Privacy Policy

Association OYA — Conservation for the Next Generation 

Oya is a Swiss association working on plant conservation for the next  generation. The trust of the people who visit our site, write to us,  and one day support our work is part of that mission. This policy sets  out, plainly, what personal information we hold, why we hold it, and the  choices you have. 

In  short: we are a non-profit registered in Geneva. We collect only the  personal information we need to run the association and to communicate  with the people who reach out to us. We do not sell, rent, or trade your  data. Donations are not yet processed on this site — when they are,  this policy will be updated to say how. You can write to  info@oyatees.org at any time to ask what we hold, to correct it, or to  ask us to delete it. 

This policy applies to oyatees.org, to any other site we operate that links to it, to associated subdomains and online services, to any  mobile or digital applications we publish, and to other interactions we  have with you, online or offline. If you live in the European Economic  Area, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, or the United States, the  sections near the end set out additional rights you have where you live. 

Who we are 

Oya  is a non-profit association governed by Articles 60 and following of  the Swiss Civil Code, with its registered seat in Geneva, Switzerland.  Our mission is to provide a platform for global plant conservation for  the benefit of future generations. Oya is registered with the Geneva tax  authority (Administration fiscale cantonale, AFC) under reference number 080.124.424, and has been recognised as tax-exempt since 12 July 2019 (ref. CN-DAR 019050246). 

What we collect 

When  you use our site, we and our service providers may collect personal  information that you give us — such as your name, postal address, email  address, telephone number, country of residence, information related to  donations and transactions, and any photos, files, or messages you  choose to share with us. By personal information we mean information  that identifies you as an individual or relates to an identifiable person. 

We  also collect some information automatically when you visit, including  browser type, operating system, device type, IP address, the pages and content you visited, the date and time of your visit, the URL you came from, and how long you stayed.

If  you send us personal information about other people, you are telling us  that you have the authority to do so and to let us use that information  in line with this policy. 

We  do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the  age of 16, and we do not ask you to share special categories of  information such as health, religious beliefs, political opinions, or  ethnic origin. Please do not send us such information. 

How we collect it 

We  collect personal information that you give us directly while using the  site — for example, when you write to us by email, fill out a form (such  as a contact form or, in the future, a donation form), reply to an  event invitation, or sign up to receive news from us.

We  may also use analytics that help us understand how the site is being  used, including which pages people visit and which parts of those pages  they interact with. Where the law of your country requires prior consent  for analytics or similar tracking, we set those tools only after you  have given consent through the cookie banner shown on your first visit. 

Oya  does not currently process donations through this site. When donation  functionality is launched, this policy will be updated to identify the donation platform and payment service providers used and to describe the related processing. 

We  do not buy lists of supporters from third-party data brokers and do not  exchange supporter lists with other charities. If we ever decide to use  such sources, we will update this policy and, where required by law,  ask for your consent. 

How we use it 

We use personal information to operate the site and to advance our charitable mission. In particular, we use it to: 

• deliver and secure the site; 
• respond to your enquiries and correspondence; 
• process and acknowledge your donations and issue Swiss tax-deduction receipts where you ask for them; 
• comply with our accounting, audit, and tax obligations under Swiss law; 
• send you news, project updates, and event invitations when you have asked us to; 
• understand, in aggregate, how visitors use the site so we can improve our content and reach; 
• protect Oya, our supporters, and our partners against fraud, abuse, or unlawful activity; and 
• exercise or defend legal claims where this becomes necessary. 

We rely on the legal grounds permitted by the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection and, where applicable, the  General Data Protection Regulation in the European Economic Area and the  United Kingdom. A fuller description of those legal grounds is set out  under “Applicable law and your rights” below. 

