Privacy Policy & Terms of Use

In these Terms of Use we define:

• CSZ as the Competence Center Citizen Science (usually referred to as Citizen Science Zurich).
• CS Zurich platforms as including the citizenscience.ch platform and all related project platforms (named, for any project “xxx” as “xxx.citizenscience.ch”).
• Users as any visitor on the CS Zurich platforms.
• Project Creators as the users that initiate and manage a project, including defining the project’s content (in any form), providing the necessary data (in any form), and recruiting other users to contribute to their project in the manners allowed by the functionalities of the platforms. Project Creators do not include employees of the CSZ.
• Contributors as the users that voluntarily contribute to projects in the manners allowed by the functionalities of the platforms. Contributors can be anonymous or choose to voluntarily provide some personal information by registering to the CS Zurich platforms.

The following Terms of Use apply to all users visiting and/or using in any manner the CS Zurich platforms.

Project Creators are wholly responsible for fulfilling obligations related to any project they create and any form of data they upload. They agree to obtain copyrights permissions and, in case of copyright infringement, they are liable to pay damages to the copyright owner.

Contributors are the owner of their own contributions and are responsible for such ownership. If they are not the content owner, they must have permission from the owner prior to contributing.

Contributors grant CSZ a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, and exercise all copyright and publicity rights with respect to their contribution.

Contributions to the CS Zurich platforms are available to the Project Creators with a nonexclusive permission to use, distribute, and modify in order to further scientific research.

CSZ does not have any ownership rights in the content that Project Creators upload to the CS Zurich platforms. CSZ cannot be held accountable of privacy, legal, or other forms of responsibilities related to data uploaded by Project Creators in the CS Zurich platforms.

In the event of a dispute between Project Creators and Contributors, CSZ is released from claims of every kind and in any way related to such dispute.

CSZ does not endorse and has no control over any contribution, cannot guarantee the authenticity of any data which users may provide, and makes no guarantees regarding the performance or fairness of contributors’ activities.

With particular reference to the Citizen Science Project Builder (https://lab.citizenscience.ch) CSZ reserves the right to remove content and projects where the content is not legal or deemed likely to cause offense to some audience

Data generated by the projects hosted in the CS Zurich Platforms follows the EC recommendations of the FAIR Data Management Plan defined as 'as open as possible, as closed as necessary', which focuses on encouraging as few restrictions as possible, while at the same time protecting sensitive data from inappropriate access.

CSZ should be acknowledged in any publications with the text: 'This publication uses data generated via the citizenscience.ch platform of Citizen Science Zurich, a joint initiative of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich'.

All data are submitted in accordance with the Swiss Data Protection Act ( DSG ) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ). All data are stored in servers within Switzerland.

At registration in the platform, users may choose to provide an e-mail address (registration). This e-mail address is not visible, and CSZ will never share email adresses, or personal details, outside of the projects a user has given explicit permission to.

CSZ will use users’ email address only occasionally, to announce new features, new projects, or special events. CSZ may contact users with a newsletter about the progress of the project or the activities of the Citizen Science Zurich. Users can opt-out of such communications at any time.

CSZ aggregates general statistics on the use of CS Zurich platforms. For this, CSZ uses Google Analytics, a software that collects data associated with the user’s IP address. The information collected by Google Analytics is treated according to their Privacy Policy.

Temporary cookies may be used when individual CSZ pages are accessed. Temporary cookies are small files that the page stores on your computer to enable optimal use of the website; the cookies are deleted automatically when the web browser is closed. You can block the use of temporary cookies by adjusting the relevant settings in your web browser. Please note that disabling, blocking, or deactivating cookies can limit the functionality of the CSZ web pages.

For further questions on the use of data, please contact CSZ at the following address:
Citizen Science Zurich
Kurvenstrasse 17
CH-8006 Zurich