Your Privacy Matters
Biolia Sàrl, our fundamental philosophy is “EcoMembers first.” That value powers all of the decisions we make, including how we gather and respect your personal information.
We’ve crafted the policy below to be as clear and straightforward as possible. Our aim is for you—our EcoMembers —to always feel informed and empowered with respect to your privacy on EcoCook.
Introduction
Biolia’s website is designed to present our motivation, mission and services to organizations and companies in the HoReCa (Hotel, Restaurant and Catering) sector worldwide. Our services allow you to assess, define and achieve your sustainability goals.
Our registered users (“EcoMembers”) share their professional identities, engage with their network, exchange knowledge and professional insights, publish their level of sustainability. We believe that our services allow our EcoMembers (restaurants) to effectively compete and achieve their full potential. The cornerstone of our company is to focus on our EcoMembers.
Maintaining your trust is our top priority, so we adhere to the following principles to protect your privacy:
- We protect your personal information and will only provide it to third parties: (1) with your consent; (2) where it is necessary to carry out your instructions; (3) as reasonably necessary in order to provide our features and functionality to you; (4) when we reasonably believe it is required by law, subpoena or other legal process; or (5) as necessary to enforce our User Agreement or protect the rights, property, our Members and Visitors, and the public.
- We have implemented appropriate security safeguards designed to protect your information in accordance with industry standards.
This Privacy Policy applies to applications, to the following websites: Biolia.ch and EcoCook web, their mobile applications, and to Biolia and EcoCook web and mobile platforms, such as “Share on EcoCook” plugins for publishers), EcoChats, EcoMessages and all other products and services.
We may modify this Privacy Policy from time to time, and if we make material changes to it, we will provide notice through our Service, or by other means so that you may review the changes before you continue to use our Services. If you object to any changes, you may close your account.
Continuing to use our Services after we publish or communicate a notice about any changes to this Privacy Policy means that you are consenting to the changes.
1. Introduction
1.1. Data Controllers
The personal information provided to or collected by our Services is controlled by Biolia Sàrl, Route de la Pierre 22, 1024 Ecublens.
If you have any concern about providing information to us or having such information displayed on our Services or otherwise used in any manner permitted in this Privacy Policy and the User Agreement, you should not become a Member, visit our websites, apps or otherwise use our Services. If you have already registered, you can close your accounts.
1.2. Address Book and Other Services That Sync with Biolia
You may use our address book or “contacts” importer (or other similar features) to upload your address book into our Services. We store this information (including phone numbers) and use it to help you manage and leverage your contacts in connection with our Services. We also use this information to enhance your experience with our Services by helping you to grow your network by: identifying your contacts that are already EcoMembers of our Services; providing a template to send invitations on your behalf to your contacts that are not EcoMembers; and suggesting people you may know (even if not in your contacts) but are not yet connected with you on our Services (as we may infer from your shared connections, types of restaurants). We may also use this information to show you and other EcoMembers that you share the same uploaded contacts who may or may not be EcoMembers.
Please note that when you send an invitation to connect to another individual on our Service or to join our Service to connect with you (an EcoRelation), that person may have access to your email address or, for SMS invitations, mobile number because it may be displayed in the invitation. After sending these invitations, we may also remind your invitees of your invitation on your behalf.
We make other tools available to sync information with our Services, and may also develop additional features that allow EcoMembers to use their account in conjunction with other third-party services.
Another example are software tools that allow you to see our and other public information about EcoMembers you email or meet with and leverage our Services to help you gain insights from and grow your network. If you grant these products permission to access your messages, they will access and may store some of your information. Our products that sync with external messages services may also temporarily cache message content for performance reasons, in a way that is unreadable by Biolia Sàrl and our service providers.
Any information that you upload or sync with our Services is covered by the User Agreement and this Privacy Policy. You can remove your information at your convenience using the features we make available or in accordance with Section 3. You can remove your address book and any other synced information at any time.
