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Privacy Policy of the Swiss Bank Employees Association (SBEA)

Swiss Bank Employees Association (SBEA), June 2026

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General Information

In this Privacy Policy, we, the Swiss Bank Employees Association (hereinafter SBEA, we or us), explain how we collect and process personal data. This is not an exhaustive description; other privacy policies or other documents may possibly govern further specific matters. The term “personal data” refers to all information relating to an identified or identifiable person.

If you provide us with personal data of other persons (e.g. family members or work colleagues), please ensure that these persons are aware of this Privacy Policy, and only share their personal data with us if you are permitted to do so and if this personal data is accurate.

This Privacy Policy is designed to meet the requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the Swiss Data Protection Act (“FADP”) and the revised Swiss Data Protection Act (“revFADP”). However, whether and to what extent these laws are applicable depends on the individual case.

Handling of trade union membership information

This Privacy Policy relates to the general use of personal data that is provided to us and not to the specific use of information about membership in the Swiss Bank Employees Association.

According to Art. 5 of the Data Protection Act, data about trade union views or activities is considered particularly worthy of protection. Information about membership in the Swiss Bank Employees Association is therefore collected, processed and used exclusively for the purposes necessary to fulfil the tasks of the association. This includes, in particular, the administration of members, communication with members (e.g. invitation to general meetings), the granting of legal information to members and legal protection by Coop Rechtsschutz AG for members.

Information about membership in the Swiss Bank Employees Association must not be made available to further third parties. To protect information relating to membership in the Swiss Bank Employees Association, we implement appropriate technical and organisational security measures to safeguard such information against unauthorised access, loss or misuse.

1. Controller/Data Protection Officer/representative

The controller for the data processing that we carry out here is Esther Hess, Head of the SBEA Secretariat. If you have data protection concerns, you can communicate them to us at the following contact address: Esther Hess, SBEA Secretariat, info@sbpv.ch.

You can also reach our Data Protection Officer under Art. 37 GDPR at info@sbpv.ch. She is also our representative in the EEA under Art. 27 GDPR (if required).

2. Collection and processing of personal data

We primarily process the personal data that we receive from our members, customers and other business partners within the scope of our business relationship with them and other persons involved, or that we collect from the users of our websites, apps and other applications during their operation.

To the extent permitted, we also obtain certain data from publicly accessible sources (e.g. commercial registers, media and the internet) or receive such data from other organisations, from authorities and from other third parties (e.g. mailing list brokers). In addition to the personal data you provide directly, the categories of personal data we may receive about you from third parties include, in particular, information from public registers; information obtained in connection with official and judicial proceedings; information relating to your professional functions and activities (for example, to enable us to enter into and perform contracts with your employer); information contained in correspondence and discussions with third parties; and information provided to us by persons close to you (such as family members, advisers, or legal representatives) so that we can enter into or perform contracts with you or involving you. This may include references, delivery addresses, powers of attorney, information relating to compliance with legal requirements (such as anti-money laundering and export control regulations), and information from banks, insurance companies, sales partners, and other contractual partners concerning your use of services or the provision of services to you. We may also obtain information about you from the media and the internet (where appropriate in the particular circumstances), as well as your address, interests, and other sociodemographic data for marketing purposes, and data relating to your use of our website, such as your IP address, device identifiers, browser settings, cookies, and information about your visit.

3. Purposes of data processing and legal basis

We primarily use the personal data we collect to conclude and process memberships and further contracts with our members and other contracts with our customers and business partners, in particular within the framework of membership in the SBEA and the granting of legal information and the provision of further services by Coop legal protection insurance (Coop Rechtsschutz), as well as contracts with insurance companies, events with our members and customers, and the purchase of products and services from our suppliers and subcontractors, and to comply with our legal obligations in Switzerland and abroad. If you are working for such a customer or business partner, you may also be a data subject in this role with your personal data.

