DATA PROTECTION POLICY
A. Introduction
Who we are and the purpose of this data protection policy
Mathys Legal Advice (hereinafter: we) provides legal advice. Our goods or services are not intended for children, and we do not attempt to solicit or receive information from them.
We understand that you care about your privacy, and we take this matter very seriously. In the following lines, we inform you and describe the policies and practices of Mathys Legal Advice regarding the collection and processing of your personal data, as well as your rights in this area, especially when you visit our website, ask us a legal question, make an appointment with us, subscribe to our newsletter, or use any other service that requires the provision of personal data. This document does not constitute a contract with you.
By "personal data" (hereinafter data), we mean information that identifies or can be used to identify an individual, whether by this information or a combination of information.
Our data protection policy aligns with the rules applicable under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (LPD).
By using our website and/or communicating with us, whether through a contact form on our site, by email, or any other means, you consent to the application of this personal data protection policy. If you do not accept it, please let us know or refrain from using our website.
B. Owner and Data Controller
If you have any questions about this data protection policy or our data protection practices, you can contact us here:
Mathys Legal Advice Julie Mathys Rte du Creux-de-Boisset 20d 1286 Soral
Contact Email: contact@mathyslegaladvice.com
C. Obligation to Provide Personal Data
In general, you are not obliged to provide us with your personal data. However, if you do not provide certain information in some of the cases mentioned in this document, we may not be able to respond to your request, contact you, send you our newsletter, or provide any other goods or services.
D. Sharing Data Concerning Third Parties
If you share data about other individuals with us, we assume that this data is accurate. By sharing it, you confirm that you are authorized to do so and that you have informed these third parties about our personal data policy.
E. Links to Third Parties
This website may include links to third-party websites, plugins, and applications. Clicking on these links or activating these connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control the websites of these third parties and cannot be held responsible for their data protection practices. When you leave our website to visit a third-party website or application, we encourage you to read the data protection policy of those sites or applications you visit.
F. Personal Data Collected, How, and for What Purposes
1. Types of Personal Data Collected and Processed
Mathys Legal Advice may collect, store, use, and transfer personal data from its clients based in France and Switzerland. We limit these data to the strict minimum necessary to provide our goods and services.
These data can be collected directly when you choose to provide them to us or indirectly, for example, through the use of cookies (see Section F, item 2, letter b, ii below) or to track the usage of our website.
The personal data collected may include:
Identity data: such as your first name, last name, employer, employee, profession. In case of homonymy, we may also ask for your date of birth.
Contact data: such as your email address, phone number, billing address, delivery address.
Financial data: such as your bank details, credit card details, PayPal ID.
Transactional data: such as payment details on your part and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
Technical data: such as your IP address, login data, the type and version of your browser, your operating system, and your platform, and other technological information related to the devices you use to access our website.
Profile data: such as your username and password, purchases and orders you have made, your interests, preferences, feedback, and responses to our surveys.
Marketing and communication data: such as your preferences for receiving our marketing emails or communications and how you want to receive them.
Any other information you may provide to us.
Through our website, we do not collect or process sensitive personal data about you (race, ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, information about your health, union membership, genetic or biometric data). Furthermore, we do not collect or process criminal information about you.
2. How We Collect Your Data and for What Purposes
a. How We Collect Your Data
In general, we use the collected data to provide legal advice and goods requested by our clients and visitors, fulfill our obligations, respond to law enforcement requests, protect our rights and interests or those of our users or third parties, provide our reservation, payment, newsletter, and contact services.
We do not sell this personal data and only share it with third parties who facilitate the delivery of our goods and services.
Your data may be collected in various ways, including:
Direct interactions: You may provide us with your data by filling out a form or corresponding with us by phone, email, or other means, especially when you ask a legal question, subscribe to our services, create an account on our site, or in any other way.
