Your Privacy Matters

At  The Basel School, accessible from https://thebaselschool.ch, we teach our students the importance of data protection and privacy, and provide them with the tools and knowledge to handle personal information in a responsible and ethical manner. We are also committed to ensuring that our own data handling practices meet the highest standards of transparency, security, and compliance. We continuously strive to improve our policies and procedures to stay up-to-date with the latest developments in data protection and privacy regulations.

This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that are collected and recorded by The Basel School and how we use it. If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, please contact us.

This Privacy Policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regard to the information that they shared with and/or collected by The Basel School. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website. Our Privacy Policy was created with the help of the Free Privacy Policy Generator. By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.

The personal information that you are asked to provide, and the reasons why you are asked to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point we ask you to provide your personal information. For example, we need to know your email address in order to reply to your messages. So when you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you such as your name, email address, WhatsApp number (we used to say phone number, but let’s be honest — who actually calls these days), the contents of the message and/or attachments you may send us, and any other information you may choose to provide.

If you register for an Account, we may ask for your contact information, including items such as name, school or company name, address, email address, and telephone number.

We use the information we collect in various ways, including to:

• Provide, operate, and maintain our website
• Improve, personalize, and expand our website
• Understand and analyze how you use our website
• Develop new products, services, features, and functionality
• Communicate with you, either directly or through one of our partners, including for customer service, to provide you with updates and other information relating to the website, and for marketing and promotional purposes
• Send you emails
• Find and prevent fraud
• Log Files

We do not use your information to:

• Tell you about a fantastic multi-level marketing opportunity where you can be your own boss
• Convince you to switch utility companies, mobile phone providers, or insurance
• Call you in the middle of the night when we couldn’t sleep, were bored, and were just wondering how you were doing
• Do the same thing we do every night, Pinky… Try to take over the world, and if you’re over 30, you just read that in The Brain’s (Mo LaMarche’s) voice, didn’t you?

The Basel School follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this as a part of the hosting services’ analytics. The information collected by log files includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users’ movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.

Like nearly every other website on the planet, The Basel School uses ‘cookies’. And, like pretty much every other human being on the planet, we also like eating cookies.  The first type of cookies can be used to store information including visitors’ preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimize the users’ experience by customizing our web page content based on visitors’ browser type and/or other information. The second type of ‘cookies’ can be delicious when bursting with chocolate chips and then dipped in oat or soy milk.

For more general information on web cookies, please read the Cookies article on the GPP Cookies website. For a recipe for delicious cookies, check out one of my favorite recipes on the Tasty website.

We don’t let anyone advertise on our site. If you click on an external link (like the cookie recipe above), you are then subject to their privacy policy, but we do not transfer any information to them. Third-party technologies may use cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons that are used in their respective services that appear on The Basel School site, which are sent directly to the user’s browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. These technologies are used to personalize your online experience.

While CCPA normally applies solely to California consumers, we believe that everyone has the right to:

Request that a business that collects a consumer’s personal data disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal data that a business has collected about consumers.

Request that a business delete any personal data about the consumer that a business has collected.

Request that a business that sells a consumer’s personal data, not sell the consumer’s personal data. (We don’t sell data anyway.)

We also want to make you aware of your rights under GDPR. Every user is entitled to the following:

The right to access – You have the right to request copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service.

The right to rectification – You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request that we complete the information you believe is incomplete.

The right to erasure – You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions we have to maintain records that are required by law such as student and employment records.

The right to restrict processing – You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to object to processing – You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to data portability – You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.

If you want us to delete your data or would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us. We will delete everything except for data that we are required by law to retain (e.g. employment records, academic records, records of criminal activity, etc.).

As a university, we realize that children under the age of 18 do visit our site to gather information about our programs.  All information on this website is considered safe for children of all ages.  We do encourage parents, guardians, and counselors to observe, participate in, and/or monitor and guide children’s online activity.

The Basel School does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 13. Those secondary school students who come to our website for information are typically 15 – 17 years old. If you think that your child under the age of 13 has provided any kind of information on our website, first of all, well done raising a kid that’s so interested in higher education at a young age, but we also do strongly encourage you to contact us immediately so we can promptly remove such information from our records. Then scroll up, find that cookie recipe, and spend some quality time together.

In case you’re wondering why we intentionally added a bit of humor to the Privacy Policy, it’s because we know how important it is to know how your data is being used, and if a bit of jocularity encourages vigilance, we are happy to oblige. We encourage you to learn more about how your data is being used by other organizations. Here are 2 good places to start:

The WIRED Guide to Your Personal Data (and Who Is Using It)

The Terrifying Cost of “Free” Websites | Adam Ruins Everything