1.3. Customer Service
When you contact our customer support services (e.g. on our Help Center), we may have to access your EcoMessage comments and other contributions to our Services and collect the information we need to categorize your question, respond to it, and, if applicable, investigate any breach of our User Agreement or this Privacy Policy. We also use this information to track potential problems and trends and customize our support responses to better serve you. We do not use this information for advertising.
1.4. Using Third-Party Services and Visiting Third-Party Sites
You allow us to receive information when you use your account to log in to a third-party website or application. Also, when you visit a third-party site that embeds our social plugins we receive information that those pages have loaded in your web browser. If you are logged in as a Member when you visit sites with our plugins, we use this information to recommend tailored content to you. We will use this information to personalize the functionality we provide on third-party sites, including providing you insights from your professional network and allowing you to share information with your network. Our retention of this data is addressed in Section 3.2. We may provide reports containing aggregated impression information to companies hosting our plugins and similar technologies to help them measure traffic to their websites, but no personal data.
You also allow us to receive information about your visits and interaction with the sites and services of our partners that include our cookies and similar technologies, unless you opt out. If you are not a Member, we rely on the online terms between you and our partners.
1.5. Cookies
As described in our Cookie Policy, we use cookies and similar technologies, including mobile application identifiers, to help us recognize you across different Services, learn about your interests both on and off our Services, improve your experience, increase security, measure use and effectiveness of our Services, and serve advertising. You can control cookies through your browser settings and other tools. By visiting our Services, you consent to the placement of cookies and beacons in your browser and HTML-based emails in accordance with this Privacy Policy, which incorporates by reference our Cookie Policy.
1.6. Advertising Technologies and Web Beacons
We target (and measure the performance of) ads to EcoMembers, Visitors and others both on and off of our Services through a variety of ad networks and ad exchanges, using the following, whether separately or combined:
- Advertising technologies on and off of our Services, like web beacons, pixels, ad tags, cookies, and mobile identifiers as permitted by mobile platforms;
- EcoMembers-provided profile and contact information and categories;
- Information inferred from a EcoMembers‘ profile;
- Your use of our Services and log files generated as described in Section 1.10;
- Information from 3rd parties, which we use in addition to the information from our cookies and similar technologies, your profile and use of our Services.
We do not share your personal information with any third-party advertisers or ad networks for advertising without your separate permission. Note that, as described in Section 2.6, your profile is visible to other Members and through public search depending on your settings. Also, advertising partners may associate personal information collected by the advertiser directly from you with our cookies and similar technologies. In such instances, we contractually require such advertisers to obtain your explicit opt-in consent before doing so.
We may show you sponsored content in your network update stream, which will be designated as sponsored content and will behave like other network update stream updates. If you take social action (for example, if you “like” or “comment” on the sponsored content), your action may be seen by your network and other EcoMembers who are shown the sponsored content after you have acted on it. Please note that all social actions (e.g. liking certain content, following or being followed by others) are public, unless expressly specified otherwise with respect to premium accounts.
We adhere to self-regulatory principles for interest-based advertising from the Swiss Commission on Loyalty. If you wish to not receive targeted ads from most third party companies, you may opt-out. Please note this does not opt you out of being served advertising. You will continue to receive generic ads or targeted ads by companies not listed with these opt-out tools. You can also opt out specifically from our use of cookies and similar technologies to track your behavior on third party sites.
1.7. Log Files, IP Addresses, and Information About Your Computer and Mobile Device
When you visit or leave our Services (whether as a EcoMembers or Visitor) by clicking a hyperlink or when you view a third-party site that includes our plugin or cookies (or similar technology), we automatically receive the URL of the site from which you came or the one to which you are directed. Also, advertisers receive the URL of the page that you are on when you click an ad on or through our Services. We also receive the internet protocol (“IP”) address of your computer or the proxy server that you use to access the web, your computer operating system details, your type of web browser, your mobile device (including your mobile device identifier provided by your mobile device operating system), your mobile operating system (if you are accessing Biolia.ch using a mobile device), and the name of your ISP or your mobile carrier. We may also receive location data passed to us from third-party services or GPS-enabled devices that you have set up. Most mobile devices allow you to prevent real time location data being sent to us, and of course we will honor your settings.