Who we share it with

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We share it only in the following limited ways: 

• Inside  Oya — with the officers, board members, employees, and approved  volunteers who need it to do their work for the association, and who are  bound by confidentiality. 
• With  service providers acting on our behalf — currently GoDaddy.com, LLC and  its affiliates (which provide our website hosting and the GoDaddy  Website Builder analytics); the payment service providers that will  process donations made through the site (currently PayPal and TWINT);  the providers of the email, file storage, and document-collaboration  platforms we use to run the association; and our professional advisers,  including our auditor, our accountant, and our legal adviser in Geneva.  Each of these providers is bound by a written agreement that requires  them to handle personal information only as Oya instructs and to apply appropriate security measures. 
• With  public authorities, courts, or regulators — where Swiss law, a court  order, or a binding administrative decision requires it. We may also  share information where we believe in good faith that disclosure is  necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of Oya, of the  people we work with, or of the public. 
• With  a successor non-profit — if Oya is ever merged with or succeeded by  another non-profit organisation, or wound up and its assets transferred  to a body pursuing a similar mission, personal information held by Oya  may be transferred to that successor or beneficiary on the same terms as  set out in this policy. 

Sending information abroad

Some of the service providers that help us run the site are based outside Switzerland and the European Economic Area, in particular in the United States. When we transfer personal information  internationally, we put safeguards in place designed to keep it  protected. Those safeguards include: 

• transfers to countries that benefit from a Swiss Federal Council adequacy decision (Annex 1 to the Swiss  Data Protection Ordinance) or a European Commission adequacy decision; 
• the  European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, supplemented by the  Swiss addendum recognised by the Swiss Federal Data Protection and  Information Commissioner; and 
• certification under the Swiss–U.S. Data Privacy Framework, where the recipient is so certified. 

If you would like a copy of the safeguards we apply to a particular transfer, please write to us at info@oyatees.org.

Cookies and similar tools 

Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website. We use them in two main categories: 

• Strictly  necessary cookies — needed to deliver the site to you, to remember your  cookie preferences, and to keep the site secure. These cookies do not  require your consent. 
• Analytics  cookies — set by the GoDaddy Website Builder to produce aggregated,  non-identifying statistics about how visitors use the site. Where the  law of your country requires prior consent for such cookies (for  example, in the European Economic Area and the United Kingdom), we set  them only after you have given consent through the cookie banner shown  on your first visit. 

You  can change your cookie choices at any time through the  cookie-management tool on the site, or by adjusting the cookie settings  in your browser. Disabling strictly necessary cookies may prevent parts  of the site from working correctly.

Your choices 

We respect the choices you make about your personal information. 

If  you receive emails from us and would like to stop, you can unsubscribe  at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email,  or by writing to info@oyatees.org. We will honour your request  promptly.

You can accept, refuse, or manage non-essential cookies through the cookie banner on the site or through your browser settings. 

If  you have given consent to a particular use of your personal  information, you can withdraw that consent at any time by writing to  info@oyatees.org. Withdrawing your consent does not affect the  lawfulness of any processing carried out before the withdrawal.

How we keep it safe

We take the security of personal information seriously and maintain appropriate technical and organisational measures designed to protect it against loss,  misuse, unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. These measures  include: 

• hosting the site with a provider that maintains industry-standard security controls; 
• using encrypted (HTTPS / TLS) connections for all pages of the site; 
• outsourcing payment processing to PCI-DSS-compliant providers, so that no payment-card data is stored by Oya; 
• limiting internal access to personal information to those who need it for their role at Oya; and 
• reviewing our security practices on an ongoing basis. 

No  method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic  storage is 100% secure, however, and we cannot guarantee absolute  security. If a personal information breach is likely to result in a high risk to data subjects, Oya will notify the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner and, where required, affected individuals as soon as we reasonably can. 

How long we keep it 

We  keep personal information only for as long as is necessary for the  purposes for which it was collected, unless a longer retention period is  required by law: 

• Donation and accounting records: ten years from the end of the financial year, in accordance with Article 958f of the Swiss Code of Obligations. 
• Email correspondence: generally up to three years after the last meaningful contact, unless required for longer to defend legal claims or to comply with statutory obligations. 
• Newsletter subscriber data: until you unsubscribe, or after three years of inactivity, whichever is earlier. 
• Server log files and analytics data: kept in identifiable form for up to twelve months, then deleted or anonymised. 

Where information is anonymised, it is no longer personal information and may be retained for statistical purposes. 

Children 

The  site is not directed at children under the age of 16. Oya does not  knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you  are a parent or guardian and you believe that your child has provided us  with personal information, please contact us at info@oyatees.org and we  will delete it. 

