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Privacy Statement for VeriSign Switzerland, Sarl |
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Version 1.1 – Effective February 2005
The VeriSign company on whose web site this
Privacy Statement is posted ("VeriSign") is committed to providing
you with excellent service for all of our products. Because we respect
your right to privacy, we have developed this Privacy Statement to inform
you about our privacy practices.
Overview
Privacy is of great concern to most users of
the Internet, and is a critical part of an enjoyable and satisfactory
user experience. We at VeriSign are acutely aware of and sensitive to
the privacy concerns of our subscribers and other visitors to our Web
site. Whether you are a customer of our various products and services
or a visitor to our site, we assure you that we do not collect personal
information from you unless you provide it to us. If you are enrolling
for a VeriSign digital certificate ("Digital ID"), you may
be asked to provide certain personal information. In order for us to
provide these services, it is also necessary for us to transfer your
data to VeriSign, Inc., our parent company, which is located in the
United States.
Please note that our sites contain links to other
sites. VeriSign is not responsible for the privacy practices, privacy
statements, or content regarding these other sites.
Information We Gather from You
Personal Information
We do not collect any personal information from a visitor to our site
unless that visitor explicitly and intentionally provides it. Under
no circumstances do we collect any personal data revealing racial or
ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs,
trade union membership, health, or sex life. If you are simply browsing
our site, we do not gather any personal information about you.
There are two ways in which you may explicitly
and intentionally provide us with and consent to our collection of certain
personal information:
E-mail Request for Information or Registrations for Guides or
Seminars - We use links throughout our site to provide you with the opportunity
to contact us via e-mail to ask questions, request information and materials,
register or sign up for guides or seminars, or provide comments and
suggestions. You may also be offered the opportunity to have one of
our representatives contact you personally to provide additional information
about our products or services. To do so, we may request additional
personal information from you, such as your name and telephone number,
to help us satisfy your request.
Enrollment - If you choose to enroll for one of our products
or services, we will request certain information from you. Depending
on the type of product or service that you request, you may be asked
to provide different personal information. For certain products and
services, we may require your name, address, telephone number, e-mail
address, credit card number, bank account information, IP address, or
other similar information. Other products and services may require different
or supplemental information from you in order to apply. For a detailed
listing of the type of personal information requested for our various
products, please refer to the enrollment page for the particular product
or service
Statistical Information About Your Visit
When you visit our site, our computers may automatically collect statistics
about your visit. This information does not identify you personally,
but rather identifies information about your visit to our site. We may
monitor statistics such as how many people visit our site, the user's
IP address, which pages people visit, from which domains our visitors
come and which browsers people use. We use these statistics about your
visit for aggregation purposes only. These statistics are used to help
us improve the performance of our Web site.
Use of Cookies
WWe only use "cookies" as described in this Section. A "cookie"
is a piece of information that our Web site sends to your browser, which
then stores this information on your system. If a cookie is used, our
Web site will be able to "remember" information about you
and your preferences either until you exit your current browser window
(if the cookie is temporary) or until you disable or delete the cookie.
Many users prefer to use cookies in order to help them navigate a Web
site as seamlessly as possible. You should be aware that cookies contain
no more information than you volunteer, and they are not able to "invade"
your hard drive and return to the sender personal or other information
from your computer.
Our uses of "cookies" are limited
to the following specific situations. The first situation is with respect
to temporary cookies. There are two instances in which we use temporary
cookies. First, if you are accessing our services through one of our
online applications, our Web server may automatically send your browser
a temporary cookie, which is used to help your browser navigate our
site. The only information contained in these temporary cookies is a
direction value that lets our software determine which page to show
when you hit the back button in your browser. This bit of information
is erased when you close your current browser window. If you come to
our site from one of our business partners, our Web server may also
send your browser a temporary cookie that reflects an "origination
code" for that business partner. We use this information for statistical
and marketing purposes. Second, if you are using VeriSign’s Personal
Trust Agent to log into an access-controlled section of our site, we
set a temporary session cookie to establish that you have been authenticated.
