1. Introduction
This notice explains how the Geneva School of Diplomacy (“GSD”, “we”, “us” or “our”) collects, uses, shares and protects personal data, and what choices you have about it.
This notice applies to visitors to our campus, users of our website (https://genevadiplomacy.ch/), prospective students, and other individuals we may be in contact with in connection with our students or prospective students, such as sponsors, employers, referees and emergency contacts. It also applies to our suppliers, including companies, independent contractors and freelance workers who provide services to GSD.
If you have questions about this notice or wish to exercise any of the rights described below, please contact us using the details in Section 13.
2. What is “personal data”?
Personal data is any information that GSD holds about you which identifies you, or which could identify you when combined with other information that GSD holds or is likely to obtain.
3. What personal data we collect
3.1 Website users
When you use our website, even without creating an account, we automatically collect a limited amount of data to help us improve your experience and manage our services. This may include your IP address, the website from which you arrived, the pages you visit, the date and duration of your visit, your browser type, your language preference and how you navigate the site. On its own, this information does not usually identify you directly.
Where you have given your consent, our analytics tools may also collect anonymised and aggregated data associated with visitors signed into third-party platform accounts, to help us understand how visitors interact with our website across devices and to build audiences for digital marketing. No personally identifiable information is made available to us through these features. See our Cookie Policy.
3.2 Prospective students
We may collect and process:
- Your name and contact details (address, email, telephone), date and place of birth, gender, photo, country of domicile and nationality, including copies of official documents such as your ID or passport.
- Information relating to your education and employment history.
- Funding or financial details (e.g. income, sponsor information).
- Information about your family or personal circumstances and your academic and extracurricular interests, where relevant to assessing your suitability for a scholarship or to provide appropriate support.
- Special category (sensitive) data, in particular information about your health, where relevant to your application or to reasonable accommodations.
- Access and authentication information (e.g. username, password).
- Records of interactions with GSD, including calls to our admissions line, which may be monitored or recorded for quality and training purposes, subject to notice to you.
GSD does not knowingly seek to collect personal data from individuals under the age of 16. Anyone under 16 should obtain permission from a parent or legal guardian before providing personal data to us via our website.
3.3 Campus visitors
We ask visitors to provide basic information, typically name, organisation, reason for visit, and date and time of arrival. Our premises are covered by CCTV, and where we provide IT services during your visit, your usage may be recorded in system logs as part of normal IT operations.
Our campus is also a place where photography, audio or video recording may occur for use on social media and in GSD publications, to share news about our activities. Where possible, we will post notices around open events where such recording is taking place.
3.4 Sponsors, employers, referees and emergency contacts
- Sponsors (e.g. parents, guardians or relatives): Your contact and financial details and confirmation of your agreement to sponsor a student’s tuition and other fees.
- Referees: Your contact details and confirmation of information provided about you by an applicant who named you as a reference.
- Emergency contacts: Your contact details, where a student, candidate or staff member has named you as their emergency contact.
- Employers: Your contact and company details and evaluation information, where you host a GSD student for an internship.
3.5 Suppliers
We collect the contact details of relevant individuals at supplier organisations that provide services to GSD.
These examples are not exhaustive; we may also collect similar or related information, including information you voluntarily choose to share with us.
4. Where we get your data from
4.1 Website users
We collect this data automatically, via cookies and similar technologies, in line with your cookie settings and consent choices. See our Cookie Policy.
4.2 Prospective students
We obtain data directly from you, for example when you create an account on our website, complete an online form (Contact Us, Visit Us, Request a Brochure, Newsletter sign-up, Open Day registration, private tour registration, programme pages, landing pages, and any other form you submit), apply to one of our programmes, or contact us by email, phone, or messaging platforms such as LinkedIn or WhatsApp.
We may also obtain data from third parties, such as GSD’s regional representatives or partner institutions, your educational counsellor, a friend or contact who shares your details with your agreement under a referral programme, or, where you follow or engage with our official pages, from social media platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook, in accordance with those platforms’ own terms.
4.3 Campus visitors
We obtain your data directly from you, or from GSD staff or students who invite you to campus.
4.4 Sponsors, employers, referees and emergency contacts
We obtain sponsor data either directly from you or from the student you sponsor. We obtain referee and emergency contact data from the relevant student, candidate or staff member. We obtain employer data directly from you or your organisation, or via a student undertaking a placement with you.
4.5 Suppliers
We obtain your data directly from you, your employer or organisation when you contact us or we contact you, and, where relevant, from third-party sources such as due-diligence providers or publicly available information.
5. Why we use your data
5.1 Website users
To improve your experience on our website and, where you have consented, to show more relevant content and advertising, including recently viewed or related content on partner websites, by analysing user behaviour collected through cookies.
5.2 Prospective students
To process your application and provide the information and services you have requested, including:
- Storing and updating your details in our systems.
- Verifying your account and providing a personalised experience.
- Enabling interactive features of our services, where you choose to use them.
- Communicating with you about GSD’s programmes and events.
- Where relevant, using data analysis to assess your likely interest in specific programmes or events.
- Assessing your application, including, where you provide it, medical information used solely to confirm your fitness to study or to identify reasonable accommodations.
If your application is successful, we will also use your data for study-related purposes as set out in the Student Privacy Notice.
5.3 Campus visitors
To help ensure the security of people, property and confidential information on our premises; to support any IT services provided during your visit; and to understand the make-up of the community we serve, including for internal reporting.