Analytical technologies: When you visit and interact with our website, we may collect technical data about your device or actions through cookies, server logs, or other similar technologies. We may also receive technical data about you if you visit other sites that use our cookies (see our cookie policy for more information).
From third parties or publicly available sources: We may receive data about you from technical data analysis providers like Google, contact, financial, and transaction data from technical, payment, and delivery services such as Stripe or PayPal (see Stripe and PayPal's data protection terms and policies).
b. How and for What Purpose We Use Your Data
In general, we use your data only when the law allows us to and only those that are necessary. In this regard, Mathys Legal Advice may process personal data about you if one of the following conditions applies:
You have given your consent for one or more specific purposes. Note that in some legislations, we may be allowed to process personal data until you object (opt-out), without relying on consent or one of the following legal bases;
The provision of data is necessary for the performance of a contract with you or for any pre-contractual obligation;
Processing is necessary to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject;
Processing is related to a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in us;
Processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by us or by a third party.
In any case, we are happy to help clarify the specific legal basis that applies to processing, especially if the provision of personal data is a legal or contractual requirement or a requirement necessary to enter into a contract.
In particular, Mathys Legal Advice may collect and process your personal data for the following purposes:
i. Use of the Website, Digital Analysis, Comments, and "Like" Functionality, Fonts
The data we collect and process when you use our website are those that allow us to operate, provide, and secure the website and the services provided therein, as well as those that allow us to analyze the use of our site for a user-friendly and personalized experience.
Our website collects personal data for the purpose of powering our analyses, including:
Information about your browser, network, and device.
The web pages you visited before accessing this website.
Your IP address.
These details may also include information about your use of our website, such as:
Clicks.
Internal links.
Pages visited.
Scrolling.
Searches.
Timestamp.
We share this information with Squarespace, our hosting service, and Google Analytics 4 (GA4), our web analytics provider, to understand website traffic and activity. You can find Google Analytics 4's privacy policies here: Google Analytics 4 Privacy Policies.
If you have accepted analytics cookies (see section ii. cookies below for how to configure your browser to refuse cookies or GA4), we use this information in aggregate to understand which content our users and customers find useful or interesting, so that we can produce the most relevant content to meet your needs.
Our website includes a comment feature on certain pages that allows you to post a comment. In this context, our website collects personal data when you post a comment, including:
Your name (which will be displayed as part of your published comment).
Your email address (optional, for notification if your comment receives a response).
URL of your website (optional).
Our website also includes the "Like" feature on certain blog posts, which allows you to "like" a post. In this context, our website collects personal data when you like a post to prevent the same person from liking the same post during the same visit, including:
Information about your browser, network, and device.
Information about the web page or content you shared or proposed to share.
Your IP address.
Our website provides font files and displays fonts using Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts. To correctly present our website to you, these third parties may receive personal information, including:
Information from your browser, network, or device.
Information about this website and the page you are viewing on it.
Your IP address.
The collection and processing of data mentioned in this section is based on our legitimate interest in operating and securing our website and services, as well as optimizing our site for its use, including obtaining statistics on its use and the interest in our goods or services. The collected data will not be merged with other personal data or disclosed to third parties.
Analysis through cookies is based on your consent (see the "Cookies" section below).
ii. Cookies
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text managed by your browser and directly stored on your device when you visit our website or open our marketing communications, such as newsletters or event invitations.
To learn about the cookies placed in your browser by our website host, please refer to the article Cookies Used by Squarespace.
Cookies may also come from third-party providers such as Google Analytics 4. To understand how Google Analytics 4 uses cookies, you can consult the article How Google Uses Cookies.
Functional and necessary cookies are used automatically to enable Squarespace, our hosting platform, to ensure a secure and user-friendly use of our website.
Analytical and performance cookies are used on our website only when you acknowledge our cookie banner and click "accept." These analytical and performance cookies are used to analyze website traffic, activity, and other site data, providing us with information and statistical data on interactions with our site (such as the number and duration of sessions, content popularity statistics, demographics, visitor regions, browsers, and devices used).
