Your privacy is important to SFC. This Privacy Notice sets out how personal information is collected and handled to meet SFC’s data protection standards and comply with the law.

SFC is responsible for your personal data.

Please contact us at info@sfc.services if you have questions about our privacy policy.

Types of data we collect and use

We may collect and process different types of personal information in the course of operating our business and providing our services. These include:

• Basic data (identifiers), such as your name, your employer, your title or position;
• Contact data, such as your physical address, email address and phone number;
• Financial data, such as bank account details;
• Website usage and other technical data, such as your IP address and other information collected from your visits to our website;
• Identification and other background verification provided by you or collected by us as part of our client onboarding process (commercial information);
• Personal data provided to us by or on behalf of our clients or employees or generated by us in the course of providing legal services, which may include special categories of data;
• Recruitment related data such as your curriculum vitae, your education and employment history, details of professional memberships and other information relevant to potential recruitment to SFC;
• Any other personal data which you may provide to us.

How we collect your data

As a legal service provider, we routinely receive personal information as part of our professional activities. We may collect your personal data:

• As part of our client onboarding procedure;
• When we provide services to you or your organization;
• When you or your organization offer or provide services to us as vendor;
• When you browse or interact with our website(s) or use any of our online services;
• When you email us or provide such data to us in other circumstances.

How we use your data

We only use your personal data where it is our legitimate interest to do so for the following purposes, in connection with our ordinary professional activities:

• Contacting you and responding to your requests and enquiries;
• Providing you with legal services, if you are or become a client, and otherwise dealing with you and administering the matters you instruct us on;
• Entering into or carrying out contracts of various kinds;
• Managing and securing the access to our offices, systems and online platforms;
• Complying with court orders and other legal and regulatory requirements that we may be subject to, including anti-money laundering requirements;
• Conducting our recruiting and selection process; and
• For any purpose related to the foregoing or for any purpose for which you provided the personal data to SFC.

If you have given us your express consent, we may process your personal data for additional purposes. You may withdraw your consent at any time.

Additional purposes for which we may process your personal data may include:

• Communicating with you with respect to legal developments, announcements, events and products and services which may be of interest to you;
• Distributing surveys or marketing materials;
• Any other purpose for which you have given consent.

How we share your data

Irrespective of how we obtain your personal information, it may be shared among all the offices within SFC for business, operational and marketing purposes. We may also need to transfer personal data to third parties, including third parties based outside Switzerland, the EU or the US, for example (but not limited to) sub-contractors, other counsel and accountants and third parties involved in your matters.

Where we share or transfer your personal data, we do so in accordance with applicable data protection laws and take appropriate safeguards to ensure its integrity and protection.

We have never sold and will never sell any of your personal data for money.

How we protect your data

We take appropriate technical and organizational measures against unauthorized or unlawful processing of your personal information and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, your personal data in accordance with our internal security procedures covering its storage, access and destruction. Personal data may be stored on our own technology systems or those of our vendors.

How long we keep your data

We will retain your personal information as long as is necessary to fulfil the purpose for which the data was collected and any other permitted linked purpose or until you withdraw your consent, provided that we are not legally required or otherwise permitted to continue to hold such data. In particular, we may retain your personal data for an additional period of time to the extent that deletion would require us to overwrite our automated disaster recovery backup systems or to the extent that we deem it necessary to assert or defend legal claims during any relevant retention period. Our retention periods are also based on our business needs and good practice.

Website and use of cookies

As you navigate through and interact with our website, SFC may use automatic data collection technologies (e.g. Google Analytics) to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns, including details of your visits to our website, such as traffic and location data.

The information we collect automatically does not include identifiable personal information but may contain a client ID or an IP address. It helps us to improve our website and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to estimate our audience size and usage patterns, store information about your preferences and speed up your searches.

The technologies we use for this automatic data collection includes browser cookies. You may refuse to accept them by activating the appropriate setting on your browser. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you direct your browser to our website.

Know your rights

In addition to your rights under applicable data protection legislation and, if we are permitted or required to do so under applicable laws and regulations and by our professional obligations, we are required and will provide you, upon request, with a copy of your personal information and correct any errors identified by you.

We do not use your data for any automated decision making or any profiling. In addition, you have the right to restrict our processing of your personal data and to ask for deletion of your personal data. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with supervisory authorities regarding the processing of your personal data. We will not be sending you marketing materials without your express consent and will also comply with any request to stop sending any such communications to you.

To contact us

All requests, questions or comments regarding this policy or our handling of your personal information should be addressed to info@sfc.services.