is World Tourism Forum Lucerne AG (unless we inform you differently in certain cases). You can notify us of any data protection related concerns using the following contact details: Zentralstrasse 9 | P.O. Box 2940 | 6002 Lucerne | Switzerland | Tel +41 (0)41 228 99 80 | info@wtflucerne.org.
2. Collection and Processing of Personal Data
We primarily process personal data that we obtain from the attendees of our events (such as World Tourism Forum, Think Tank, Talent Boosts, Young Talent Programme, Start-Up Innovation Camp, Next Generation Competition etc.) and participants of our awards (such as the Tourism Star Award), recipients of our electronic newsletter and other business partners or partner organizations as well as other individuals in the context of our business relationships with them or that we collect from users when operating our websites and other applications.
Insofar as it is permitted to us, we obtain certain personal data from publicly accessible sources (e.g. social media profiles, press, internet) or we may receive such information from partner organizations (such as universities, sponsors etc.), from authorities or other third parties. Apart from data you provided to us directly (such as business cards received during meetings), the categories of data we receive from third parties include, but are not limited to, information in connection with your education, professional role and activities (e.g. in order to conclude and carry out contracts with your employer or to select you as a participant of our activities and awards, professors), information about you in correspondence and discussions with third parties (such as with your university), information about you given to us by individuals associated with you (e.g. representatives, work colleagues) in order to conclude or process contracts with you or your involvement (e.g. powers of attorney) or in order to select you for activities and awards, information about you found in the media or internet (insofar as indicated in the specific case, e.g. to invite you as a speaker or participant to our events), your address and contact information, data in connection with your use of our websites and the receipt of our newsletters (e.g. IP or MAC address of your smartphone or computer, information regarding your device and settings, cookies, date and time of your visit, sites and content retrieved, applications used, referring website).
3. Purpose of Data Processing and Legal Grounds
We primarily use collected data in order to conclude and process event-related contracts, including but not limited to the organizing and carrying out of events, activities and awards, the search for and cooperation with partner organizations as well as the procurement of products and services from our suppliers and subcontractors as well as in order to comply with our domestic and foreign legal obligations. You may also be affected by our data processing in your capacity as an employee or representative of any of our partner organizations.
In line with applicable law and where appropriate, we may further process your persona data and personal data of third parties for the following purposes, which are in our (or, as the case may be, any third parties') legitimate interest, such as:
Providing and developing our activities and awards (in particular in connection with the organization of our events) and websites and other platforms, on which we are active;
Search for and cooperation with our partner organizations in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry and the promotion of their services;
Communication with you or third parties and processing of requests (e.g. media inquiries, your inquiries);
Advertisement and marketing (including organizing events), provided that you have not objected to the use of your data for this purpose;
Market and opinion research, media surveillance and media coverage of our events;
Asserting legal claims and defense in legal disputes and other official proceedings;
Prevention and investigation of criminal offences and other misconduct (e.g. conducting of internal investigations, data analysis to combat fraud);
Ensuring our operation, including our IT, our websites and other appliances;
Measures to ensure the safety of our events and the premises where they are held at, as well as protection of our staff and other individuals and assets and|or data owned by or entrusted to us (such as e.g. access controls, visitor logs, network and mail scanners, telephone recordings);
Acquisition and sale of business divisions and other corporate transactions and the transfer of personal data related thereto as well as measures for business management and compliance with legal and regulations as well as internal regulation of World Tourism Forum Lucerne.
If you have given us your consent to process your personal data for certain purposes (e.g. when registering to receive our newsletter or when applying to be considered for the Young Talent Programme, the Tourism Star Award, the Start-Up Innovation Camp or the Next Generation Competition), we will process your personal data within the scope of and based on this consent, unless we have another legal basis or do not require one. Consent given can be withdrawn at any time, but this does not affect data processed prior to withdrawal.
4. Cookies | Tracking and Other Techniques Regarding the Use of our Website
We typically use "cookies" and similar techniques on our websites, which allow for an identification of your browser or device. A cookie is a small text file that is sent to your computer and automatically saved by the web browser on your computer or mobile device, when you visit our website. If you revisit our website, we may recognize you, even if we do not know your identity. Besides cookies that are only used during a session and deleted after your visit of the website ("session cookies"), we may use cookies in order to save user configurations and other information for a certain time period (e.g., two years) ("permanent cookies"). Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may configure your browser settings in a way that it rejects cookies, only saves them for one session or deletes them prematurely. Most browsers are preset to accept cookies. We use permanent cookies in order to understand how you use our services and content. If you block cookies, it is possible that certain functions are no longer available to you.
In accordance with applicable law, we may include visible and invisible image files in our newsletters and other marketing e-mails. If such image files are retrieved from our servers, we can determine whether and when you have opened the e-mail, so that we can measure and better understand how you use our offers and customize them. You may disable this in your e-mail program, which will usually be a default setting. By using our website and consenting to the receipt of newsletters and other marketing e-mails you agree to our use of such techniques. If you object, you must configure your browser or e-mail program accordingly.