For more details about our cookies, please refer to our Cookie Policy.
Our third-party service providers mentioned in Section G, item 1 of this document may also use cookies to provide us with statistical data, including open rates and popular links. You can find the link to their own data protection policy in Section G of this document and their cookie policy in our Cookie Policy.
Please note that providers such as Google, through the use of cookies, may track your usage of our website and combine this information with other data related to your visits to other websites for their own purposes. Their use of your data in this context is governed by their own data protection regulations.
Disabling Cookies in Your Browser and Google Analytics:
You can configure your browser to reject some or all browser cookies or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of our website may become inaccessible or may not function correctly.
Furthermore, you can also disable Google Analytics.
Data collection through non essential cookies is based on our legitimate interest and your consent. If you do not prevent the function of cookies or Google Analytics and accept their use, you consent to their usage.
iii. Pre-Contractual and Contractual Relationship with Mathys Legal Advice
You can correspond with Mathys Legal Advice by email or by sending a form accessible on our website, or any other means of communication.
When you send us information in this context, we collect the data required by the form or any other means of communication to process your requests and respond to them. This may include your name, email address, phone number, or any other information that allows us to communicate with you and respond to your requests for legal advice, opinions, or training, as well as manage our relationship with you. You may also provide us with content and other metadata or any other information you choose to share with us.
We share this data with Squarespace, which hosts our website, to be able to respond to your requests. We also share this data with HubSpot and Google Calendar (see Section G, item 1 below).
We may retain this data to document our communications with you or for other requests you may have in the future, as well as for regulatory purposes.
The collection and processing of this data are based on our legitimate interest and rely on your consent or a contract with you.
iv. Newsletter & Surveys
We may collect your personal data for marketing purposes, especially within the scope of our newsletter service. This data is shared with our email marketing provider, Mailerlite (see Section G, item 1), so that they can send these emails on our behalf.
In this context, personal contact data, as well as data related to your identity and preferences, may be collected and processed.
The purpose of collecting this personal data is to have the necessary information to send you the most personalized email communications from Mathys Legal Advice.
Unsubscribe:
You can unsubscribe from our newsletters at any time by following the link provided in the email you received or by sending your request to contact@mathyslegaladvice.com.
From time to time, Mathys Legal Advice sends surveys to its clients. By subscribing to the newsletter, you agree to receive these surveys. You are under no obligation to respond to these surveys. If you choose to respond to the surveys, we share the data you provide with SurveyMonkey, our survey creation provider (see Section G, item 1).
The collection and processing of this data are based on our legitimate interest and your consent.
Data Deletion:
You can request at any time that Mathys Legal Advice delete your personal data from the Mailerlite or SurveyMonkey database by contacting us at contact@mathyslegaladvice.com.
v. Appointment Booking
Mathys Legal Advice uses a third-party appointment scheduling software (HubSpot, see Section G, item 1) to allow its clients to book appointments. The data collected for this purpose includes your identity data (first name, last name) and your contact data (email, phone number).
This service is necessary to enable you to schedule appointments with us and ensure efficient appointment management. It facilitates the synchronization of our schedule and allows for any cancellations or changes to your appointments.
When you schedule an appointment on our website, the information you provide is stored in the HubSpot database.
The collection and processing of this data are based on our legitimate interest and rely on your consent.
You can request at any time that Mathys Legal Advice delete your personal data from the HubSpot database by contacting us at contact@mathyslegaladvice.com.
vi. Payment and Purchase
We may collect data related to your identity or financial data when you decide to order or purchase a product on our website.
The purpose here is to fulfill your request to purchase our goods or services. This collection can be done through the services of Stripe, Paypal, or any other means of communication.
The collection and processing of this data are based on our legitimate interest and rely on your consent.
G. Disclosure and Data Transfer
Regardless of how you have provided us with your data, in order to provide you with our goods or services, we may need to transfer your data to third-party services, which may result in cross-border data transfers.