In the case of our Android apps, you will be provided notice of the types of data (e.g. location) that will be sent to us.
If you choose to use our app after this notice, we process this data to enable registration or preview product features for you. If you choose not to become a Member, we will delete this information.
1.8. Other
Our Services are a dynamic, innovative environment, which means we are always seeking to improve the Services we offer you. We often introduce new features, some of which may result in the collection of new information (for example, when the Endorsements feature launched, we began collecting information about skills for which Members were endorsed and the individuals who endorsed them). Furthermore, new partnerships or corporate acquisitions may result in new features, and we may potentially collect new types of information. If we start collecting substantially new types of personal information and materially change how we handle your data, we will modify this Privacy Policy and notify you in accordance with Section 4.3.
2. How we use your personal information
2.1. Consent to Biolia Sàrl Processing Information About You
You agree that information you provide on your profile can be seen by others and used by us as described in this Privacy Policy and our User Agreement.
The personal information that you provide to us may reveal or allow others to identify aspects of your life that are not expressly stated on your profile. By providing personal information to us when you create or update your account and profile, you are expressly and voluntarily accepting the terms and conditions of our User Agreement and freely accepting and agreeing to our processing of your personal information in ways set out by this Privacy Policy. Supplying to us any information deemed “sensitive” by applicable law is entirely voluntary on your part. You can withdraw or modify your consent to our collection and processing of the information you provide at any time, in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy and the User Agreement.
2.2. User Communications
Many communications that you initiate through our Services (for example, an invitation sent to a non-Member) will list your name and primary email address in the header of the message. Messages you initiate may also provide the recipient with aggregate information about your network (for example, how many people are in your network). Other communications that you initiate through the Services, like a request for an introduction, will list your name as the initiator but will not include your personal email address contact information. Once you have connected with an individual, regardless of who sent the invitation, your contact information will be shared with that individual.
We use automatic scanning technology to help protect you and other EcoMembers. Such technology checks links and other content in your EcoMessages, network updates and Group contributions to help us identify and block malicious links and malware, reduce spam and optimize the delivery of our Services.
2.3. Service Development; Customized Experience
We use information and content that you and other EcoMembers provide to us to conduct research and development for the improvement of our Services in order to provide you and other EcoMembers and Visitors with a better, more intuitive experience and drive membership growth and engagement on our Services and to help connect professionals to economic opportunity.
We also customize your experience and the experiences of others on our Services. For example, when you sign in to your account, we may display the names and photos of new EcoMembers who have recently joined your network or recent updates from your connections and EcoCook restaurants you follow. We try to show you content, such as news and presentations that is relevant to you. We also use EcoMembers information and content for invitations and communications promoting our Services that are tailored to the recipient.
2.4. Sharing Information with Affiliates
We may share your personal information with our affiliates (meaning entities controlled by, controlling or under common control) outside of Biolia Sàrl entity that is your data controller (for example, controlling organisms, or EcoMembers form the international Expert Committee) as reasonably necessary to provide the Services. You are consenting to this sharing.
We combine information internally across different Services. Biolia can present you a better tailored network update stream based on your activity, whether or not you tied your social network accounts with Biolia, as we may be able to identify you across different Services using cookies or similar technologies.
2.5. Sharing Information with Third Parties
We offer a “public profile” feature that allows you as a Member to publish portions of your professional profile to the public Internet. This public profile will be indexed and displayed through public search engines when someone searches for your name, a type of restaurant, the level of sustainability reached, the geographical location, etc. You may choose the parts of your profile that search engines index or completely opt out of this feature in your EcoCook account settings, or limit the publicly visible information in your profile. However, third-party search engines may not automatically update their caches, which may contain old public profile information. Unless you delete them, your profiles on EcoCook.com and our corresponding app are always viewable on the respective Services.