The information contained in these cookies consists of random data that
is used by the server to authenticate the browser requests to the server
for that particular session. It does not include any type of personally
identifiable information. This bit of information is erased when you
close your current browser window. If you choose not to accept a temporary
cookie, you will not be able to navigate in these online applications
or use the Personal Trust Agent or VeriSign’s Personal Trust Services.
The second situation in which we may use cookies
is when you visit our Web site and request documentation, services or
a response from us. When you are filling out a form you may be given
the option of having our Web site deliver a cookie to your local hard
drive. This type of cookie is not temporary, although you can always
delete or disable it through your browser preferences. If you choose
not to accept this type of cookie, you will still be able to use our
Web site. You might choose to receive this type of cookie in order to
save time in filling out forms and/or revisiting our Web site. We only
send this type of cookie to your browser when you have clicked on the
box labeled "Please remember my profile information" when
submitting information or communicating with us. Even if you choose
to receive this type of cookie, you can always set your browser to notify
you when you receive any cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether
to accept it in each situation in which one is sent.
How We Use and With Whom We Share the Personal
Information We Gather
The personal information we gather from you
is used by us only as explained below.
Sending you responses and updates
We generally respond to any e-mail questions, requests for product or
service information, and other inquiries that we receive. We may also
retain this correspondence to improve our products, services, and Web
site, and for other disclosed purposes. Frequently we retain contact
information so that we can send individuals updates or other important
information about our services and products. Occasionally these updates
or other important information may be sent out by another VeriSign company
or by third parties on our behalf. In situations where you have supplied
your information in connection with a question or request for information
about a product or service offered by a VeriSign business partner, we
may also send the information you have supplied to the VeriSign business
partners whether within or outside of the European Economic Area, including
countries considered by some jurisdictions not to have adequate data
protection regulations, that offer such products or services.
Facilitating the support, renewal, and purchase of our products and
services
We may use the information you submit to contact you to discuss the
support, renewal, and purchase of our products and services. We may
also provide the information you have submitted to us to a VeriSign
affiliate, business partner or representative (either within or outside
the European Economic Area, including countries considered by some jurisdictions
not to have adequate data protection regulations) so that the VeriSign
affiliate, business partner or representative can contact you and facilitate
the support, renewal, and purchase of VeriSign products and services.
You may receive a communication directly from one of our VeriSign affiliates,
business partners or representatives for this purpose.
Facilitating the provision of products or services that may be of
interest to you
We may provide the information you submit to a trusted VeriSign business
partner or vendor (either within or outside the European Economic Area,
including countries considered by some jurisdictions not to have adequate
data protection) who we believe offers products or services, which complement
VeriSign's products or services, that may be of interest to you. You
may receive a communication directly from one of our trusted VeriSign
business partners or vendors.
Facilitating the provision of certain included products and services
(if you are applying for certain types of Digital IDs or certain of
our Digital Brand Management Services)
Certain types of Digital IDs come with additional third-party services
or products that are included with the Digital ID. If you purchase one
of these Digital IDs, we may forward some or all of the information
in your application to third party providers (whether within or outside
the European Economic Area, including countries without adequate data
protection, such as the United States) so that they can provide you
with the service or product and follow up with you directly regarding
their service or product or an upgrade. Please be assured that we have
agreements with these third-party service or product providers that
prevent them from disclosing the information to other parties.
Validating your identity (if you are applying for certain types of
Digital IDs)
Certain types of Digital IDs require that we compare some of the information
in your application to information contained in a third-party database
or with some other third party source. We do this in order to authenticate
your identity and other attributes, and also to prevent identity theft.
Forming the contents of a Digital ID
The exact information that appears in our different types of Digital
IDs is set forth in the relevant enrollment page and this Privacy Statement.
Generally this information is limited to e-mail address and name, but
certain classes of Digital IDs contain additional information. For example,
Server IDs may contain the organization's Dun and Bradstreet or other
identifying number. Please note that all information that you provide
us that forms the content of a Digital ID will be "published."