When you click away from our site

The  site may include links to third-party websites, social-media platforms,  articles, or services. Oya does not control these third parties and is  not responsible for their privacy practices. Their own privacy notices  will apply when you interact with them. We encourage you to read those  notices before sharing your personal information.

Updates to this policy

We  may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our  activities, in technology, or in the law. The “Last updated” date at the  foot of this policy will tell you when it was most recently revised.  Material changes will be highlighted on the site. Earlier versions of  this policy are kept on file by Oya and can be requested by writing to  info@oyatees.org. 

Applicable law and your rights

Oya  is established in Switzerland and processes personal information in  accordance with Swiss law, in particular the Swiss Federal Act on Data  Protection of 25 September 2020 (FADP), in force since 1 September 2023;  the Swiss Ordinance on Data Protection of 31 August 2022 (DPO); the  Swiss Code of Obligations; the Swiss Federal Act against Unfair  Competition; and the Swiss Telecommunications Act. 

Because  the site is published in English and accessible worldwide, we also  process personal information in compliance with the EU General Data  Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679, “GDPR”) where Article 3  GDPR applies; the United Kingdom GDPR and the UK Data Protection Act  2018 where applicable; and U.S. state privacy laws where they apply to  residents of those states. 

The legal grounds on which we rely are: 

• your consent — for example, when you sign up for a newsletter or accept analytics cookies; 
• the performance of your donation transaction; 
• compliance with our legal obligations as a Swiss tax-exempt entity, including our accounting and tax obligations; and 
• our  legitimate interests in operating, securing, and improving the site, in  responding to your correspondence, and in defending our rights. 

Where  our processing is based on legitimate interests, we have considered  those interests against your rights and freedoms and have concluded that  the processing is proportionate. You may always object to processing  based on legitimate interests by writing to info@oyatees.org. 

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom 

Subject  to the conditions set out in the GDPR or the UK GDPR, you have the  following rights in relation to your personal information: 

• the right to access your personal information and to receive a copy of it; 
• the right to ask us to rectify personal information that is inaccurate or incomplete; 
• the  right to ask us to erase your personal information when it is no longer  needed for the purpose for which it was collected, or where you  withdraw consent; 
• the right to ask us to restrict our processing or to object to it on grounds relating to your particular situation; 
• the  right, where applicable, to receive your personal information in a  structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and to transmit it to another controller; 
• the right to withdraw consent at any time, where processing is based on consent; and 
• the  right not to be subject to a decision taken on a purely automated  basis. Oya does not currently take such automated decisions. 

To  exercise any of these rights, please write to info@oyatees.org. We may  ask you for reasonable information to verify your identity before  responding, and we will reply within 30 days, or sooner where the law  requires it. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the  supervisory authority of the EEA Member State where you live, work, or  where the alleged infringement took place. 

If you are in Switzerland 

The  rights described above are extended to you under the Swiss Federal Act  on Data Protection. You have the right to lodge a complaint with the  Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), Feldeggweg 1, 3003 Bern, Switzerland (www.edoeb.admin.ch). We would, however,  appreciate the chance to address your concerns first — please contact us  at info@oyatees.org before reaching out to the FDPIC. 

If you are in the United States 

If  you are a resident of California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut,  Utah, or another U.S. state with a comprehensive privacy law, you may  also have additional rights, including the right to know what categories  of personal information we process about you, the right to request  deletion, and the right to correct inaccurate personal information. To  exercise these rights, please contact us at info@oyatees.org. Because  Oya is a Swiss non-profit and does not sell or share personal  information for cross-context behavioural advertising, the “Do Not Sell  or Share My Personal Information” right is not applicable to our  processing, but you may still raise any concern with us.

Getting in touch 

Questions, requests, or second thoughts? Write to us at info@oyatees.org. We are a small team in Geneva and we read everything that comes in. 

D. Hill c/o Association OYA — Conservation for the Next Generation

Geneva, Switzerland

AFC reference: 080.124.424

Email: info@oyatees.org

Website: www.oyatees.org

Last updated: 11 May 2026