The Geneva Observer (The G|O) is an independent, non-profit online media offering in-depth, high-quality journalism focused on International Geneva's multilateral ecosystem and its global impact. The G|O is "locally international."

It is published by l'Association pour le Geneva Observer, registered under Swiss laws.

In fulfilling this mission, The Geneva Observer collects and uses various types of personal data, including through our website (www.thegenevaobserver.com), its weekly newsletter, The Geneva Observer Briefing, and social media pages.

Your privacy is important to us.

We encourage you to read this policy carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data and to run our site through Blacklight to see which third-party cookies we use and for what purposes. (Make sure you indicate "Europe" in the provided options next to the search bar.)

We will update our privacy policy from time to time. The latest version can always be found on this page.

Data collected during the practice of journalism is traditionally exempt from personal data privacy laws in most countries. In line with such exemptions, this Privacy Policy does not apply to personal data gathered and used for the purpose of the production of The Geneva Observer’s journalistic content, produced in the public interest.

Our privacy policy complies with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which applies to all EU member states as of 25 May 2018.

The GDPR aims to better protect the personal data of all EU citizens and, therefore, affects all EU organizations and non-EU organizations doing business in EU countries.

Regardless of whether you are an EU or a non-EU citizen: we will treat your personal data in the same, confidential manner.

Some organizations and companies are required to appoint a Data Protection Officer. As a media platform, The Geneva Observer is under no such requirement. Instead, Philippe Mottaz, our Editor, is responsible for privacy matters. He can be reached by phone at +41 79 203 4380 or by email at pm@thegenevaobserver.com.

You can also write to his attention at The Geneva Observer, Rue de Varembé 3, 3^rd Floor, CH-1202, Geneva.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

1.1. This Privacy Policy describes how The G|O collects and uses personal data about you, including when you:

1.1.1. visit our website;

1.1.2. visit our social media pages;

1.1.3. subscribe to our email newsletters;

1.1.4. make donations;

1.1.5. contact us via email or post;

1. PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT

2.1. When you engage with The Geneva Observer through any of the activities in paragraph 1.1 above, we may collect personal information about you that you submit to us, such as your name, personal address, email address, professional affiliation and, in the case of a job application, your curriculum vitae.

2.2. When you engage with The Geneva Observer, through our website in particular, we also collect personal information about you such as your email address, IP address, computer operating system type, browser type, browser language, pages you viewed, and information about your use of and actions on our website.

2. WHY WE COLLECT YOUR DATA

3.1. We use personal data that we collect through your use of our website to make the functionalities of our website available to you and the data we collect from newsletter subscriptions to send you our newsletters.

3.2. We also use data to compile statistical information about the use of our website or our dedicated pages on social media, monitor site traffic, and produce aggregate audience insights that do not identify you personally. This helps us improve our services, provide tailored content, and ultimately provide you with a better user experience. The value of collecting this data is further explained in section 4 below.

3.3. We retain your personal data as long as it is required to continue to provide you services, such as access to and use of our website, our dedicated pages on social media, and our newsletter.

3.4. In addition to the above, we retain personal data for the length of time required to meet legal and accounting requirements.

3. HOW WE COLLECT YOUR DATA

4.1. We use the following methods to collect data:

4.1.1. Cookies: We use simple text files called cookies that are installed on your device to remember and store information about how you use the website. If you choose to block or delete cookies, this may affect the functionality of our website. You will not be able to sign up, comment on stories, or make a donation. We use Stripe as a secure, encrypted online payment platform.

4.1.2. Analytics tools: We use analytic tools, such as Google Analytics and analytics provided by our technical platform Ghost.io, to track the characteristics and activities of visitors to our website and subscribers to our newsletter. Each subscription is associated with a specific email. Individual subscriptions do not allow the distribution of our copyrighted content. We offer corporate discounted multi-access subscriptions.

4.1.4. Newsletter: We use the services of Ghost.io to collect and manage email subscriber lists and send emails to our subscribers.

4.1.5. Social media buttons: We integrate social media buttons into our articles to allow sharing and commenting on these articles. These service providers may, therefore, receive data from our website that concern you, such as log data that includes the web page you visited. The privacy policies of these social media companies can be accessed on their respective websites.

4. HOW WE STORE AND SHARE YOUR DATA

5.1. We may store your data using the cloud-based information technology services of third-party providers.

5.2. Unless provided otherwise in this Privacy Policy, we only use third-party service providers who have agreed to comply with mechanisms to safeguard your data at the same standards as specified in this Privacy Policy.

5.3. In particular, our third-party providers in Switzerland and the European Union must abide by the European General Data Protection Regulation.

5.4. Our third-party providers in the USA must abide by the Swiss-US and/or EU-US Privacy Shield frameworks, which require them to provide protections equivalent to the standards of Switzerland and the EU.

5.5. We will not share or otherwise make available your personal data to other third parties except for the purposes specified in this Privacy Policy.

5.6. In exceptional cases, under a court injunction, we may have to share personal data with authorities upon their request for law enforcement purposes. This does not apply to the protection of our sources.

5.7. Personal data of users of our social media pages is also subject to the privacy policies of the operators of the social media platforms.

5. HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA

6.1. We exercise reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized exposure or disclosure of your personal data hosted on our technical partners' platforms

6.2. In the event of a data breach on our platform, or in the event that we suspect a data breach, we will:

6.2.1. notify the competent authorities in accordance with applicable law,

6.2.2. make best efforts to notify you promptly, where technically feasible, and

6.2.3. cooperate with you to investigate and resolve the data breach in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

6. YOUR RIGHTS

7.1. We recognize that you have rights under Swiss, EU, or other laws concerning your personal data.

7.2. In particular, upon written request, you have the right to a copy of the personal data that we hold on you. Furthermore, you have the right to have any inaccurate information about you corrected or removed, to put further restrictions on the purposes for which we hold your personal data, as well as to have some or all of the personal data about you erased.

7.3. All such requests should be made by email to pm@thegenevaobserver.com with copy to association@thegenevaobserver.com. We aim to respond to any request concerning your rights as promptly as possible and within the requirements of any applicable law.