Photos or video from campus may be shared on social media or in GSD publications to promote our activities. Where you are individually identifiable, rather than part of a crowd or group shot, we will seek your explicit consent.
5.4 Sponsors, employers, referees and emergency contacts
To maintain contact and process related payments for sponsors; to contact emergency contacts in the event of an emergency; to take up a reference from referees; and, for employers, to manage internship placements, evaluations and related communications, including occasional information about career fairs and institutional initiatives.
5.5 Suppliers
To manage our relationship and agreement with you, including communication and payment for services, and to carry out due diligence where you act on GSD’s behalf.
6. Our legal grounds for processing your data
GSD processes personal data in accordance with the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) and, where applicable, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This may apply, for example, where we process the personal data of individuals located in the European Economic Area in connection with offering our programmes to them.
6.1 Website users
Some cookies are strictly necessary for the website to function and do not require consent. All other cookies are used only with your consent, which you may withdraw at any time. See our Cookie Policy.
6.2 Prospective students
Contractual or pre-contractual necessity: Where you request information or submit an application, we process your data to respond to your request and, where relevant, assess your application.
Legal obligation: Where processing is required to comply with applicable law, including Swiss regulatory and accreditation requirements.
Legitimate interests: For certain activities necessary to GSD’s legitimate interests, such as service improvement, security or fraud prevention, which we balance against your rights and freedoms.
Consent: Where no other legal basis applies, we will ask for your consent, which you may withdraw at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before withdrawal.
Special category (sensitive) data, such as health information, is processed only on the basis of your explicit consent or another legal basis permitted under applicable law.
6.3 Campus visitors, sponsors, employers, referees and emergency contacts
We rely on consent only for activities not covered by our legitimate interests. For example, we may use group or crowd photographs from campus without individual consent, but will seek your explicit consent where you are individually identifiable as the subject of a photograph.
6.4 Suppliers
We rely on contractual necessity and legal obligation, for example in relation to payments and tax, and legitimate interests where appropriate.
In all cases, where we need to process personal data in connection with establishing, exercising or defending legal claims, or where required by law to preserve or disclose information, we do so on the appropriate legal basis available to us.
7. Sharing your information
We may share your information, where necessary and proportionate for the purposes described in this notice, with:
- Government departments, agencies and local authorities, where we have a statutory obligation to provide information.
- Law enforcement or crime prevention agencies, and our legal advisers, where necessary.
- Contractors, suppliers, agencies and other parties acting on GSD’s behalf (“External Parties”) with a legitimate need to receive the information, including IT service providers and cloud storage providers.
- International education agents, where you apply via such an agent.
- Partner institutions and organisations involved in delivering a programme you are enrolled in or applying to, including outside Switzerland or the EEA where applicable.
We contractually require External Parties that process personal data on our behalf to follow this notice. Our website may contain links to, or content from, third-party sites over which we have no control. Please review those sites’ own privacy practices, as we are not responsible for them.
8. International data transfers
Some of the personal data we process may be transferred to and stored in a country outside Switzerland or the EEA, for example where it is processed by staff or suppliers based elsewhere, or using storage facilities located elsewhere.
Where this occurs, the transfer will be made on one of the following bases:
- The destination country is recognised as providing an adequate level of data protection, for example by the Swiss Federal Council or the European Commission.
- The transfer is subject to appropriate safeguards recognised under applicable law, such as standard contractual clauses.
- Another basis permitted under applicable law applies, such as your explicit consent.
9. How we protect your data
We implement appropriate physical, administrative and technical measures designed to protect your personal data against accidental, unlawful or unauthorised destruction, loss, alteration, disclosure or access.
We require External Parties to provide equivalent protection when handling your data on our behalf, and we limit access to personal data to those staff, agents and contractors who have a legitimate business need for it.
10. How long we keep your data
Where we have had no meaningful contact with you for four years, we will delete your personal data from our systems, unless we believe in good faith that the law requires us to retain it.
“Meaningful contact” includes any communication between us, verbal or written, or your active engagement with our online services.
If you become a GSD student, a basic student record is kept permanently, along with transcript and diploma, with more detailed records kept for defined retention periods set out in the student policy.
11. Your rights
Subject to applicable law, you may:
- Obtain access to, and a copy of, the personal data we hold about you.
- Ask us to correct inaccurate personal data.
- Receive the personal data you have provided to us in a reasonable, structured format, including for the purpose of transmitting it to another controller.
- Ask us to stop processing your data where the processing is causing you damage or distress.
- Ask us not to send you marketing communications at any time.
- Ask us to erase your personal data.
- Ask us to restrict our processing and, where processing is based on your consent, withdraw that consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
- Object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to processing that you believe has a disproportionate impact on your rights.
These rights are not absolute, and we may be entitled to refuse a request where an exception applies under law. We will not charge for a request unless it is repetitive, manifestly unfounded or excessive.
Where our processing relies on your consent and you withdraw it, this may affect our ability to continue providing certain services to you.
12. Changes to this notice
We may update this notice from time to time, for example to reflect changes in the law, in our practices, or in response to new requirements from data protection authorities. Please check this page periodically for updates.
Last updated: 02 September 2026.
13. Contact us
If you have questions about this notice or how we handle your personal data, please contact us at info@genevadiplomacy.com.
Geneva School of Diplomacy (GSD)
Chemin du Pavillon 2
1218 Le Grand-Saconnex
Geneva, Switzerland
If you are not satisfied with how we have handled your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) or, where GDPR applies to your data, with your local EU supervisory authority.