Privacy policy

1. Who is responsible for your data?

The controller is Pharmacie de Cologny SA, Place du Manoir 20, 1223 Cologny, Switzerland. Phone +41 22 735 35 84, email info@pharmaciedecologny.ch. For any question about your data, or to exercise your rights, write to us at this address with the subject line “Data protection”.

This policy covers personal data processed through the website pharmaciedecologny.ch, its forms and its online shop. Data processed at the pharmacy when dispensing medicines (patient records, billing to insurers) is governed by the legislation on therapeutic products, health insurance and professional secrecy, and handled with the same level of confidentiality. As pharmacists, we are bound by professional secrecy under Swiss law.

2. What data do we collect, and why?

Browsing the website

When you visit the site, our hosting provider’s servers automatically record technical data such as your IP address, date and time of access, pages visited, browser type and operating system. We use this data to deliver the site, ensure its security and detect misuse. It is kept for a limited period and is not used to identify you.

Contact form and prescription form

When you use the contact form or the prescription form, we receive the information you enter: name, email address, phone number, message and, for prescriptions, the files you upload and any details about your treatment, allergies, delivery address or preferred pick-up option. This includes health data, which is a sensitive category of personal data under the nFADP.

These forms are transmitted over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection and then forwarded by email to the pharmacy team through our email provider. Uploaded prescription files are not stored on the website: they are deleted from the server as soon as the email has been sent. To follow up requests, a log in the website’s administration area keeps at most the date, name, contact details, subject or pick-up/delivery choice, delivery address, message, number and names of the files, sending status and a truncated IP address (date of birth and insurance number are not logged). Only the pharmacy’s administrators can access this log, and each entry is deleted automatically after 90 days. Once received, prescriptions are handled like any prescription brought to the counter and are kept in our pharmacy records for the period required by Swiss health legislation.

We use this data only to answer your request, prepare and dispense your medicines, organise pick-up or delivery and, where applicable, bill your health insurer.

Online shop and customer account

Our online shop runs on WooCommerce. To process an order we collect your name, billing and delivery addresses, email address, phone number, the products ordered and the order history. If you create a customer account, your login details and order history are stored so that you can follow your orders. Invoices are generated automatically and kept for the period required by Swiss accounting law (generally ten years).

Payments

Card payments are processed by Stripe, a provider certified to the payment card industry security standard (PCI DSS). Your card details are entered directly into Stripe’s secure systems and are never stored by us; we only receive confirmation of payment and limited information such as the card type and last four digits. Stripe processes data as an independent payment service provider under its own privacy policy. If you choose another payment method offered at checkout, such as bank transfer, we receive the information needed to reconcile your payment.

Spam protection (Google reCAPTCHA)

To protect the contact and prescription forms against automated submissions, we use Google’s reCAPTCHA v3 service (Google Ireland Limited and Google LLC). Google’s script is loaded only on pages that contain a form. It analyses technical data about your visit (IP address, browser and device information, interactions with the page, any Google cookies) to estimate whether a submission comes from a person or a bot; we only receive the resulting score. The content of your messages and your prescription files is not sent to Google. This processing is based on our legitimate interest in keeping the website secure and preventing abuse. Use of reCAPTCHA is subject to Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Address suggestions

When you type an address (checkout, customer account, prescription delivery), suggestions may be offered. What you type is passed on by our server, without your IP address, to the active suggestion service: swisstopo (Swiss Federal Office of Topography), OpenStreetMap via Photon (komoot, Germany) or Google (Google Places). Only the address you type is sent, never your name or other details; swisstopo and OpenStreetMap suggestions are cached on our server for one day to limit requests. You can also enter your address without using the suggestions.

Emails

Transactional emails (order confirmations, replies to your messages) are sent through an authenticated email service connected to the website. We do not send newsletters or marketing emails without your consent.

3. Cookies, analytics and advertising

The website uses cookies and similar technologies. Some are strictly necessary (for example to keep the contents of your basket or your login session); others measure audience or the effectiveness of our advertising.

Service	Provider	Purpose
WooCommerce	Our website	Basket, checkout, customer account (necessary cookies)
Google Analytics via Google Site Kit	Google	Audience statistics: pages visited, length of visit, type of device, approximate location
Google for WooCommerce	Google	Display of our products on Google (Merchant Center) and measurement of advertising campaigns
TikTok pixel	TikTok	Measurement of TikTok advertising campaigns and audience building
Stripe	Stripe	Secure card payment and fraud prevention
reCAPTCHA v3 (form pages only)	Google	Protection of the contact and prescription forms against spam and bots

Statistics and advertising tools do not receive the content of your forms or your prescriptions. Where required by applicable law, we ask for your consent before setting non-essential cookies; if a consent tool is displayed on the site, you can change your choices there at any time. Refusing non-essential cookies does not prevent you from using the site. You can also refuse or delete cookies at any time in your browser settings, and use the opt-out tools offered by Google and TikTok.

4. Backups and security

The website is backed up regularly with UpdraftPlus so that it can be restored after an incident. Backups contain the website database (including shop orders, customer accounts and the form log, but never prescription files) and are kept in a secure storage location for a limited period before being overwritten.

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data: encrypted connections, restricted access, regular updates and confidentiality obligations for everyone who works with us.

5. Who receives your data?

We never sell your personal data. We share it only when necessary with:

• our hosting, email and backup providers, who process it on our behalf;
• Stripe for card payments;
• Google and TikTok for the analytics and advertising services described above, and Google for form protection (reCAPTCHA);
• your health insurer, when we bill prescribed medicines on your behalf;
• delivery or postal services, for shipping orders;
• authorities, where we are legally required to do so.

Some of these providers, such as Google, Stripe and TikTok, may process data outside Switzerland, including in the United States. In that case we rely on the safeguards recognised by Swiss law, such as an adequacy decision of the Federal Council (for example for companies certified under the Swiss-US Data Privacy Framework) or standard contractual clauses.

6. How long do we keep your data?

We keep personal data only as long as necessary for the purposes described above or as required by law: accounting records and invoices generally for ten years, pharmacy and prescription records for the period required by health legislation, the log of contact and prescription form requests for 90 days (prescription files are never stored on the website), technical logs and statistics for a shorter period. Email exchanges are deleted when they are no longer needed. Customer accounts are kept until you ask us to delete them.

7. Your rights

Under the nFADP, you have the right to:

• ask whether we process data about you and obtain a copy of it;
• have inaccurate data corrected;
• ask for your data to be deleted or its processing restricted, unless we are legally required to keep it;
• object to processing, in particular for statistics and advertising;
• receive data you have provided in a common electronic format, where applicable;
• withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting processing carried out before.

You can delete your customer account at any time by contacting us. To exercise your rights, write to info@pharmaciedecologny.ch or to our postal address; we may ask you to prove your identity. If you believe your rights have not been respected, you may lodge a complaint with the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC). If you live in the European Union, the GDPR may also give you rights, which we respect.

8. Links to other websites

This website contains links to third-party sites, such as health authorities or social networks. We have no influence over how they process data; their own privacy policies apply.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy to reflect changes in our services or in the law. The date of the latest update is shown on this page. The French version of this policy is the reference version.