SWITCH edu-ID Terms of Use

Version 1.2, published 30.7.2018

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Updates since version 1.1

• The present Terms of Use reference the Service Description SWITCH edu-ID

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Welcome to SWITCH edu-ID, the lifelong digital identity for Swiss university members, people in the university community, and lifelong learners.

By creating or using your SWITCH edu-ID account, you agree to the following terms. Please take a moment to read these Terms of Use carefully before using the service. Once your registration is completed, you will receive a copy of these Terms of Use by e-mail.

In short:

• The SWITCH edu-ID serves as a lifelong digital identity that allows you to be clearly identified and provides you with access to SWITCHaai Federation services. Anyone can open a personal SWITCH edu-ID account.
• You may only have one SWITCH edu-ID account! You are obligated to avoid and remove duplicates.
• All information that you provide when creating or updating your account must be true. This is the only way for services to be provided at an acceptable level of quality.
• You must protect your login details (e.g. your password), because you are responsible for the activities performed in connection with your SWITCH edu-ID account.
• Your SWITCH edu-ID belongs to you and remains active when you leave your organisation (unlike a SWITCHaai account).
• This service is operated by SWITCH, and your data will be stored on servers in Switzerland.
• Only data required for the provision of SWITCH edu-ID services will be stored or passed on to other services.
• When you register for a service, that service can request data that is stored in your account. In each case, you can decide if this data may be forwarded to the service.
• If you link your SWITCH edu-ID account with other identities, such as SWITCHaai or ORCID, other potential applications can be made available.

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1 Definitions

• Attribute
A single piece of information belonging to a Digital Identity, e.g. name, date of birth, phone number, SWITCH edu-ID Identifier, ORCID etc.

• Digital Identity
A set of Attributes that are assigned to a person or a user account and that provide information about their identity.

• SWITCH Contractual Partners
Organisations that work closely with the SWITCH Community, particularly academic organisations, academies, funding organisations, libraries and hospitals, private research institutes and tertiary education schools that are not part of the SWITCH Community.

• SWITCHaai Federation
The SWITCHaai Federation consists of various organisations that have committed to a collaboration based on a defined set of rules (SWITCHaai Participants). They cooperate in the area of federated authentication and authorisation and operate a joint federation for this purpose.

• Identifier
An Identifier (also called ‘identification’ or ‘ID’) is an artificially assigned feature that unambiguously identifies and refers to a specific person.

• Identity Provider (IdP)
An Identity Provider in the SWITCHaai Federation is a system component that can issue sets of Attributes that form a Digital Identity. These sets of Attributes are issued by Service Providers. If necessary, the IdP can take on further Attributes. The SWITCH edu-ID service includes more than just the IdP components and is therefore different from other IdPs.

• Services
Services are web applications or other applications offered by organisations or third parties that Users can access.

• Service Provider (SP)
The Service Provider (SP) is the component of a Service that checks user information obtained from the SWITCH edu-ID IdP or another appropriate IdP and grants or denies access to content on the basis of this check.

• SWITCHaai (AAI)
SWITCHaai is the SWITCH infrastructure for authentication and authorisation. SWITCHaai is a SWITCH Service for single sign-on (SSO) web access.

• SWITCH Community
The research and education organisations listed in the annex to the SWITCH Service dated 24 November 2016 (or any version updated later).

• SWITCH edu-ID Service
SWITCH edu-ID is a Service for the central administration of a personal Digital Identity in the field of lifelong learning.

• User (End User)
Any natural person using the SWITCH edu-ID service is called a User.

• Users belonging to an organisation
Users are designated as belonging to an organisation when the organisation manages information about that User in a database (typically for employees and students), and releases this user information for access to a service upon request.

2 Purpose

The SWITCH edu-ID service is accessible via the internet and allows you to have a lifelong and personal digital identity. This digital identity contains data to identify and contact you. The main difference from local user accounts or SWITCHaai accounts is that you can control the basic information of your SWITCH edu-ID at any time, regardless of whether you belong to an organisation or not.

Your SWITCH edu-ID user account allows you to be authenticated for services offered by different service providers in the SWITCHaai Federation.

