Privacy policy

This Privacy Policy was last updated on January 1, 2025.

Please read the following Privacy Policy carefully.

1. Introduction

The protection of personal data is very important to us. This Privacy Policy explains how Acvantage uses the personal data we collect from you when you use our website.

https://acvantage.ch is a showcase website providing information related to management consulting, business, innovation and development trends in the financial services sector.

Data controller:

Full business name: Acvantage, Yaman Farhang.
Contact details: See section 15. below.
For ease of reference, the abbreviated name “Acvantage” is used throughout this website.
Acvantage is fully owned by Yaman Farhang.

Web hosting provider:

Infomaniak Network SA.
Address: Rue Eugène Marziano 25, CH-1227 Les Acacias (GE).
Website: https://www.infomaniak.com/en/about
Contact: https://www.infomaniak.com/en/help

2. Legal basis for processing personal data

Preliminary definitions:

Personal data: Any information related to an identified or identifiable natural person.
Processing: Any operation with personal data, irrespective of the means applied and the procedure, and in particular the collection, storage, use, revision, disclosure, archiving or destruction of data.

The way Acvantage processes personal data is subject to Swiss data protection law, the so-called Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP), and any foreign data protection law if / when applicable, in particular the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). EU authorities consider Swiss data protection law provides an adequate level of data protection.

Acvantage relies on one or more of the following bases to process your personal data:

You give your consent that we process your personal data for a specific reason.
The processing is necessary to take steps to enter into a contract that you may wish to conclude with us or to perform any such agreement.
The processing is necessary to comply with a legal / regulatory obligation (e.g., providing data to a law enforcement agency / authority / public body, keeping contractual / tax / social benefit records).
The processing is necessary to protect your vital interests, those of another person, or to perform a task carried out in the public interest.
Unless overridden by interests or fundamental rights and freedoms requiring a protection of personal data, the processing is necessary for the purposes of a legitimate interest pursued by Acvantage or a third party, such as:

Provision of our services and quality delivery on our missions;

Protection of Acvantage business interests;

Assessment and ongoing improvement of our website as well as of our products and services;

Marketing and business development unless you disagree;

Complaint / litigation management and the enforcement of our own legal rights;

Security and prevention / detection / elimination of illegal activities.

We would also like to point out that even if you withdraw your consent, it may still be lawful for Acvantage to continue processing your data if one or more of the other above-mentioned bases still apply.

3. Types of personal data collected

We process the personal data necessary to communicate about and provide our services in a durable, reliable, user-friendly and secure manner.

We generally process personal data only with your consent, unless the processing is permitted for other legal reasons, such as to take appropriate steps before entering into or performing a contract with you, to protect our overriding legitimate interests, because the processing is obvious in the specific circumstances, or after prior notice.

From this perspective and in the context of its website, Acvantage collects the following types of personal data:

Identification data (e.g., first name, last name, company name)
Contact data (e.g., email address, phone number, postal address)
Behavioural and usage data (e.g., browsing history, search data, reading data, device and technological data, interaction data, service usage data)
Business data (e.g., messages to us)
Professional data (e.g., application documents, CV, references)

4. Data access and collection process

You directly provide Acvantage with most of the data we collect. We collect data and process personal data when you:

Access and use / view our website, via your browser’s cookies and other related technologies (see section 10. below).
Voluntarily send us an email using one of the email addresses provided on the website or when using the embedded contact form.
Voluntarily comment on any of our publications / posts on the website, complete a survey, or provide feedback.

We may also indirectly access the data you voluntarily share with your broader connections on LinkedIn if you choose to connect to our Acvantage LinkedIn profile (there is a link to this profile on the website). We may additionally obtain data from publicly and legitimately accessible sources such as your site for example.

5. Use of data

Acvantage collects your data so that we can:

Reply to and follow-up on your emails or your messages sent through our embedded contact form.
Contact you, if you agree, in the context of marketing / business development activities (see section 9. below)
Follow up on any pre-contractual activities or contractual engagement.
Review the application you have decided to submit to us in case you are interested in working for / with or partnering with Acvantage.

Moreover, we keep a record of the sections and articles on our website that you have clicked on and use this information to improve the relevance of the content and of our products and services, and to refine our communications to you based on your interests from your reading.

In addition, we retain and evaluate information about your recent visits to our website and how you move around different parts of our website for analytics purposes to understand how people use our website so that we can make it more effective and intuitive.

6. Website tools and components

Acvantage has selected a few external plugins and components for the design and security of its website. In doing so, we have favoured solutions that have a solid reputation for technological effectiveness and respect for privacy principles.

In particular, our website uses:

La Sentinelle Antispam: This simple antispam filter does not rely on captcha technology or the use of third-party services, and does not track site visitors.
Wordfence: This plugin is a popular firewall and security scanner. The company behind Wordfence has notably updated its terms of use, privacy policies and software for GDPR compliance. Furthermore, we have disabled the “Participate in the Real-Time Wordfence Security Network” option to avoid any associated data exchange outside Switzerland or Europe.
Complianz: This tool is a well-recognised cookie consent plugin that supports GDPR, ePrivacy, and other data regulations with a conditional cookie notice and customised Cookie Policy based on the results of its cookie scan feature. Complianz is a stand-alone plugin that operates on the server owned or controlled by a website administrator. No data is shared with Complianz as a provider (https://complianz.io/do-i-need-a-processing-agreement-with-complianz/).
Matomo Analytics: This analytics plugin solution works in conjunction with Complianz. Complianz requests and tracks visitor consent, and enables or disables Matomo tracking based on the consent status. This solution does not use any third-party services and, in our case, data remains stored on the website servers. For further information on Matomo and data protection, see https://fr.matomo.org/gdpr-analytics/
OMGF: To avoid the possible exchange of data outside Switzerland or Europe and to protect your privacy, we have decided to host website Fonts locally via a tool called OMGF.
A checkbox: We have a set-up a consent checkbox in relation to data as a preliminary to the use of our contact form.

