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Privacy Policy

This privacy policy explains which personal data we process, how, where and for what purpose — in particular in connection with our website www.auktionshaus-zofingen.ch, our newsletter and our activities as an auction house. It also sets out the rights of the persons whose data we process.

Additional provisions apply to individual services, in particular our Conditions of Sale (for buyers) and our Conditions of Consignment (for consignors).

1. Controller

Auktionshaus Zofingen AG, Klösterligasse 4, CH-4800 Zofingen, Switzerland, telephone +41 62 751 63 51, info@auktionshaus-zofingen.ch. Please address privacy enquiries to info@auktionshaus-zofingen.ch.

2. Which personal data we process and why

We process personal data that we receive from you or that arises from the use of our website and services. In essence:

a) Consignment and sale. Name, address, contact details, bank details, information on the consigned objects (origin, provenance, photographs), contract data, statements. Purpose: handling of the auction mandate, settlement, statutory retention. For objects subject to the Cultural Property Transfer Act, we additionally collect the legally required information on the origin of the object and the identity of the consignor.

b) Bidding and buying. Name, address, contact details, proof of identity for new clients, bids, hammer prices, invoices, payment data, shipping details. Purpose: conduct of the auction, contract handling, invoicing, shipping, compliance with legal obligations (Anti-Money Laundering Act for cash payments above the threshold, Cultural Property Transfer Act, accounting).

c) Contacting us. If you contact us by form, e-mail, telephone or WhatsApp, we process the information provided in order to answer your enquiry, for example for a valuation. Photographs you send us for a valuation are used for that purpose only.

d) Newsletter. E-mail address, optionally name and areas of interest (departments), time of registration. Purpose: sending our newsletter on auctions, expert days and collecting fields. Details in section 7.

e) Website use. Technical data such as IP address, browser, device, pages visited, time, referring page. Purpose: operation, security and improvement of the website; with your consent also audience and advertising measurement (sections 5 and 6).

3. Legal bases

We process personal data on the basis of the Swiss Data Protection Act (DPA). Where the GDPR applies, we rely on the performance of a contract (Art. 6 para. 1 lit. b GDPR), legal obligations (lit. c), our legitimate interests in the secure operation and development of our services (lit. f) and — for the newsletter and for audience and advertising measurement — on your consent (lit. a), which you may withdraw at any time.

4. Disclosure and processing by third parties

We disclose personal data only to the extent necessary for the purposes stated, to:

  • Service providers (processors): hosting and technical operation of the website (Mindnow AG; servers at Google Cloud, Zurich data centre, Switzerland — the website database runs on the same server, no additional database provider is used; visitor traffic goes directly to this server), e-mail hosting (OETIKER+PARTNER AG, Olten), newsletter dispatch (Mailchimp / Intuit Inc., USA), accounting and audit (BDO AG), shipping and transport partners, payment service providers and banks. DNS administration of the domain lies with Cloudflare, Inc. (USA); no website visitor data flows through it. A data processing agreement is in place with Mindnow.
  • Auction platform: Our online catalogue and online bidding run at live.auktionshaus-zofingen.ch on the platform of Auction Mobility LLC (USA). Its privacy policy additionally applies to the processing of your data when registering and bidding on that platform (https://live.auktionshaus-zofingen.ch/privacy-policy).
  • Authorities and third parties with a legal claim: in particular under the Anti-Money Laundering Act and the Cultural Property Transfer Act.
  • Consignors and buyers among each other: As a rule, we do not disclose the identities of consignors and buyers. Exceptions arise from the Conditions of Sale (for instance to enforce claims) or from legal obligations.

Service providers in the USA or other countries without adequate data protection are bound by the standard contractual clauses of the EU Commission or the FDPIC, or we rely on the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified under it.

5. Cookies, consent and tracking on the website

Our website uses technically necessary cookies (for example for the language setting and to protect forms) without consent.

We only use audience and advertising measurement once you have agreed in the consent banner. Without consent, no measurement services are loaded. The banner distinguishes four categories — necessary, statistics, marketing and comfort — the necessary cookies cannot be deselected. It was developed by our website partner; your decision is not transmitted to any consent provider but stored with a timestamp in the «cookie_consent» cookie on your device (valid for 180 days, after which we ask again). You can change your decision at any time via the «Cookie settings» link in the footer of every page.

The services are managed via the Google Tag Manager (Google Ireland Limited). The Tag Manager is only loaded after you have given your consent; it does not set any cookies itself and only controls which of the following services are executed.

6. Measurement and advertising services used (only with consent)

Google Analytics 4 (Google Ireland Limited; for users outside the EEA and Switzerland, Google LLC, USA). We measure how our website is used — which pages are visited, where visitors come from, which contact channels are used (for example a click on WhatsApp, telephone or e-mail). IP addresses are processed by Google in truncated form. The data is linked to our Google Ads account to measure the performance of our advertising. With your consent, Google Signals is also active: Google then links visits by users who are signed in to their Google account across devices and provides us with aggregated information on age, gender and interests. You can view and delete this link in your Google account under «My Activity».

Google Ads conversion tracking (Google Ireland Limited). If you reach our website via a Google ad, we measure whether this leads to a contact. A cookie is set for this purpose that does not allow personal identification.

Meta pixel (Meta Platforms Ireland Limited). The pixel allows us to measure the impact of our advertising on Facebook and Instagram and to re-address people who have visited our website there. Meta may attribute the data to your Meta account if you are signed in. Details: Meta's privacy policy. We have not activated advanced matching or server-side transmission (Conversions API).

7. Newsletter

We send our newsletter via Mailchimp (Intuit Inc., USA). Registration uses a double opt-in procedure: after signing up you receive an e-mail with a confirmation link. We store your areas of interest as attributes so that we can send you relevant content. By default, Mailchimp measures whether a newsletter is opened and which links are clicked (tracking pixel). You can unsubscribe at any time via the link at the end of every newsletter or by e-mail to us.

8. Contact form, e-mail and WhatsApp

Information from the contact and valuation form is transmitted to us by e-mail, additionally stored on our web server and handled in our e-mail system (Zimbra, hosted by OETIKER+PARTNER AG in Switzerland). If you contact us via the WhatsApp button, WhatsApp (WhatsApp Ireland Limited) opens on your device; data is only transmitted to WhatsApp when you send the message. WhatsApp's privacy terms apply to its processing. For confidential matters we recommend e-mail or telephone.

9. Server log files

When you visit our website, access data (IP address, time, page visited, browser, referring page) is stored in log files on our hosting partner's server for technical reasons. Purpose: security, error analysis, defence against attacks. The log files are deleted on a rolling basis after 30 days unless they are needed to investigate an incident.

10. Retention

We retain personal data for as long as necessary for the respective purpose. Contract and settlement data is subject to the ten-year retention obligation under the Swiss Code of Obligations; records under the Cultural Property Transfer Act are retained for 30 years. Newsletter data is deleted after unsubscription, contact enquiries after completion unless a contract follows.

11. Data security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures: encrypted transmission (TLS), access restrictions, regular backups. Our hosting partner backs up the website database daily; the backups are retained for five days on the same server in Switzerland. Information submitted via the website may therefore remain in these backups for up to five days after deletion before being overwritten. We bind our service providers contractually to data protection.

12. Your rights

You have the right to information about your personal data, to rectification, deletion, restriction of processing, data portability, and the right to withdraw consent at any time and to object to processing. Please address requests to the address in section 1. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the competent supervisory authority — in Switzerland the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).

13. Changes

We amend this privacy policy when our data processing or the legal situation changes. The version published on this website applies.

Zofingen, August 2026. In case of doubt, the German version prevails.