Data can be irrelevant or meaningful. It can be treated negligently or protected with the greatest care. It adds value but also has the potential to do serious damage, whether to the people it relates to (and whose privacy rights are violated) or those who have made it available (and whose reputation suffers). And, not least, data is associated with a value that increases as this data becomes more complete and more useful.
At StiftungSchweiz, we want to air these questions transparently. Our data mission statement is a set of ethical guidelines. By extension, it serves as a fundamental addition to our privacy policy. It clarifies whether we use data for everything that’s legally permissible and could conceivably be possible,
or whether we deliberately impose limits on ourselves.
The beta version of our data mission statement has been drawn up in stages over the past few months. Martin Steiger, an expert in law in the digital space, assisted us during this process (see Advice, p. 26). The outcome has not yet been finalised. Now, it’s your turn. Do you think the current version is ground-breaking or feeble? Where would you start?
Join the discussion and share your questions, comments or suggestions directly on the collaboration platform Miro
01
At StiftungSchweiz, we differentiate between four categories of data, depending on the data’s properties and level of sensitivity.
Data on organisations that is publicly accessible by law.
Data made public by its owners.
Non-public data that is entrusted to us so we can generate added value for philanthropy.
Data we collect and evaluate ourselves with the aim of giving our users the best possible user experience and providing services that meet their needs.
02
We store our data on servers in Western Europe and exceed the minimum data protection standards wherever possible.
Category A, B and C data is solely saved on trustworthy servers in Western Europe that comply with stringent security requirements.
Third-party providers that store and process category D data on our behalf are reviewed regularly and minimise the amount of data exported.
Our privacy policy contains transparent information on how we store and process personal data.
All processes and transactions on our platform are optimized according to the highest security standards to offer you a secure donation opportunity.
03
We use sensitive data carefully and exclusively as part of services we perform ourselves.
We believe that every use of category B and C data must generate visible added value for philanthropy.
Category C and D data can only be viewed by registered users and is neither disclosed nor sold as standalone data.
04
We provide data in aggregated, anonymised or pseudonymised form for research and statistics purposes.
The aggregation, anonymisation or pseudonymisation process is supervised by an external specialist body.
In the future, it is possible that an open data platform may be operated in collaboration with our research partners.
05
If we change this mission statement, our partners and users have a right to object.
We publish any changes to this data mission statement on our channels and grant all partners and registered users a right to object.
This right is also listed in contracts and our Ts & Cs.
Join the discussion and share your questions, comments or suggestions via the collaboration platform