We do not rent or sell personal information that you have not posted on our Services, except as described in this Privacy Policy. We will not disclose personal information that is not published to your profile or generated through engagement with our other services, such as Groups and Company Pages, except to carry out your instructions (for example, to process payment information) or unless we have your separate consent, unless we have a good faith belief that disclosure is permitted by law or is reasonably necessary to: (1) comply with a legal requirement or process, including, but not limited to, civil and criminal subpoenas, court orders or other compulsory disclosures; (2) enforce this Privacy Policy or our User Agreement; (3) respond to claims of a violation of the rights of third parties; (4) respond to Member service inquiries; or (5) protect the rights, property, or safety of Biolia Sàrl, EcoCook, of EcoMembers, Visitors, or the public. See Section 2.14 for additional details about our compliance with legal requests for information.
We support middleware providers that offer archiving solutions to firms subject to legal and regulatory archiving requirements, which, with your permission, facilitate the archiving of your communications and other activity by a third party for compliance purposes. Content distributed through our sharing features and third-party integrations may result in displaying some of your personal information outside of our Services. For example, when you post content to a Group that is open for public discussion, your content, including your name as the contributor, may be displayed in search engine results.
Also, if you have opted to bind any of your Service accounts to your Twitter, Facebook or other similar account, you can easily share content from our Services to these third party services, in accordance with your account settings (which you may change at any time) and respective policies of these third parties. Further, we allow third parties to look-up profile information (subject to your privacy settings) using your email address or first and last name information through its profile API (see Section 2.7. below).
Third parties (for example, your email provider) may give you the option to upload certain information in your contacts stored with us onto their own service. If you choose to share your contacts in this way, you will be granting your third party provider the right to store, access, disclose and use these contacts in the ways described in such third party’s terms and privacy policy.
2.6. Polls and Surveys
Polls and Surveys may be conducted by us.
Your consent to use any personal information for the purposes set forth in the poll or survey will be explicitly requested by the party conducting it. You may opt out of participating in surveys by changing your settings to stop receiving these inquiries and requests.
2.7. Search
You can search for EcoMembers, information about companies, and community content from Groups on our Services. For example, you can find EcoCook restaurants belonging to a certain type of cuisine, or a level of excellence certification and a specific EcoCook sustainability level or pricing. We use personal information from our Services, including Member profiles, Groups content, and Company Pages, to inform and refine our search service.
2.8. Disclosures to Others as the Result of a Change in Control or Sale of Biolia Sàrl and/or EcoCook
We may also disclose your personal information to a third party as part of a sale of the assets of EcoCook, a subsidiary, or a division of Biolia Sàrl, or as the result of a change in control of the company or one of its affiliates, or in preparation for any of these events. Any third party to which we transfers or sells our assets will have the right to continue to use the personal and other information that you provide to us in the manner set out in this Privacy Policy.
2.9. Pages for EcoCook restaurants, EcoSchool, EcoSuppliers, opinion EcoLeaders and other entities
Some Services pages are public, including pages of EcoCook restaurants. Entities having created those pages have access to every communication or information that are shared. You will be listed amongst the followers of persons or companies you follow. The owner of the page, including other persons, have access to this list. We use aggregated datas on followers and visitors in order to obtain information on the performance of those pages (e.g. the number of visits and news).
