privacy policy

data privacy policy

By accessing the website www.decinstitute.org, you declare that you have understood and acknowledged the legal information stated below.
scope

This data privacy policy applies to all websites of the DEC Education Services AG (hereinafter DEC) including its microsites. The protection of personal information is important to the DEC. We comply with the applicable provisions of Swiss data protection legislation.

No liability is assumed for compliance with the data protection provisions by websites of third parties to which the DEC websites refer and link.
access information

When DEC websites are invoked, access information such as IP address, date and time, browser request and generally transmitted information on the operating system and browser, etc. are recorded and stored in server log files. This information is collected anonymously and cannot be traced back to you. We use the information for statistical purposes and to ensure the proper functioning of our websites. We store the server log files until they are automatically deleted after twelve months at the latest.
input forms and email

The DEC websites contain various input forms (enquiry forms, web registrations, , etc.) with which you can voluntarily provide us with personal information. The same applies if personal information is transmitted not via the input form, but via the email address provided for this purpose on the respective DEC website. The nature of the personal information collected can be seen from the respective input forms.

A secure connection featuring TLS encryption is automatically invoked when using the input forms. The effect of TLS encryption is to render data transmitted online illegible by third parties. Information communicated to us by email, on the other hand, is transmitted unencrypted. It can be viewed and modified by third parties. The transmission of confidential or personal information by email is at the sender’s risk.

Personal information voluntarily made available to us is used only for the intended purpose and is not shared outside the DEC or made accessible to third parties, with the exception of sending the newsletter (see “Newsletter” below). Services subscribed can be unsubscribed at any time.
newsletter

To subscribe to a newsletter, your email address is required. Additional, optional input fields help us design our email dispatches to better meet our visitors’ individual needs. In addition to your email address and any voluntary information, your IP address, the date of subscription and the date of acknowledgement are also stored when you subscribe.

The newsletter is sent using external systems (like MailChimp, HubSpot or others), hereinafter referred to as “newsletter systems”).

Data provided by newsletter recipients as well as click data from the emails are being processed on servers operated by the service providers of the newsletter systems. We need this information for the dispatch and for the overall evaluation of our emailings. Furthermore, the service providers are able to use this information to optimise or improve their own services, e.g. for the technical optimisation of the dispatch. The providers are prohibited from using data from our newsletter subscribers for any other purpose or to make it available or pass them on to third parties.

The systems offer various analysis options on how the newsletters are opened and used by the subscribers. We process this data to adapt to the reading habits of our target groups and with it, for quality assurance and improvement purposes.

You can unsubscribe from newsletters or change recipient information at any time using the link provided in the newsletter emails.
Cookies

Cookies are used on the DEC websites to facilitate the correct functioning and optimal use of the websites and to measure the effectiveness of web searches. Some of the cookies we use are automatically deleted when the browser being used is closed. Other cookies remain on your end device and enable us to recognise your browser the next time you visit. Your browser’s preferences settings allow you to deactivate cookies in whole or in part. Such deactivation, however, may limit the functionality of our DEC websites.
Consent related to “allow personalisation”

There is an option available to “allow personalisation” to DEC. Consent for this can be given or revoked in the emails concerned or in the recipient profile at any time.Only if express consent has been given previously is DEC able to analyse emails specific to the individual.
Amendments for the Mailchimp solution

newsletter systems

External newsletter systems use cookies, web beacons and flash player codes to collect information about your access to the newsletter, as well as your browser type, operating system and similar information. Furthermore, they use the Google Analytics tool and may include it in its newsletters.
Web analysis

Google Analytics

DEC uses features of the Google Analytics web analysis service of the US American provider Google LLC or Google Limited Ireland (hereinafter referred to as “Google”) to improve its web presence and user experience, as well as for the statistical evaluation of visitor accesses to its websites. Google Analytics places cookies on your end device to enable your use of the DEC websites to be analysed. We enable the IP Anonymisation feature on our DEC websites. Only in exceptional cases will the full IP address be transmitted to a Google server in the USA and truncated there.

According to the company’s own information, Google will never merge the transmitted IP address with other Google data.

You can prevent the transmission to Google of data generated by the cookies relating to your use of the website, as well as the processing of this data by Google, by downloading and installing a browser plugin as described: here.Doing so, however, may limit the functionality of our DEC websites.
Google Ads (formerly AdWords) Conversion Tracking

DEC uses “Google Ads” on its websites, and Conversion Tracking within the context of Google Ads. This involves Google Adwords storing a cookie on your device when you click on a Google advertisement. These cookies expire after 30 days and are not used for personal identification.

If you visit our DEC websites while the cookie is active, Google and the DEC log that you clicked on the ad and were directed to that website. The information collected using the conversion cookie is used to generate statistics for AdWords customers who use Conversion Tracking. This will tell us the total number of users who have clicked on the Google ad and visited a website equipped with a conversion tracking tag. However, the DEC does not receive any information that personally identifies users.