We select providers who adhere to data protection security rules and process them in compliance with Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection and the European General Data Protection Regulation.
These service providers do not process your data for personal purposes and do not sell them to third parties. We only authorize them to process your personal data for the specific purposes specified in this data protection policy.
Our website includes links to the websites of our service providers listed below. Please note that we are not responsible for their own data protection policy. Here are the links to their respective data protection policies:
Squarespace: https://www.squarespace.com/privacy
Mailerlite: https://www.mailerlite.com/legal/privacy-policy
SurveyMonkey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/legal/privacy/
HubSpot: https://legal.hubspot.com/privacy-policy
Stripe: https://stripe.com/privacy
Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full
1. Service Providers
a. Website
Squarespace, Inc.: Our website is hosted by Squarespace, Inc. This service is necessary for the publication and maintenance of our website.
When you visit our site, you can expressly accept or refuse the activation of non-essential cookies. If you consent to the use of non-essential cookies by Squarespace, Inc., the data collected allows us to analyze the usage and performance of our website based on your interaction with our pages.
You can also directly provide information that will be stored by our website, for example, by using a contact form, posting a comment, or placing an order.
b. Newsletters and Surveys
Mailerlite: Mathys Legal Advice uses a third-party email provider, Mailerlite, to manage and send newsletters. This service is necessary for sending mass emails, managing subscriptions and unsubscriptions, and tracking open rates and invalid email addresses.
When you click on a hyperlink in the received email, the URL includes a tracking code that records this information in the Mathys Legal Advice account with Mailerlite and associates it with you. Mathys Legal Advice uses this information to better understand what information interests its subscribers to optimize the information that is useful to them.
When you subscribe to our newsletter, you do so through a form on our website. This form sends your data to a document stored in our Google Drive associated with Mailerlite. This procedure is necessary due to the integration between Mailerlite and our website hosted by Squarespace Inc. Your data is then stored in the Mailerlite database.
SurveyMonkey: Mathys Legal Advice uses a survey creation provider, SurveyMonkey. This service allows us to create, deploy, administer, and analyze online surveys. When you respond to a survey, your responses and any personal data you provide are kept with SurveyMonkey. This storage is necessary for analyzing the survey results. SurveyMonkey does not use or sell this information.
As mentioned earlier, you can unsubscribe from our communications at any time within the communications themselves.
If you have any difficulty managing your communication preferences with Mathys Legal Advice, contact us at contact@mathyslegaladvice.com.
c. Appointment Scheduling
To allow you to schedule appointments with us, we use HubSpot's online appointment scheduling software. This service is connected to our Google Calendar to efficiently manage our appointments.
In this context, you provide your name and email address.
d. Financial Services
To provide you with secure and efficient payment services, we use the following providers:
Stripe Payments Europe, Limited: This service collects your payment data, name, and first name.
Paypal: This service collects your payment data, name, and first name (ask the data stored to Paypal).
2. Cross-Border Data Transfer
Within the scope of the mentioned services, we may transfer data to the following countries that provide adequate protection according to Swiss data protection laws and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union: States that are part of the European Economic Area.
In some cases, we may also need to transfer your data to countries that do not benefit from a Swiss or European Union adequacy decision, particularly the United States or other countries, if necessary to achieve the purpose of processing, such as our IT or financial services. In such cases, the transfer is secured by appropriate safeguards, such as Contractual Clauses or by means of a legal exemption, like your consent for the transfer, if the transfer is directly related to the conclusion or execution of a contract or if the transfer is necessary to establish, exercise, or defend legal rights abroad.
H. Storage Duration
Unless otherwise stated in this document, we process and retain your data for as long as necessary for the purposes for which they were collected. They may be kept for a longer period due to a legal obligation, the time required to document our legitimate interests, or based on your consent.
Once the retention period has expired, we will delete your data. Therefore, the right to access, the right to erasure, the right to rectification, and the right to data portability may not apply after the expiration of the retention period.
