This Privacy Notice explains how we process personal data, primarily in relation with our website accessible at openbraininstitute.org. If you would like more information about our data processing, please feel free to contact us (section 2).

“Personal data” means any information that can be related with a specific individual, and “processing” means any handling of personal data, such as collecting, using, and sharing it.

Our website contains (i) various links to third-party websites (GitHub, Amazon, EPFL, Google Scholar, and other similar repository websites), (ii) the possibility of viewing video content embedded on the website (YouTube) and (iii) links to our social networking accounts (LinkedIn, X, Bluesky). This Privacy Notice does not cover how your personal data is processed by third parties and we encourage you to refer to the privacy policy of the relevant third party (website or social network).

For each data processing activity, there is a party that is primarily responsible for ensuring compliance, the “controller”. For the processing described in this Privacy Notice, the controller (also referred to as “we”) is:

Open Brain Institute
Avenue du Tribunal-Fédéral 34
1005 Lausanne
Switzerland

If you have any questions regarding data protection, please feel free to contact us at the following address:

info@openbraininstitute.org

When you use our website, we process data to communicate with you (notably, to respond to any requests addressed for instance at support@openbraininstitute.org or info@openbraininstitute.org, contacts you make via the forms available on the website), as well as for concluding agreements with you (notably, the Terms of Use) and their performance and management:

We may advertise our services, such as newsletters. More details are set out in section 4.

If we are in contact with you in view of an agreement, we mostly data you provide to us, e.g., your name, contact details, details of services requested and the date of agreement, where applicable.

We may also process the above data for internal statistical purposes. These statistics help improve and develop services and inform business strategy. We may also use this data on an identifiable basis for marketing; see section 4 for details.

For corporate partners, we process limited personal data, as data protection law applies only to individuals. However, we handle data of individuals we interact with, such as names, contact details, professional information, communication details, and information about management personnel, as part of the general data on companies we work with.

We also process personal data in order to advertise our services:

Newsletter: We send out electronic information and newsletters, which may include advertising for our services. We will ask for your consent before sending out electronic marketing, except for certain offers to existing customers.

Market research: We may process data to improve and develop new services, such as reactions to newsletters, customer surveys, polls, social media, media monitoring services, and public sources.

We may disclose personal data to various bodies within the scope of our activities. These include the following categories:

in the case of corporate partners, the contact person of said company;

if we engage intermediaries for our services, we may share your information with them to enable direct contact with you;

offices, authorities and courts within the scope of our legal obligations and in connection with proceedings in which we are a party or third party;

service providers, in particular for IT services, administration and consulting services, etc. These service providers may process personal data to the extent necessary. For providers used for our website, see section 7.

Not all data recipients are located in Switzerland. This includes certain service providers, particularly in IT. These providers may be based in the EU or EEA or in other countries worldwide (in particular in the US). 

We may also share data with foreign authorities if legally required or legal proceedings (see section 9).

Not all these countries offer adequate data protection. To address this, we implement appropriate safeguards, particularly the EU standard contractual clauses, available here.In some cases, data may be shared abroad without such safeguards as allowed by applicable law—for instance, with your consent or if necessary to perform a contract, assert or defend legal claims, or serve overriding public interests.

For technical reasons, each time you use our website, certain data is temporarily stored in log files, including your device's IP address, operating system, browser, referring URL, date and time of access, and content accessed. We use this data to operate the website, ensure security and stability, optimize the site, and for statistical purposes.

Our website uses cookies—small files stored by your browser on your device. These allow us to distinguish individual visitors, usually without identifying them. Cookies may contain information about accessed content and visit duration. Some cookies (“session cookies”) are deleted when you close your browser, while others (“persistent cookies”) remain for a set period to recognize returning visitors. 

You can adjust your browser settings to block certain cookies or delete cookies and other stored data. For more information, refer to your browser’s help pages (usually under “privacy”).

Third parties providing services to us may also use cookies and other technologies. These third parties may be located outside Switzerland and the EEA (see section6 for details). For example, we use analytics services to optimize our website.

Cookies and similar technologies from third-party providers may also enable them to target you with personalized advertising on other websites, or social networks working with these providers, and to measure ad effectiveness (e.g., tracking whether you arrived at our website via an ad and your subsequent actions).

In particular, we use the following third-party service: Matomo Analytics, which is an analysis service provided by InnoCraft Ltd (150 Willis Street, 6011 Wellington, New Zealand). Matomo collects certain information about the behavior of users on the website and about the terminal device used. Unlike other analytics services, Matomo is designed to operate in a privacy-friendly manner and can be hosted on our own servers, ensuring that user data remains under our control. IP addresses are either anonymized or shortened before processing. Matomo provides us with evaluations based on the recorded data but does not use the data for its own purposes. Further information on Matomo’s data protection policies can be found here.

We maintain presences on social networks and platforms (notably LinkedIn, Bluesky and X). If you communicate with us, comment on, or share content there, we may collect information for communication, marketing, and statistical purposes (see sections 4 and 9).

Please note that platform providers also collect and use data (e.g., user behavior) independently, potentially combining it with other data they hold (e.g., for marketing or content personalization).

Yes. Typical (though not necessarily frequent) cases are as follows:

Communication: When we are in contact with you (notably by the means of the contact form and the newsletter registration form), we may process the content as well as information about the nature, time, and location of the communication.

Compliance with legal requirements: We may disclose data to authorities as required by law or to meet internal regulations.

Prevention: Data is processed to prevent crime or misuse, such as fraud prevention or internal investigations.

Legal proceedings: If involved in legal proceedings (e.g., court or administrative), we process and disclose data about parties, witnesses, and others involved to courts, authorities, or other relevant entities, including abroad.

IT security: We process data to monitor, control, analyze, secure, and assess IT infrastructure and manage backups and archives.

Other purposes: Data is processed for training, administration (e.g., contract management, accounting, claims management, process improvement), anonymous statistics, or securing other legitimate interests.

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure the security of your personal data is commensurate with the respective risk. However, absolute data security cannot be guaranteed, and some residual risks may remain.

We process your personal data as long as necessary for the relevant purpose (e.g., for subscriptions, contracts, typically the duration of the contractual relationship; for access and use of our website and the features found therein, the duration of the access or use), as long as we have a legitimate interest in its retention (e.g., to enforce legal claims, for archiving or IT security), or as required by statutory retention obligations (e.g., a ten-year retention period for certain data). Once these periods expire, we delete or anonymize your data.

You have certain rights, subject to conditions and restrictions under applicable law:

You can request a copy of your personal data and further information about our data processing.

You can object to our data processing.

You can have incorrect or incomplete personal data corrected or completed or supplemented by a note of dispute.

You also have the right to receive the personal data that you have provided to us in a structured, common, and machine-readable format, insofar as the corresponding data processing is based on your consent or is necessary for the performance of the contract.

To the extent that we process data based on your consent, you can withdraw your consent at any time. The withdrawal is only valid for the future, and we reserve the right to continue to process data based on another basis in the event of a withdrawal.

If you wish to exercise such a right, please feel free to contact us (section 2). We will usually have to verify your identity (e.g. by means of a copy of your ID card). You are also free to file a complaint against our processing of your data with the competent supervisory authority, in Switzerland the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).

We may change this Privacy Notice at any time by posting a new version on this or a future page without notice. If we do so, we will notify you by posting a notice on the home page of our website. By continuing to access or use our website after such modification has come into effect, you acknowledge and agree to the processing of your personal data in accordance with the revised Privacy Notice. If you do not agree to these changes, we kindly ask you not to use our website.