In addition, we process the personal data of you and other persons, to the extent permitted and when deemed appropriate by us, also for the following purposes in which we (and sometimes third parties) have a legitimate interest corresponding to the purpose:

  • Providing and further developing our products, services and websites, apps and other platforms on which we are present;
  • Communication with third parties and processing of their requests (e.g. job applications and media enquiries);
  • Reviewing and optimising methods for analysing customer needs for the purpose of direct customer outreach and collecting personal data from publicly accessible sources for the purpose of customer acquisition;
  • Advertising and marketing (including holding events), unless you have objected to the use of your data (if we send you advertising as an existing customer, you can object at any time, in which case we will add you to a suppression list to prevent further advertising mailings);
  • Market and opinion research, media monitoring;
  • Asserting legal claims and mounting a legal defence in connection with legal disputes and administrative proceedings;
  • Preventing and investigating criminal offences and other misconduct (e.g. conducting internal investigations and analysing data to combat fraud);
  • Maintaining our operations, especially our IT systems, websites, apps and other platforms;
  • Video surveillance to safeguard our rights as occupier of the premises and other measures for IT systems, building and facility security and protection of our employees and other individuals, and of assets owned by us or entrusted to us (such as access control systems, visitor lists, network and email scanners and telephone recordings);
  • Purchase, sale or transfer of business units, companies or parts of companies, and other association- or corporate-law transactions, including the related transfer of personal data, as well as measures for business management and, to the extent necessary, for compliance with legal and regulatory requirements and the internal rules of the Swiss Bank Employees Association (SBEA).

If you have given us consent to process your personal data for specific purposes (such as when you register to receive newsletters or carry out a background check), we process your personal data within the scope of and based on this consent, unless we have another legal basis and require such a basis. Consent that has been given can be revoked at any time, but this has no effect on data processing that has already taken place.

4. Cookies/tracking and other technologies related to the use of our website

On our websites and apps, we typically use cookies and similar technologies to identify your browser or device. A cookie is a small file that is sent to your computer, or that is automatically saved on your computer or mobile device by the web browser you are using when you visit our website or install our app. When you visit this website again or use our app, we can recognise you, even if we do not know who you are. In addition to cookies that are only used during a session and deleted after your website visit (known as session cookies), cookies can also be used to store user settings and other information over a certain period of time (e.g. two years) (known as persistent cookies). However, you can configure your browser to reject cookies, accept them only for a single session, or delete them before they expire. Most browsers are preset to accept cookies. We use persistent cookies so that your user settings can be saved (e.g. language and auto-login), so that we better understand how you use our products and content, and so that we can show you products and ads tailored to your interests (which can also happen on websites of other companies, but these companies do not learn from us who you are, assuming we know that at all, because they only see that the same user who visited a particular page on our site is now on theirs). Certain of the cookies are set by us, certain others by contractual partners with whom we cooperate. If you block cookies, it may be that certain features (such as language selection, shopping cart or ordering processes) no longer work.

In our newsletters and other marketing emails, we may, to the extent permitted by law, include visible and invisible tracking elements. When these elements are retrieved from our servers, we can determine whether and when you have opened an email. This enables us to measure and better understand how our communications are used and to tailor our products and content to your interests. You can block this in your email program; most are configured to do so by default.

By using our websites and apps and consenting to receive newsletters and other marketing emails, you agree to the use of these technologies. If you do not want this, you must set your browser or email program accordingly, or uninstall the app if this cannot be changed in the app’s settings.

We sometimes use Google Analytics or similar services on our websites. This is a third-party service whose providers may be located in any country in the world (in the case of Google Analytics, this is Google Ireland (based in Ireland), which relies on Google LLC (based in the USA) as its processor (together, “Google”), www.google.com). It lets us measure and analyse use of the website on a non-personal basis. Persistent cookies are also used for this purpose and are set by the service provider. We have configured the service so that the IP addresses of visitors to Google in Europe are truncated before being forwarded to the USA and therefore cannot be traced back. We have turned off the “Data sharing” and “Signals” settings. Although we can reasonably assume that the information we share with Google does not constitute personal data from Google’s perspective, Google may nevertheless use this information for its own purposes to draw conclusions about the identity of visitors, create personal profiles, and link this information to the Google accounts of those individuals. In cases in which you have registered with the service provider yourself, the service provider will also be able to identify you. Your personal data is then processed by the service provider under its own responsibility and in accordance with its data protection provisions. The service provider merely informs us about how our respective website is used (and provides no details about you personally).

We also use plug-ins from social networks such as Facebook, X, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram on our websites. You can recognise this in each case (typically by the relevant icons). We have configured these elements to be disabled by default. If you activate them (by clicking), the operators of the relevant social networks can detect that you are on our website and which page you are on and can use this information for their own purposes. Your personal data is then processed under this operator’s own responsibility, in accordance with its privacy policy. We receive no information about you from this operator.