2.10. Compliance with Legal Process and Other Disclosures
It is possible that we may need to disclose personal information, profile information, or information about your activities as a Member or Visitor when required by law, or other legal process, or if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary to (1) investigate, prevent, or take action regarding suspected or actual illegal activities or to assist government enforcement agencies; (2) enforce the User Agreement, investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations, or protect the security or integrity of our Service; or (3) exercise or protect the rights, property, or safety of EcoCook, our Members, personnel, or others. We attempt to notify EcoMembers about legal demands for their personal information when appropriate in our judgment, unless prohibited by law or court order or when the request is an emergency. In light of our principles, we may dispute such demands when we believe, in our discretion, that the requests are overbroad, vague or lack proper authority, but do not commit to challenge every demand. To find out more about how we engage with government requests for data, please contact us.
2.11 Data Processing Outside Your Country
We may transfer your information and process it outside your country of residence, wherever Bioia Sàrl and/or EcoCook, its affiliates and service providers operate.
2.12. Service Providers
We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our Services (e.g. maintenance, analysis, audit, marketing and development). These third parties have limited access to your information only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated to Biolia Sàrl not to disclose or use it for other purposes.
3. Your Choices & Obligations
3.1. Rights to Access, Correct, or Delete Your Information, and Closing Your Account
You have a right to (1) access, modify, correct, or delete your personal information controlled by Biolia Sàrl regarding your profile, (2) change or remove your content, and (3) close your account. You can request your personal information that is not viewable on your profile or readily accessible to you (for example, your IP access logs) through the EcoCook plateforme. If you close your account(s), your information will generally be removed from the Service within 24 hours. We generally delete closed account information and will de-personalize any logs or other backup information through the deletion process within 30 days of account closure, except as noted below.
With respect to EcoCook accounts and activity, if you would like us to delete your record and/or to provide a copy of any personal information to which you may be entitled, please contact us at info@biolia.ch. We will remove your information within 24 hours and delete and/or de-personalize it from our systems within 30 days of closure, except as noted below.
3.2. Data Retention
We retain the personal information you provide while your account is in existence or as needed to provide you services. We may retain your personal information even after you have closed your account if retention is reasonably necessary to comply with our legal obligations, meet regulatory requirements, resolve disputes between EcoMembers, prevent fraud and abuse, or enforce this Privacy Policy and our User Agreement. We may retain personal information, for a limited period of time, if requested by law enforcement. Our Customer Service may retain information for as long as is necessary to provide support-related reporting and trend analysis only, but we generally delete or de-personalize closed account data consistent with Section 3.1., except in the case of our plugin impression data (i.e., the information that you visited on sites carrying our social plugin, but which you did not click on), which we de-personalize within 7 days (although we do maintain 30 days worth of webserver logs for security, debugging, and site stability purposes only) by creating aggregate data sets that cannot be traced back to individuals.
4. Important Information
4.1. Minimum Age
Persons must be of Minimum Age to use the EcoCook platform.
4.2. Changes to this Privacy Policy
Biolia Sàrl may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make significant changes in the way we treat your personal information, or to the Privacy Policy, we will provide notice to you on the Services or by some other means, such as EcoMessage. Please review the changes carefully. If you agree to the changes, simply continue to use our Services. If you object to any of the changes to our terms and you no longer wish to use our Services, you may close your account(s). Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Policy applies to all information that we have about you and your account. Using our Services after a notice of changes has been communicated to you or published on our Services shall constitute consent to the changed terms or practices.
4.3. Security
We have implemented security safeguards designed to protect the personal information that you provide in accordance with industry standards. Access to your data on our Services is password-protected, and data such as credit card information is protected by SSL encryption when it is exchanged between your web browser and the Services. We also offer secure https access to Biolia.ch and EcoCook.com website.
To protect any data you store on our servers, we also regularly monitor our system for possible vulnerabilities and attacks, and we use a tier-one secured-access data center. However, since the Internet is not a 100% secure environment, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information that you transmit to us. There is no guarantee that information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. It is your responsibility to protect the security of your login information. Please note that emails, instant messaging, and similar means of communication with other EcoMembers are not encrypted, and we strongly advise you not to communicate any confidential information through these means. Please help keep your account safe by using a strong password.