1. Protecting the Privacy of Your Personal Information
When you sign up with Swiss Picture Bank®, a service provided by Swiss Picturebank AG ("Swiss Picturebank") a stand-alone joint-stock company (Aktiengesellschaft), organized under the laws of Switzerland, you establish a password-protected personal account for storing your digital images with Swiss Picturebank, as well as for using our other services. In order to establish your account at Swiss Picturebank, we will need your name, email address and password. This Privacy Policy applies to all information collected and used by Swiss Picturebank or its corporate parent or affiliates.
The password will allow you access to your account; as such, it needs to be as secure as possible. A good password includes seemingly random letters and numbers, and isn't obvious (i.e. does not include the name of a spouse, child, or pet). You can update your account information and change your password at any time on your Manage My Account page. If you have forgotten your password, simply click on the Forgot Your Password button and we will send a new temporary password to the current email address you have on record in your Registration Information.
When you order prints or other paid products or services, we will need your shipping address, billing name and address, as well as your credit card number and expiration date. Also, when you convert from a promotional account at Swiss Picturebank to a paid account, or otherwise sign up for a paid account, we will need (and retain) your credit card number and expiration data.
We may occasionally request information from users through surveys or contests. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary. The information requested may include Personal Information, demographic information or attitudinal information. Rest assured, the information collected is only used for purposes of improving user satisfaction with Swiss Picturebank services.
Any information you provide will be treated in accordance with Swiss Data Protection laws and regulations, in particular the Swiss Data Protection Act of June 19, 1992 (as amended) and any other amendments or new legislation that may be adopted from time to time.
Swiss Picturebank self-certifies compliance with the Safe Harbor framework of the U.S. Department of Commerce in any data exchange with the U.S.A.
Any contact with our Customer Service team or other communication from you, such as chat or emails, may be recorded to help us provide better service.
Swiss Picturebank uses state-of-the-art protection, including Secure Socket Layers (SSLs), to encrypt pages when collecting sensitive personal and financial information such as your credit card number. This measure is designed to guard against interception of this information while it is on the Internet. You can tell if you are using a secure page by looking at the bottom of your browser window where you will see a lock. If it's in a closed state, the page is encrypted.
Swiss Picturebank keeps your photos on servers that are protected against intrusion or unauthorized access by firewalls and other technological means. Only Swiss Picturebank employees and agents are given access to the information and they receive access on a need-to-know basis. All of Swiss Picturebank's employees and agents are bound by state-of-the-art confidentiality agreements.
2. Protecting the Privacy of Your Pictures
Swiss Picturebank systems are designed so that you can control who may view the pictures stored in your account. We are committed to keeping your pictures private and secure. We will never make your pictures publicly accessible, except as otherwise noted in this policy or by your own explicit action. Please note that if you share your pictures with your friends or family members, they may then post your pictures on a website or forward them to other individuals, which will make these pictures accessible to others who view the email or visit the website.
In order to provide quality products, Swiss Picturebank's, its parent's or affiliate's employees and third-party service providers fulfilling your order or providing Customer Support to you may see your pictures. All Swiss Picturebank employees and agents that may view your pictures in this capacity are bound by state of the art confidentiality agreements.
3. Who Can See Your Pictures
Your account can only be accessed with your personal email address and password. You are responsible for maintaining the privacy this login information. So long as you do not share you're the login information with others, you will be the only one who can access your account. For extra security, we recommend that you change your password often.
You can share the pictures stored in your account. When you click on click Share Album we will send an email to the recipients you select. This email will contain a link to the pictures you choose to share. The link will be specifically designed for the purpose of sharing particular photos and will not link directly into your account. To help prevent abuse of your shared pictures, you will also be able to apply security settings, including: maximum number of views (sets a limit on the number of times that the link in the email will work); authentication (if selected, requires every recipient to login using the email address where the email was received in order to view the pictures); and view only (if selected, disables the recipient's ability to download the pictures). Please note that even with these security settings, when you choose to share your stored photos with others, those individuals may be able to view them, forward them, download them, copy them, print them, or post them to other websites on the Internet.
4. Protecting the Privacy of Children
Our website is not intended for use by children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 13. Please do not register with Swiss Picturebank if you are under the age of 13.