We may use Google Analytics or similar services on our website. These are services provided by third parties, which may be located in any country worldwide (in the case of Google Analytics Google LLC is in the U.S., www.google.com) and which allow us to measure and evaluate the use of our website (on an anonymized basis). For this purpose, permanent cookies are used, which are set by the service provider. The service provider does not receive (and does not retain) any personal data from us, but the service provider may track your use of the website, combine this information with data from other websites you have visited and which are also tracked by the respective service provider and may use this information for its own purposes (e.g. controlling of advertisements). If you have registered with the service provider, the service provider will also know your identity. In this case, the processing of your personal data by the service provider will be conducted in accordance with its data protection regulations. The service provider only provides us with data on the use of the respective website (but not any personal information of you).
5. Datatransfer | Transfer of Data Abroad and to International Organizations
In the context of carrying out our activities and in line with the purposes of the data processing set out in Section 3, we may transfer data to third parties (including international organizations), insofar as such a transfer is permitted and we deem it appropriate, in order for them to process data for us or, as the case may be, their own purposes. In particular, the following categories of recipients may be concerned:
partner organizations (e.g. such as universities and sponsors) and other organizations we collaborate with (such as the United Nations World Tourism Organization UNWTO);
our service providers, including processors (such as e.g. IT providers);
suppliers, subcontractors and other business partners;
participants of events and competitions;
domestic and foreign authorities or courts;
the media;
the public, including users of our websites and social media;
industry organizations, associations, organizations and other bodies;
acquirers or parties interested in the acquisition of business divisions or other corporate transactions;
other parties in possible or pending legal proceedings;
Certain Recipients may be within Switzerland but they may be located in any country worldwide. In particular, you must anticipate your data to be transmitted to any country in which World Tourism Forum Lucerne organizes or is otherwise involved in activities (such as China, Greece, Azerbaijan, Australia, Malaysia, UAE, Brazil) as well as to other countries worldwide, where our service providers and partner organizations are located (such as e.g. Microsoft, partner universities, sponsors). If we transfer data to a country without adequate legal data protection, we ensure an appropriate level of protection as legally required by way of using appropriate contracts (in particular on the basis of the standard contract clauses of the European Commission, which can be accessed here) or we rely on the statutory exceptions of consent, performance of contracts, the establishment, exercise or enforcement of legal claims, overriding public interests, published personal data or because it is necessary to protect the integrity of the persons concerned. You can obtain a copy of the mentioned contractual guarantees at any time from the contact person named under Section 1 above insofar they are not available under the aforementioned link. However, we reserve the right to redact copies for data protection reasons or reasons of secrecy or to produces excerpts only.
6. Retention Periods for your Personal Data
We process and retain your personal data as long as required for the performance of our contractual obligation and compliance with legal obligations or other purposes pursued with the processing, i.e. for the duration of any selection process related to activities and awards (from the application until the award is granted or activity conducted) as well as beyond this duration in accordance with legal retention and documentation obligations. Personal data may be retained for the period during which claims can be asserted against our company or insofar as we are otherwise legally obliged to do so or if legitimate business interests require further retention (e.g., for evidence and documentation purposes). As soon as your personal data are no longer required for the above-mentioned purposes, they will be deleted or anonymized, to the extent possible. In general, shorter retention periods of no more than twelve months apply for operational data (e.g., system logs).
7. Data Security
We have taken appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect your personal data from unauthorized access and misuse such as IT and network security solutions.
8. Obligation to Provide Personal Data To Us
In order to participate in our events or registering to be considered for certain activities or awards (such as e.g. Talent Boost, Tourism Star Award etc.) you will need to provide us with certain data, including personal data, which is necessary to conclude and perform contractual obligations, deciding on your participation or eligibility for certain activities or awards or carrying out our activities. Without this information, we will usually not be able to enter into or carry out a contract with you (or the entity or person you represent) or to consider you for the respective activities or awards. As a rule, there is no statutory requirement to provide us with data, however. In addition, the website cannot be used unless certain information is disclosed to enable data traffic (e.g. IP address).
9. Your Rights
In accordance with and as far as provided by applicable law (as is the case where the GDPR is applicable), you have the right to access, rectification and erasure of your personal data, the right to restriction of processing or to object to our data processing in addition to the right to receive certain personal data for transfer to another controller (data portability). Please note, however, that we reserve the right to enforce statutory restrictions on our part, for example if we are obliged to retain or process certain data, have an overriding interest (insofar as we may invoke such interests) or need the data for asserting claims. If exercising certain rights will incur costs on you, we will notify you thereof in advance. We have already informed you of the possibility to withdraw consent in Section 3 above.
In general, exercising these rights requires that you are able to prove your identity (e.g., by a copy of identification documents where your identity is not evident otherwise or can be verified in another way). In order to assert these rights, please contact us at the addresses provided in Section 1 above.
In addition, every data subject has the right to enforce his/her rights in court or to lodge a complaint with the competent data protection authority. The competent data protection authority of Switzerland is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (http://www.edoeb.admin.ch).
10. Amendments of this Data Protection Statement
We may amend this Data Protection Statement at any time without prior notice. The current version published on our website shall apply. If the Data Protection Statement is part of an agreement with you, we will notify you by e-mail or other appropriate means in case of an amendment.
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