5. Data transfer and transfer of data abroad

In the course of our business activities and for the purposes set out in clause 3, we may also disclose personal data to third parties where permitted by law and where we consider it appropriate, either because such third parties process the data on our behalf or because they use it for their own purposes. This concerns the following bodies in particular:

  • Our service providers, including data processors (such as IT providers);
  • Distributors, suppliers, subcontractors and other business partners;
  • Customers;
  • Media;
  • The public, including visitors to websites and social media;
  • Competitors, industry organisations, associations, organisations and other bodies;
  • Acquirers, or parties interested in acquiring or taking over business divisions, companies or other parts of SBEA;
  • Other parties involved in potential or actual legal proceedings;

collectively, recipients.

Some of these recipients are located in Switzerland, but they may be anywhere in the world. In particular, you should anticipate that your data may be transferred to any country where the service providers we use (such as Microsoft) are located.

If a recipient is located in a country without adequate legal data protection, we contractually require the recipient to comply with the applicable level of data protection (for which we use the revised standard contractual clauses of the European Commission, which can be accessed here: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec_impl/2021/914/oj?) insofar as the recipient is not already subject to a legally recognised set of regulations for ensuring data protection and we cannot rely on an exemption provision. Exceptions may apply, in particular in connection with legal proceedings abroad, where overriding public interests exist, where disclosure is necessary for the performance of a contract, where you have given your consent, or where the data concerned has been made generally accessible by you and you have not objected to its processing.

6. Duration of the retention of personal data

We process and retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil our contractual and legal obligations or otherwise for the purposes for which the data is processed. This may include, for example, the entire duration of the membership or business relationship, from its initiation and administration through to the termination of the contract, as well as any period thereafter required by applicable statutory retention and record-keeping obligations. In this context, it is possible that personal data will be stored for the period during which claims can be asserted against our company and insofar as we are otherwise obliged by law or legitimate business interests require this (e.g. for evidence- and record-keeping obligations). As soon as your personal data is no longer required for the purposes mentioned above, such data will generally be deleted or made anonymous as far as possible. For operational data (e.g. system logs or other logs), shorter retention periods of 12 months or less generally apply.

7. Data security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, loss or misuse. These measures include internal policies, employee training, IT and network security solutions and confidentiality agreements for employees and other authorised persons.

8. Obligation to provide personal data

In the course of our business relationship, you must provide the personal data required for the establishment and implementation of a membership or business relationship and the fulfilment of the related contractual obligations (you generally have no legal obligation to provide us with data). Without this data, we will generally not be in a position to conclude a contract with you (or with the body or person you represent) or to execute it. The website also cannot be used if certain information required to handle the data traffic (e.g. IP address) is not disclosed.

9. Profiling

We sometimes process your personal data automatically with the aim of evaluating certain personal aspects (profiling). In particular, we use profiling to inform and advise you about products in a targeted manner. In doing so, we use evaluation tools that enable us to provide needs-based communication and advertising, including market and opinion research.

As a general rule, we do not use fully automated decision-making (as governed in Art. 22 GDPR) for the establishment and implementation of the business relationship or for other purposes. If we use such procedures in individual cases, we will inform you separately if this is required by law and also inform you of your associated rights.

10. Rights of the data subject

Subject to the applicable data protection laws and to the extent provided for therein (for example, under the GDPR), you have the right to access your personal data, to have inaccurate personal data rectified, and to request the erasure of your personal data. You also have the right to request the restriction of processing, to object to our processing of your personal data, particularly for direct marketing purposes, profiling carried out for direct marketing, and other processing based on legitimate interests, and to receive certain personal data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format or have it transferred to another data controller (data portability). Please note, however, that we reserve the right to rely on any restrictions permitted by applicable law. For example, we may do so where we are required to retain or process certain personal data, where we have an overriding legitimate interest in doing so (to the extent that we are entitled to rely on such an interest) or where the data is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. We will inform you in advance if any costs apply. We have already informed you about the possibility of revoking your consent in clause 3. Please note that the exercise of these rights can be in conflict with contractual agreements and this can have consequences such as premature termination of the contract or cost implications. We will inform you in advance in this case, where this is not already provided for in the contract.

The exercise of such rights usually requires that you clearly prove your identity (e.g. by a copy of an identification document if your identity is otherwise not clear or cannot be verified). To assert your rights, you can contact us at the address specified in clause 1.

In addition, every data subject has the right to enforce their rights through the courts or to lodge a complaint with the competent data protection authority. The competent data protection authority in Switzerland is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (www.edoeb.admin.ch).

11. Amendments

We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time without prior notice. The respective current version published on our website applies. To the extent that the Privacy Policy is part of an agreement with you, we will inform you of the amendment by email or in another suitable manner in the event of an update.