3 Creation and access

a) All users who are interested in creating a lifelong digital identity for access to services can benefit from the SWITCH edu-ID service.

b) A user account is required to use the SWITCH edu-ID service. You must provide at least the following information:
• Your full name
• A valid e-mail address
• A password.

c) You can change the name, your e-mail address(es) and password given for your SWITCH edu-ID account at any time.

d) Specific services may require additional personal attributes such as date of birth, home address, mobile phone number, etc. For example, a library can only send books to your home if you have specified a home address.

e) Service providers may require that the attributes have been checked beforehand by a relevant process. The results of the check are stored in quality levels provided for this purpose. For example, a mobile phone number may be accompanied by the information that the user was reached via that number. Such checks (verifications) can be carried out by yourself, SWITCH, or an organisation. A check can be carried out once or several times. The quality levels are shown in the user account.

f) You can create a new user account from scratch or use an existing SWITCHaai account as a template. The advantage of the second approach is that your user account is already linked (in one direction) to the AAI identity, and existing basic attributes can be immediately transferred to your SWITCH edu-ID account. When you create your user account, you will see this data as non-editable fields.

g) You can also link your SWITCH edu-ID user account to one or more SWITCHaai accounts later and/or with additional identifiers (e.g. ORCID). Such links may be necessary if you wish to use your SWITCH edu-ID user account to access services that require the identifiers of the linked accounts.

h) The organisations in the SWITCHaai Federation independently determine which of their services they wish to make available to individual users and what conditions must be met for their use.

4 User administration

a) You or your organisation can create your account.

b) If you leave an organisation, e.g. a university or research institute, your SWITCH edu-ID user account will continue to exist, unlike your SWITCHaai account, which is deactivated when you leave an organisation.

c) If you wish to delete your SWITCH edu-ID user account, please e-mail eduid-support@switch.ch. Please be aware that cancelling your lifelong identity contradicts its purpose. If you cancel your SWITCH edu-ID account, all user data will be deleted. Your user account cannot be restored afterwards.

5 Site of data storage

The servers for all data stored by SWITCH are located in the SWITCH infrastructure in Switzerland.

6 Data protection

a) Every time you access a service, that service may request certain data about you. The requested data may differ from service to service. In every case, your consent is necessary to release your data from the IdP to the SPs. This consent feature is important because it shows you the flow of data and helps you to protect your personal data.

b) Your personal details, such as your name, e-mail address or date of birth, may be used and passed on by service providers exclusively for the following purposes:

• Authentication and authorisation
• To contact you
• To find and remove duplicates and out-of-date affiliations.

c) Specific terms of use may apply to the services you use.

d) The processing of data for users belonging to organisations is regulated in Section 7 of the SWITCH Service Regulations. For all other users, this data processing is regulated in Section 6 of the SWITCH General Terms & Conditions.

e) SWITCH has appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to protect your data against its illicit use.

f) The SWITCH edu-ID service caches data resulting from linked accounts, and keeps them up to date.

7 Responsibility of the user

a) All the data you enter, e.g. name, e-mail address, postal address, must be true.

b) Please keep your details up-to-date. Optimal operation of the SWITCH edu-ID service is only possible if your details are always correct. For this purpose, the SWITCH edu-ID service can send you regular e-mail reminders.

c) You are responsible for taking the necessary precautions to protect your password so that your SWITCH edu-ID account cannot be used by third parties.

d) You are responsible for all activities related to your SWITCH edu-ID account.

e) You must not have more than one SWITCH edu-ID user account. You are expected to actively participate in tracking down, preventing, and removing duplicates, e.g. by responding to requests from SWITCH pertaining to this or by following SWITCH’s instructions. If you discover or unintentionally create a duplicate, contact eduid-support@switch.ch. SWITCH reserves the right to merge and/or delete any accounts identified as duplicates, which may lead to loss of data or restricted access to services.

f) Misuse of a user account or SWITCH edu-ID service or violation of these Terms of Use may lead to the user account being blocked or deleted.

8 Guarantee and limitation of liability of SWITCH

SWITCH does not guarantee any specific security levels, whether in terms of data storage, specific results in connection with the service, or for any specific level of service availability.

SWITCH cannot guarantee the way in which organisations or services that you access with your SWITCH edu-ID account store data. SWITCH cannot accept any liability for data protection violations by organisations or service providers that you access with your SWITCH edu-ID user account.

In terms of liability, Section 12 of the Service Regulations applies for users belonging to an organisation. For all other users, Section 11 of the General Terms & Conditions applies in terms of liability.

9 Applicable law and regulations

a) By setting up and/or using a SWITCH edu-ID user account, you agree to these Terms of Use.
b) These Terms of Use and the use of your SWITCH edu-ID user account are subject to Swiss law.
c) The following documents also apply
i. For users belonging to an organisation: SWITCH Service Regulations
ii. For all other users: General Terms and Conditions (GTC) for Services of SWITCH
iii. For all users: Service Description SWITCH edu-ID

SWITCH reserves the right to modify or update these Terms of Use at any time without prior notice. If the changes are not substantial, the amended Terms of Use will be released to users without notice. If the changes have an impact on the rights and duties of the users, they will be informed by e-mail or by a note in the login window etc. and must agree to the new Terms of Use the next time they access a service.