You can generally prevent the use of cookies by prohibiting the storage of cookies in your browser.
Remarketing

Google Remarketing

DEC may use Google’s Remarketing feature on its websites. This feature enables DEC to target users of its website with advertising by displaying personalised, interest-related ads when you visit other websites on the Google Display Network. Google uses cookies to perform the analysis of website usage on which the creation of interest-related advertisements is based. That is how Google can track your previous visit to our websites. According to the company’s own information, Google does not merge the data collected in the course of Remarketing with your personal information, which nevertheless is stored by Google.

You can disable Google’s Remarketing feature by clicking on https://www.google.com/settings/ads/plugin and downloading and installing the plugin provided there. Alternatively, you can disable the use of cookies by third party providers by invoking http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ and implementing the information on the opt-out provided.

Information on Google Remarketing and Google’s privacy policy may be found here.
facebook remarketing

The DEC makes use of the Custom Audiences remarketing feature from Facebook Inc., USA or Facebook Ireland Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Facebook”) on its websites. This feature enables the DEC to target users of its websites with advertising by delivering personalised, interest-related Facebook ads to users of the websites when they visit the Facebook social network. The feature is facilitated by Facebook’s remarketing tag implemented on the DEC websites.

These tags establish a direct link to the Facebook servers when you visit an DEC website and tell the servers which of our websites you are visiting. Facebook merges this information with your personal Facebook user account. Further information on Facebook’s collection and use of information, your rights in this regard, and how to protect your privacy is contained in Facebook’s Privacy Policy here.

If you do not want Facebook to merge the information collected with your Facebook user account, you can disable the Custom Audiences remarketing feature here. You must be logged in to Facebook to do so.
LinkedIn Remarketing

On its websites, the DEC uses the “website retargeting” remarketing feature of US-based LinkedIn Corporation (hereinafter referred to as “LinkedIn”), which is a fully owned subsidiary of Microsoft. This feature enables the DEC to target users of its websites with advertising by delivering personalised, interest-related ads when they visit the LinkedIn social network.

The feature is facilitated by LinkedIn’s remarketing tag implemented on the DEC websites. This tag establishes a direct link to the LinkedIn servers when users visit an DEC website and tells the servers which of our websites they have visited. LinkedIn merges this information with your personal LinkedIn user account. For more information about LinkedIn’s data protection policy, click on this.

If you do not wish for LinkedIn to directly merge the information gathered with your LinkedIn user account, you may deactivate the re-marketing feature here (even if you do not have a LinkedIn account or if you are not currently logged into one).
Social Plugins

The DEC uses social plugins (hereinafter referred to as “Plugins”) from various social networks (hereinafter referred to as “operator”) for its websites. These can be identified by their logo or designation. Invoking an DEC website that contains one of these plugins informs its operator that you have invoked that website. If you are signed in to one of the services at the same time, the operator can assign your visit to the DEC website to your profile in the respective service. If you interact with the plugins, e.g. by clicking on the Like button in Facebook or leaving a comment, the corresponding information is transmitted directly to the operator and stored there.

The purpose and scope of the data collection, the further processing and use of the data by the operators, your rights in this regard and the setting options for safeguarding your privacy can be found in the operators’ Privacy Policies. The DEC uses the following plugins in its DEC websites:

Facebook: Find the link to Facebook’s privacy policy here.
Twitter: Find the link to Twitter’s privacy policy here.
LinkedIn: Find the link to LinkedIn’s privacy policy here.

To prevent operators merging the information collected via our websites with your profile in the respective service, sign out of the corresponding service before visiting the DEC websites. You can also use add-ons for your browser to completely stop the plugins from loading, e.g. with the “NoScript” script blocker.
Google Maps

The DEC websites use Google Maps API from Google to visually display geographic information. When a user invokes Google Maps, Google also collects, processes and uses data on the way the map features are used. Further information on how Google processes information may be found here.
Google recaptcha

The DEC websites deploy Google reCAPTCHA from Google to safeguard against bots and spam. Google uses cookies to do this and collects the data thus generated. Further information on how Google processes information may be found here.
EXAMINATION PLATFORMS

Induslynk Training Services Private Limited (Mercer Mettl)

The DEC website is linked to external examination software like https://mettl.com or others to provide DEC’s customers access to the examination software. DEC can access through this external examination softwares customer’s data, payment confirmations and examination results through its platform account and uses this data for client management purposes. Please visit their privacy policy under the following link: https://mettl.com/en/privacy-notice/.
PEARSON VUE

DEC provides its online-exam services using PEARSON PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENTS LTD, at 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England(Pearson) as the processor. It is necessary that DEC and Pearson exchange data to provide the services including the candidate’s personal information. This data can contain your full name, contact details and additional information you have provided to us during the signup process, your test recordings or results and will be transferred outside of Switzerland. To ensure a safe and fair exam, Pearson will directly request from candidates’ additional information to verify a candidate’s identity and that the candidate itself takes part in the exam. This data processing is necessary to fulfill our contractual obligations.

DEC will store your personal information as long as it is necessary for the processing, or a legal retention obligation exists.

Further information how Pearson processes your personal data can be found at https://home.pearsonvue.com/privacy.
Right to information

You can contact us at the following address for information on the personal data collected about you and to correct, supplement, delete or block your personal data: info@decinstitute.org.
Changes to the data privacy policy

DEC reserves the right to update its information on data protection at any time without prior notice. The current version of the data privacy policy – as published on this website – applies.