Privacy Policy
Who we are
This website is operated by Geneva Trust Company (GTC) SA, Rue de l’Athénée 34, 1206 Geneva, Switzerland (registration number CHE-114.547.742). In this policy, “we”, “us” and “Geneva Trust” mean Geneva Trust Company (GTC) SA, which is the controller of the personal data described below.
Geneva Trust Company (GTC) SA is a financial intermediary supervised for the purposes of Swiss anti-money laundering regulations by OSIF and authorised by FINMA to carry on business as trustees. It forms part of a group that also includes Geneva Holding Company (GHC) SA (CHE-108.019.676) and GT Audit Sàrl (CHE-325.263.735).
This policy explains what we do with personal data collected through genevatrust.ch. Personal data we hold in the course of a client relationship is governed by the terms of that relationship and by the information we provide when it is opened.
Information you give us
Enquiries. If you complete the contact form or the Planner enquiry form, we collect the details you enter: your first and last name, email address, country of residence and, where you provide them, your telephone number, preferred method and time of contact, and the content of your message. You are asked to confirm that you are happy for us to hold these details in order to respond.
Planner responses. The Planner asks a short series of questions about your objectives, intended beneficiaries, the types and approximate value of the assets concerned, your preferences around control, the jurisdictions relevant to you and any significant event you are planning around. Your answers are held on your own device while you work through the tool. They are only sent to us if you choose to submit an enquiry at the end, in which case they are included so that we can respond with something useful rather than generic.
Correspondence. If you write to us by email or speak to us by telephone, we keep a record of that correspondence.
Information collected automatically
Our web host records standard server log information when you visit, including your IP address, the pages requested, the date and time, and technical details about your browser. These logs are used to keep the site running and secure.
When an enquiry is submitted we briefly record a one-way, irreversible transformation of the sending IP address so that we can limit how many submissions come from one source in an hour. This record contains no readable IP address and is discarded automatically after one hour. Its only purpose is to prevent abuse of the form.
Cookies and similar technologies
This website does not use advertising cookies, and we do not run Google Analytics, advertising pixels or comparable visitor-tracking tools on it.
Cookies may be set by WordPress, the software the site runs on, where these are necessary for the site to function — for example if you leave a comment or log in to an administrator account. Your browser settings allow you to block or delete cookies; the site will continue to work.
Why we use your information, and on what basis
We use the information described above to respond to your enquiry, to provide the indicative output of the Planner, to prepare for and hold an initial conversation with you, to keep the website secure and working, and to meet our own legal and regulatory obligations as a Swiss financial intermediary.
Under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection we process this data on the basis of your consent where you have given it, our legitimate interest in responding to enquiries and protecting the website, and our legal obligations. Where the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation applies to you, the corresponding bases are your consent (Article 6(1)(a)), the taking of steps at your request prior to entering into a contract (Article 6(1)(b)), our legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)) and compliance with a legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)).
If you separately opt in to receive occasional written material from us, we rely on your consent, and you can withdraw it at any time by replying to any message or writing to the address below.
Who has access to it
Enquiries are sent to our office inbox and are seen by the members of staff who need to deal with them. A copy is stored in the website’s own database, which only our administrators can open.
We may share personal data with other companies in our group where this is necessary to respond to you, and with professional advisers, auditors and IT service providers who act for us under a duty of confidentiality. We may disclose personal data where we are required to do so by law or by a regulator, court or authority — including under Swiss anti-money laundering legislation, where our obligations may prevent us from telling you that a disclosure has been made.
We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers.
Transfers outside Switzerland
We are based in Switzerland and our website is hosted in Switzerland. Some of the technical services this website relies on are provided by companies outside Switzerland, and using them may involve your IP address being transmitted to those companies. Where personal data is transferred to a country that does not offer an equivalent level of protection, we rely on appropriate safeguards, including the standard contractual clauses recognised by the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner and, where relevant, the European Commission.
How long we keep it
Enquiries that do not lead to a relationship with us are deleted once they are no longer needed for the purpose they were sent, and in any event within twenty-four months, unless we are required to keep them for longer.
Where an enquiry does lead to a client relationship, the resulting records are kept for the period required of us as a financial intermediary — under Swiss anti-money laundering legislation, ten years after the end of the relationship or the completion of the transaction concerned.
Server logs are kept for a short period for security purposes and are then deleted.
Keeping it secure
This website is served over an encrypted connection. Access to the enquiry records is restricted to administrator accounts, and the enquiry forms carry measures to prevent automated abuse. No system can be guaranteed to be completely secure, but we take the protection of the information entrusted to us seriously, as our clients would expect of a Swiss trustee.
Your rights
You may ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, ask us to correct it if it is wrong, and ask us to delete it where we are not required to keep it. Depending on where you are, you may also have the right to object to or restrict certain processing, to receive your data in a portable form, and to withdraw a consent you have given.
Please write to us at the address below and we will respond. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (edoeb.admin.ch) or, if you are in the EU or the UK, to the supervisory authority for the country in which you live.
Other websites
Where we link to another organisation’s website, that organisation’s own privacy policy applies to anything you do there. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of websites we do not operate.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The date below shows when it was last changed.
How to contact us
Geneva Trust Company (GTC) SA, Rue de l’Athénée 34, 1206 Geneva, Switzerland.
Email: info@geneva-trust.com · Telephone: +41 22 789 1200
