Terms of use 

  1. Scope and purpose
    1. The Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) operates DETEC’s eGovernment portal at www.uvek.egov.swiss. This is where the department’s federal offices and its decentralised agencies offer online services to facilitate administrative procedures for natural persons and legal entities.
    2. The following terms apply to all users of this portal, regardless whether they are registered users or visitors. 
  2. Terms of use and user authorisation
    1. Users must have legal capacity.
    2. The specific terms of use can be found in the detailed descriptions of the different services.
    3. In order to use the services, users must accept the terms of use after registration. This does not apply to guest users.
    4. Some services require users to register through the federal identity management system.
    5. The different services may require different levels of authentication with one or two factors which can be increased via the federal identity management system.
    6. Users may in principle use any service available in the Service catalogue for their own purposes or on behalf of a third party or legal entity (firms, organisation, association, etc.), see Section 3.
    7. Registered users may register legal entities not already registered in DETEC’s eGovernment portal.
    8. Registered users may submit an authorisation request for legal entities registered in DETEC’s eGovernment portal, which is approved or rejected by a previously registered administrator defined by the legal entities.
    9. The use of certain services requires prior official verification of written documents, such as a certificate of residence or authorisation to sign for an organisation. This applies to the user themselves as well as the organisation the user is authorised to sign for Preconditions are indicated in the service description of each service. Official verification can be initiated on DETEC’s eGovernment portal. The documents submitted are verified by a staff member.
  3. User responsibilities and duties
    1. Users are solely responsible for the information they provide about themselves.
    2. Users are solely responsible for the information they provide about an organisation for which they have been authorised.
    3. Users confirm that the data provided is correct and describes them personally or the organisation that they represent.
    4. Users are responsible for protecting their data, for example by using appropriate passwords.
    5. Users are responsible for protecting the data of the organisation for which they have been authorised, and in particular for adding or authorising additional users who will act on behalf of the organisation on DETEC’s eGovernment portal and for removing existing users if they no longer have authorisation for the organisation (e.g. if a person leaves the organisation).
    6. Furthermore, each user undertakes not to misuse the online service, and in particular not to act in the name of a third party or without the consent of the third party or without the authorisation of the legal entity or natural person, not to use the service on the basis of false, misleading or imagined information, nor to provide false, unethical or fraudulent information and not to use the online service in any way that adversely affects the availability of the services for other users; e.g. by introducing viruses or automatic queries.
    7. Users who fail to comply with any of these provisions may, in addition to being excluded from DETEC’s eGovernment portal, be prosecuted.
    8. If the terms of use are amended, users must accept the new terms the next time they log in.
  4. Data protection
    1. DETEC’s eGovernment portal respects the privacy and personality rights of users. DETEC strives to ensure the personal data on its portal is handled in a responsible manner and in compliance with the law. The privacy policy of the Federal Administration applies. In using DETEC’s eGovernment portal, users agree to this privacy policy - https://www.admin.ch/gov/en/start/terms-and-conditions.html.
  5. Liability
    1. Although DETEC, its federal offices and its decentralised agencies that offer services on the portal take every care to ensure that the information they publish is as accurate as possible, no guarantee can be given that all published information is correct, accurate, up-to-date, reliable and complete.
    2. The federal authorities expressly reserve the right to modify, delete or temporarily refrain from publishing all or part of the content.
    3. Liability claims against the federal authorities for damage of a material or immaterial nature arising from access to or use or non-use of published information, through misuse of the connection or technical disruptions are excluded.
    4. Uploaded data is available to the DETEC offices and the decentralised agencies within the framework of the process concerned. Responsibility for this data lies with the users who upload it.
  6. Electronic legal transactions
    1. Communication within the portal as well as the provision of services and the issuance of decisions shall in principle take place electronically. Express consent to electronic legal communication is given by clicking on the checkbox provided for this purpose during registration.
    2. Consent to electronic legal transactions may be revoked and reactivated at any time in writing (by email).
  7. Costs and fees
    1. Use of the eGovernment portal is free of charge.
    2. Fees for billable services and the issuance of decisions are based on the provisions applicable in the relevant field. The fees are published in the individual service descriptions.
    3. In the absence of specific regulations, the levying of fees for decisions and services is governed by the General Fees Ordinance of 8 September 2004 (GfeeO; SR 172.041.1). Fees are assessed in such a way that the total revenue from the fees does not exceed the total costs of an administrative unit.
    4. Different fees may be charged for electronic or physical operations under Sections 7.2 and 7.3 in accordance with the applicable provisions.
  8. Payment
    1. Payment of any applicable fees can be made by credit card (MasterCard and VISA), by debit card (PostFinance Card) or an invoice may be requested. 
    2. The Checkout solution is PCI DSS certified. The product used by the DETEC eGovernment portal is from PostFinance, which works only with PCI-certified partners so as to meet the relevant requirements in Switzerland and abroad. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) ensures the permanent protection of data held on Checkout, verified in annual audits
    3. I hereby acknowledge and consent to my data and the data of my shoppers being stored by software provider Wallee AG, Winterthur in encrypted form in the data cloud of Amazon Web Services EMEA SARL, Luxembourg (a subsidiary of Amazon Web Service Inc., USA) on its servers in Ireland and being verified by the web application firewall (WAF) of Cloudflare Inc., USA. To check the data for malware, the WAF has to decrypt it for a short time. This process is a mandatory PCI directive which serves to protect your data. Outside Switzerland, the data decrypted in the WAF checking process is no longer subject to the Swiss Data Protection Act and banking secrecy but rather the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or other applicable legal systems. 
    4. If a debit or credit card is charged without authorisation, the cardholder has a right of withdrawal.
  9. References and links
    1. The federal authorities do not assume any responsibility or liability for references and links to third-party websites. Access to and use of such websites are at the user’s own risk. The federal authorities expressly declare that they have no influence whatsoever on the design, content and offers of the linked websites. Information and linked services are the full responsibility of the respective third party.
    2. The federal authorities decline any responsibility for such websites.
  10. Copyright
    1. Copyright, federal authorities of the Swiss Confederation.
    2. The information contained on the websites of the federal authorities is made available to the public. If content, images, photos or other data files are downloaded or copied, no rights in connection with the contents will be vested.
    3. Copyright and all other rights relating to content, images, photos and other data files on federal authorities’ websites are exclusively owned by these authorities or the designated right holders. The written consent of the copyright holder must be obtained in advance for the reproduction of any elements.
  11. Applicable law and place of jurisdiction
    1. Swiss law shall apply exclusively. Any disputes between the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) and the users shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the City of Bern pursuant to Article 58 GAOA.
  12. General provisions
    1. If individual provisions of these general terms are or become invalid, this shall not affect the validity of any other provisions. Reference is made to point 3.8 concerning the amendment or addition of provisions.