7. Storage of data and security

Acvantage has its office in Switzerland. We take reasonable and appropriate technological and organisational measures to ensure personal data protection and data security, such as:

Use of anti-virus / security softwares.
Regular patching / updating of programmes and IT systems.
Strong website passwords and MFA.
Strong encryption.
Cyber awareness.
Strict access control.

Nevertheless, despite such measures, there are always inherent security risks in processing data on the Internet. We can therefore not warrant absolute data security.

In addition, our website uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology. This means that all your communications and data are encrypted as they pass from your browser to the site’s server. In particular, any information that you provide directly through our website, specifically using our embedded contact form, is transmitted to the server via a secure connection. However, email messages are not protected as such.

Moreover, we have chosen a well-established web hosting provider, also based in Switzerland. As a subcontractor, Infomaniak Network SA stores the data in its datacentres located exclusively in Switzerland and applies high digital and organisational security standards. (https://www.infomaniak.com/en/legal/general-data-protection-regulation).

8.Retention period

As a general principle, we process and store personal data for as long as is necessary for the reasons stated above, legitimate business interests (for example for evidence or documentation purposes) or as required by law / for legal reasons. Data that is no longer needed will be deleted (or anonymised).

In particular, Acvantage will:

Retain digital identification data and erase such data after a maximum of 24 months.
Retain digital contact data and erase such data after a maximum of 24 months.
Retain digital behavioural and usage data, and erase or anonymise such data after a maximum of 24 months.
Retain digital business data and erase or anonymise such data when they are personal after a maximum of 24 months. However, data relating to complaints or legal matters will be retained for a maximum of 36 months before being deleted, unless they are still unresolved.
Retain your digital application and erase such data after a maximum of 12 months if no contract has been signed.
Retain and destroy any printed document related to the previous data categories when corresponding digital data are erased (or anonymised).

These maximum retention periods apply unless there is a legal requirement / reason for any of the information above to be retained for a longer period.

For example, in cases where a Swiss-regulated contract has been entered into (e.g., employment, partnership), Swiss legal requirements apply to the retention period.

9. Marketing and business development

As a business, we have a legitimate interest in being able to develop mutually beneficial relationships with our prospects and clients.

In this context, Acvantage would like to send you information, from time to time, about our products and services that we think you might like.

Similarly, we may wish to contact you, from time to time, to offer you the opportunity to participate in an event, survey or other business activity that we think you might enjoy.

If you do not wish to be contacted for these purposes, please do not hesitate to let us know, either by replying to the relevant message you receive, or at any time using the contact details at the bottom of this page (see section 15. below).

Of course, you can always opt-out, even if you have previously requested or agreed to receive marketing and business information.

10. Cookies and other related technologies

This website uses cookies and other related technologies. For more information on this topic from a data protection angle, please read our Cookie Policy, which is an important element of this broader Privacy Policy. You can find our Cookie Policy on a dedicated page on the website.

11. References and links

This site contains references and links to other websites. Our Privacy Policy only applies to our site. Therefore, if you click on a link to a third-party website, you should first read their privacy policy.

Compliance with applicable privacy laws by external websites linked to our site is beyond Acvantage’s control and is the sole responsibility of the external website providers.

12. Your rights with respect to personal data

You have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

You have the right to know why your personal data is needed, what will happen to it, and how long it will be retained for.
Right of access: You have the right to access your personal data that is known to us.
Right to rectification: you have the right to supplement, correct, have deleted or blocked your personal data whenever you wish.
If you give us your consent to process your data, you have the right to revoke that consent and to have your personal data deleted.
Right to transfer your data: you have the right to request all your personal data from the controller and transfer it in its entirety to another controller.
Right to object: you may object to the processing of your data. We comply with this, unless there are justified grounds for processing.

To exercise these rights, please contact us. Please refer to the contact details at the bottom of this Privacy Policy. If you have a complaint about how we handle your data, we would like to hear from you, but you also have the right to submit a complaint to the supervisory authority (the Data Protection Authority). In Switzerland, the Data Protection Authority is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/en/home.html).

13. Updates

Acvantage can review its Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy at any time and will publish any updates in a transparent manner on the corresponding web pages of this website.

14. Miscellaneous

Our website:

Does not propose or refer to a newsletter (Acvantage does not use this marketing approach).
Does not require users to register (there is no login feature on the website).
Does not offer ordering or online payment and therefore does not handle financial data.
Does not require sensitive information such as biometric data.
Does not collect a large amount of data about a large population of individuals leveraging systematic processes or tools.
Does not use automated decision-making, scoring or profiling systems.

As part of your interest in our website, you are invited to provide some personal data when accessing and using the website and / or when sending us information. As a general principle, you are not legally obliged to provide us with any data. However, without some information, you may encounter some technical limitations when accessing / using our website or communicating with us through it.

Furthermore, please see our Terms of Use for more information about the terms and conditions that apply to your use of this website. These Terms of Use are available on the website.

15. Contact details

For questions and / or comments and / or concerns about our Privacy Policy, or if you would like to exercise your data protection rights, please contact us by using the following contact details:

Acvantage, Yaman Farhang

Prom. de l’Eglantine 4A

CH-1110 Morges

Switzerland

Website: https://acvantage.ch

Email: admin@acvantage.ch

Phone number: +41 21 801 55 12