Privacy policy
This is a courtesy translation. The German version is legally authoritative.
Some encounters begin with a questionnaire. Anyone who shows themselves to us through the self-portrait entrusts us with something personal — including matters that concern their own body. This text explains what happens to your information, who reads it and how you can decide about it at any time.
Controller
The Local Sanctuary Group AG (in formation), acting through its founders, planned registered office in the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland.
Contact for all data-protection enquiries: info@thelocalsanctuary.com.
Our basic stance
We collect as little as possible, and only what serves a clear purpose. Your information stays with us; we do not sell it and we do not pass it on for advertising purposes. Where we rely on service providers, we choose them with data protection in mind and name them openly here.
What happens on this website itself
The website sets no cookies and stores no identifiers in your browser in order to recognise you.
For audience measurement we use Plausible Analytics — a tool hosted in the European Union that works without cookies and builds no personal profiles. Only aggregated values such as page views and approximate region of origin are measured, without any individual person becoming identifiable.
When the pages are retrieved, our hosting provider processes technically necessary connection data (such as IP address and time of access), as the operation of any website entails. This data serves the delivery and security of the page.
What happens with the forms
We collect personal information only when you actively open a form — the self-portrait or one of the involvement forms. These forms run on the subdomain questionnaire.thelocalsanctuary.com via our form service Tally.
Depending on the form, we collect:
- salutation and name, email address, and on request a telephone number or a professional profile;
- your answers to the reflection and context questions posed;
- for involvement enquiries, details of organisation, role or field of research.
Particularly sensitive information. The self-portrait touches on matters of your physical wellbeing, your current state of health and your self-perception. Such information counts as particularly sensitive personal data (health data). We process it solely on the basis of your explicit consent, which you give separately before submitting the self-portrait. You may withdraw this consent at any time with effect for the future — a short message to info@thelocalsanctuary.com is enough.
Your answers are read solely by our admissions team, in preparation for a personal conversation. No automated evaluation or decision about your admission takes place.
Fellowship access and member login
Which data we process. For access to the Fellowship area we process the information you yourself provide to us: your email address and your first name when setting up your account, any referrer code, and — once you join as a Fellow — a password chosen by you. We store the password exclusively in encrypted form (as a hash); it is never accessible to us in plain text. For security, we also log the time and IP address of your login events. No health data is collected in the Fellowship area.
Purpose and basis. We process this data in order to provide you with secure access, to recognise you on your return and to make the associated content and functions available to you. The basis is the initiation and performance of the usage relationship as well as our legitimate interest in secure access. Any information that you provide to us voluntarily beyond this we process on the basis of your consent, which you may withdraw at any time.
Login by link and by password. During the candidate phase you log in via a one-time login link that we send to your email address. As a joined Fellow you log in with your email address and your personal password.
Cookies and "stay signed in on this device". For the login we set a technically necessary cookie that maintains your session. If you select "Stay signed in on this device", this cookie remains stored on your device beyond the individual session, so that you do not have to log in afresh at every visit. These cookies serve solely the operation of the access — we do not use them for advertising or to analyse your behaviour.
Security. Fellowship access is technically separated from the investor area and protected by its own login credentials. Passwords are stored encrypted; the transmission of your data is encrypted.
Service providers used
| Service | Purpose | Registered office / Hosting | Basis of transfer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vercel | Hosting of the website | USA, with delivery via European nodes | Data Privacy Framework or Standard Contractual Clauses |
| Plausible Analytics | cookie-free audience measurement | European Union | Processing within the EU |
| Tally | Operation of the forms | Belgium (EU) | Processing within the EU |
| Resend | Sending of login, welcome and notification emails | European Union (EU region) | Processing within the EU |
The form service places functional entries in your browser's storage for its operation (for example for the session and the editing state). These serve solely the completion of the form, not observation.
Transfer to the USA
For the hosting of the website we work with a provider in the United States (Vercel). This provider relies on the Data Privacy Framework, which Switzerland has recognised since 15 September 2024 and the European Union recognises as a basis for an adequate level of protection, in so far as the provider is certified. The sending of our emails is carried out via a service with processing within the European Union. We review this status on an ongoing basis and reserve the right to use further European providers in the future.
Legal bases
We process your data, in so far as it is necessary for the initiation and preparation of a personal contact, on the basis of your enquiry. The audience measurement is based on our legitimate interest in a comprehensible picture of usage. We process particularly sensitive information from the self-portrait solely on the basis of your explicit consent. For visitors from the European Union, the corresponding bases of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) apply, including explicit consent for health data.
Retention
We keep your information only as long as the purpose requires — until your matter is resolved, but at most 24 months after the last contact. After that we delete it. On request we delete it sooner.
Your rights
You may at any time request information on which data we hold about you. You may request its correction or deletion, object to the processing, withdraw a consent you have given, and request the release of your data in a common format. A short message to info@thelocalsanctuary.com is enough; we respond without undue delay.
Complaint
If you are of the view that we are not handling your data correctly, you may turn to a supervisory authority — in Switzerland to the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC / EDÖB), within the European Union to the data protection authority of your country of residence. We would prefer that you speak with us first.
Changes
As long as The Local Sanctuary is being built, this declaration may continue to develop. The version published here is the authoritative one.
As at: June 2026.