Publication of Digital IDs in an accessible location (a repository)
is an integral part of enabling the widespread use of Digital IDs. Your
Digital ID will be published in our repository so that a third party
may access, review, and rely upon your Digital ID. You should have no
expectation of privacy regarding the content of your Digital ID
Disclosure by Law and Protection of VeriSign and Others
If we are required by law to disclose certain information to local,
state, federal, national or international government or law enforcement
authorities, we will do so (for example, we may disclose the identity
of purchasers of certain software products to the U.S. Department of
Commerce, Bureau of Export Administration, as required under the terms
of our export licenses). We will also disclose information to third
parties as necessary in order to comply with applicable laws and regulations.
We will also disclose information to third parties as necessary in order
to comply with applicable laws and regulations. In addition, VeriSign
may share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action
regarding illegal activities or suspected fraud, or enforce or apply
VeriSign’s agreements.
Surveys
From time-to-time we may request information from customers via surveys.
Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary and the user
therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information.
Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving
the use of and satisfaction with this Web site, and improving our customer
service and product offerings.
Your Ability to Opt-Out of Further Notifications
From time-to-time, we, or our trusted partners
and vendors, notify our subscribers of new products, announcements,
upgrades and updates. If you would like to opt-out of being notified,
please contact us at the address given at the end of this Privacy Statement.
Please be aware that you may not opt out of receiving information from
us or on our behalf regarding the security, initial use, expiration,
product enhancement or migration of our Digital IDs or other products
or services. In cases where you have received a notification from one
of our trusted partners or vendors or where we have previously shared
your information with our trusted partners or vendors, you may need
to notify them directly that you would like to opt-out of being notified
by them in the future.
Our Security Procedures
We consider the protection of all personal
information we receive from our Web site visitors and subscribers as
critical to our corporate mission. Please be assured that we have security
measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration
of any personal information we receive from you. As with any transmission
over the Internet, however, there is always some element of risk involved
in sending personal information. In order to try to minimize this risk,
we encrypt all information that you submit in ordering one of our products
or services using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
How You Can Access, Update or Correct Your
Information
We cannot update or correct information contained
in a Digital ID without destroying the integrity of the Digital ID because
we digitally sign each subscriber's Digital ID as a part of the Digital
ID issuance process. If we were to subsequently modify or remove any
information listed in a Digital ID, our digital signature would not
verify the Digital ID's new content. Furthermore, if a subscriber (sender)
then digitally signed a message with his or her private key, a third
party would not be able to properly verify the sender's signature (created
using the sender's private key) because the sender's Digital ID would
have been altered after the key pair's creation.If you would like to
update or correct any personal information in our records that is not
contained in your Digital ID, please contact us at the address given
at the end of this Privacy Statement.
If you simply want to access the personal data
we store about you, please contact us at the address given at the end
of this Privacy Statement.
How You Can Revoke (Deactivate) Your Digital
ID
When a third party wants to rely on a Digital
ID, it is important for the third party to know its status (for example,
whether it is valid, suspended (where available) or revoked). The third
party may do this by accessing our repository and querying for the status
of the Digital ID. We do not generally delete Digital IDs (and their
content) from our on-line repository because a third party might not
then be able to check its status. You may, however, revoke (deactivate)
your Digital ID. A revoked Digital ID will still appear in our repository
with an indication that it has been revoked. If you are a Digital ID
subscriber and would like to have your Digital ID revoked (deactivated)
from our database, please contact us at the address given at the end
of this Privacy Statement.
Email this Page
If you use this feature, your email address
will appear as the sender of the email. Neither your email address nor
the recipient's email address will be used for any other purpose.
Changes to this Privacy Statement
If a material change is made to this Privacy
Statement, we will post this change on our website.
For VeriSign Switzerland Sarl, you may contact
us at support@verisign.ch.
Privacy Statement Version 1.1, February 2005
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