In particular:
Usage data of our website will be processed for as long as necessary to access and secure the stability and integrity of the relevant systems.
Website analytics data will be stored for as long as necessary to perform the said analyses.
Cookies will be stored on your device for the period necessary to fulfill their purpose, as outlined in the cookie policy. They will then be deleted by your browser.
Communication data will be deleted after responding to your request, unless we have a legal obligation to retain them or have a compelling or legitimate interest in keeping them.
Marketing-related data is kept for as long as necessary for this purpose. Subsequently, this data is deleted unless we are required to retain it for legal obligations or have a compelling or legitimate interest in doing so.
Payment data will be retained in accordance with the duration required by law, especially in tax matters.
I. Unsubscribing (Opting-out)
You can request at any time that we, or our service providers, stop sending you marketing messages by visiting the relevant website and checking or unchecking the appropriate boxes to adjust your marketing preferences or by contacting us directly at: contact@mathyslegaladvice.com
When you opt out of receiving these marketing communications, it does not apply to personal data you provide to us as a result of purchasing goods or services, experiencing goods or services, or other transactions.
J. Change of Purposes
We will use your personal data only for the purposes for which we collected them, unless a legitimate interest justifies their use for another reason, and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.
If we need to use your personal data for a new purpose, we will inform you in advance, explaining the legal grounds that allow us to do so, in order to obtain your consent.
Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in accordance with this policy, when required or permitted by law.
K. Security of Your Data and Responsibility
When we collect your personal data, we take all technical and organizational measures to keep them secure.
Any external providers we use to process your personal data must also comply with all applicable rules for the protection of personal data, whether for their storage or processing.
If we or our data providers discover a suspected breach of your personal data, we will inform you when we are legally required to do so.
However, be aware that the transmission of information via the Internet and other electronic media carries security risks. Therefore, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted by these means.
L. Your Rights
In terms of data protection, you have the following rights that you can exercise at any time and free of charge, except in cases of manifest abuse and as long as the applicable law allows:
Right of access: You have the right to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check whether they are being processed in accordance with the law.
Right to information: You have the right to inquire if we are processing data about you.
Right to correction: If we process your data, you can ask us to correct or complete them if they are incorrect or incomplete.
Right to erasure: You can request the deletion of your data, unless we have a legal obligation, a compelling interest, or a legitimate interest in keeping them.
Right to object to processing: If data are processed in the public interest, in the exercise of official authority vested in us, or for the purposes of our legitimate interests in processing, you can object to this processing by providing a reason related to your particular situation that justifies the objection. If data are processed for direct marketing purposes, you can object to this processing at any time, free of charge, and without justification. When you object to processing for direct marketing purposes, your data will no longer be processed for such purposes.
Right to restriction: You can request the temporary restriction of the processing of your data.
Right to data portability: To the extent that it is technically possible, you can ask us to provide your data to a third party in electronic format.
Right to withdraw your consent: You have the right to revoke any consent you previously gave for the use of your data. This revocation does not render the processing of your data that occurred before the revocation of your consent unlawful.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the contact details provided in section B of this document. Before responding to your request, we may ask for proof of your identity to ensure that we do not disclose your data to an unauthorized person.
We will respond as soon as possible, but no later than within one month. Any rectification or erasure of your data or any limitation of processing will be communicated to each recipient to whom the data have been disclosed, unless this proves impossible or involves a disproportionate effort.
M. Complaints
If you believe that our data protection policy does not comply with legal requirements, you can first inform us by contacting us at the contact details provided in section B of this document.
Alternatively, you can also contact the data protection authority.
In Switzerland, this authority is the Federal Data Protection and Transparency Commissioner.
Link to the Federal Data Protection and Transparency Commissioner's Website
N. Modifications
The privacy of information is continually evolving, and we will make updates to our data protection policy as necessary. The version published on our website is the one that applies.