5. Keeping You Informed Through Email & Mail
As a Swiss Picturebank customer, we will notify you in email or through the mail about new features, products and promotions. You may unsubscribe to these notification services through your account profile at www.swisspicturebank.com. Simply go to Manage My Account and uncheck the box next to "I would like to receive information about additional products and services from Swiss Picturebank AG and its partners" in order to do so.
From time to time, we may send you service announcement updates with important information about Swiss Picturebank and/or your account. We will also send you periodic account statements. Service announcements and account statements may contain information vital to your account, so subscribers may not unsubscribe from service announcements and account statements.
6. Improving Your Site Experience with Technology such as Cookies
Cookies are small data files stored by your web browser on your computer's hard drive. Cookies enable you to use our site and services. Swiss Picturebank never saves information, such as your password or your credit card number, on cookies. You may modify your browser preference to provide you with choices relating to cookies. If you choose to reject all cookies, you may not be able to access Swiss Picturebank services.
We may also use other technologies such as clear gifs, pixel tags, and scanning navigational data to collect anonymous information about our users in order to help us deliver better service and user experience. Anonymous information could include the web site you were on before coming to Swiss Picturebank, IP addresses, or areas of site being clicked on most frequently.
Our third-party service providers may also use Cookies or other technologies to help us manage our marketing efforts (these include ad servers, outbound email vendors, affiliate vendors and search engine advertising agencies, and web analytics tools). Swiss Picturebank has carefully selected these service providers and instructed these service providers not to collect personally identifiable information or share the anonymous information with anyone other than Swiss Picturebank. You may find more information about opting out of most third-party service cookies at www.networkadvertising.org or other related sites.
7. Providing Services through Third Parties and Sharing of Personal Information
Swiss Picturebank shares Personal Information with carefully screened third-party service providers for the sole purpose of providing you with the products, services and information you have requested. Examples of such third-party service providers are credit card authorization companies, merchandise distributors and shippers. They do not store, retain or access your information except to provide our services to you.
This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ("Google"). Google Analytics uses cookies, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States . Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.
If you "opt-in" when registering for Swiss Picturebank, you agree that Swiss Picturebank may share your Personal Information with our suppliers when participating in joint promotional activities in order to advise you of upcoming offerings and promotions. We may also share your Personal Information with business partners in order that they may notify you of their offerings. If you apply for or request certain products or services directly from our business partners, you may receive information directly from them regarding their products or services. Swiss Picturebank may share your Personal Information when we partner with another company to offer or provide products, services, contests, or promotions. In this case, Swiss Picturebank and the partner company may cross-reference our customer databases to identify common customers. Additionally, such information may be shared with the partner company to notify winners or to fulfill promotional obligations.
Even if you originally choose to "opt-in", you may unsubscribe to any of these promotional activities at any time by clicking on Manage My Account and deselecting the check box next to "I would like to receive information about additional products and services from Swiss Picturebank AG and its partners."
Swiss Picturebank may share very general information about our customers as a group with business partners, sponsors and other third parties. For example, we might say that a certain percentage of our customers live in the United States, while a different percentage live in France.
8. Abiding by the Law
Swiss Picturebank or its corporate parent or affiliates may be required by law to disclose Personal Information and/or pictures to proper law enforcement authorities even though you might have requested that we do not share your information. This information may be necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against anyone who may attempt to cause injury to another's rights or property.
If we receive notification that you are using your account for illegal purposes, we will investigate your account and will review your Personal Information and the pictures in your account. If we determine that you are in potential violation of the law, we will report the potential illegal activity and will share your Personal Information and pictures with the proper law enforcement authorities.
If we merge with, or are acquired by another company, the resulting combined company will use the Personal Information you have provided as described in this policy. If we cease operation, your Personal Information may be transferred to and used by another company that offers similar or related products or services.
9. Changes and Notification
We reserve the right to modify our Privacy Policy at any time. If our privacy policy changes, the revised policy will be posted on this site and we will change the "updated" date at the top of this page to reflect the date of the modification. Please check back periodically.
10. Contact Us
We at Swiss Picturebank will do our utmost to keep all your information up to date when you provide it to us, and to guard your privacy by continuously evaluating the enforcement and nature of our policies. If any of your Personal Information changes, or you identify a mistake in our records, please use the Manage My Account page to update your data, or contact us and we will update your data right away. Please email us at contact@swisspicturebank.com to communicate any questions or concerns.
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