Offaly County Council Privacy Statement as perData Protection Act, 2018
Who we are and why do we require your information?
Offaly County Council (“the Council”) seeks to promote the economic, social and cultural development of County Offaly and in doing so contribute significantly to improving the quality of life of the people of the County. The delivery of high quality services to meet the needs of all our customers is a core objective of the Council’s, as stated in our Corporate Plan.
In order to provide the most effective range of services to meet the needs of the citizens, communities and businesses of the County, we are required to collect, process and use certain types of information about people and organisations.
Depending on the service you require, the information sought may include ‘personal data’ as defined by the Data Protection Acts 1988-2018 and by the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) and may relate to current, past and future service users; past, current and prospective employees/suppliers, and members of the public who may engage in communications with our staff.
In addition, staff may be required, from time to time, to collect, process and use certain types of personal data to comply with regulatory or legislative requirements or to carry out functions in the public interest.
What is personal data/information?
Personal data is any information that can identify an individual person. This includes a name, an ID number, a postal address, online browsing history, images or anything related to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of a person.
Why do we have a privacy statement?
This privacy statement has been created in order to demonstrate our commitment to privacy and to assure you that in all your dealings with the Council we will ensure the security of the data you provide to us.
The Council creates, collects and processes a significant amount of personal data in various multiple formats on a daily basis. The Council’s commitment to you is that the personal data you supply to us is:
- Obtained lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner
- Obtained for only specified, explicit and legitimate purposes
- Adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the purpose for which it was obtained
- Recorded, stored accurately and securely and where necessary kept up to date
- Kept only for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it was obtained.
- Processed in a manner that ensures the appropriate security of the personal data including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing
What personal data do we need?
The types of personal data you may be asked to supply can be categorised as follows:
- Contact details to allow for efficient communication
- Details of your personal circumstances which you are required by law to supply as part of your application for a service offered by the Council.
- Your own financial details which you are required by law to supply as part of your application for a service offered by the Council.
Contact Details
In order to communicate with you, you will be asked for contact details. You do not have to provide all contact details but providing more, such as email, phone, address, makes it easier to communicate.
Details of Personal Circumstances
If you wish to apply for a particular service from the Council you will be asked for a varying amount of personal details specific to you and your family, in order to support your application.
Financial Details
If you wish to apply for a particular service from the local authority you may be asked for a varying amount of personal financial details specific to you and your family, in order to support your application.
Is my personal data shared with other organisations?
The Council may, to fulfil statutory or regulatory obligations or in the public interest, from time to time, have to share or disclose personal data with other organisations or entities. Where this is required the Council shall have regard to the security and integrity of the data, to your rights and will minimise the data shared.
How long is my data kept for?
The Council adheres to the National Retention Policy for Local Authority Records which outlines time periods for which your personal data will be retained and what will happen to it after the required retention period has expired.
A copy of the National Record Retention Policy for Local Authority Records can be accessed at https://www.lgma.ie/en/publications/corporate/national-retention-policy-for-local-authority.pdf
Updating of records
Offaly County Council must take reasonable steps to ensure that personal data we have about our customers is correct and up to date.
If the data we hold is found to be inaccurate you have the right to request that we correct it. For example, if you have changed your name, address or contact details please contact us so that we can correct it. You can do this by:
Writing to: Data Protection Office, Offaly County Council, Áras an Chontae, Charleville Road, Tullamore, Co Offaly
Emailing: dpo@offalycoco.ie
When making a request to update your records please provide evidence to support this – for example a copy of a document containing your new address – e.g. utility bill or a Government letter dated within the last 6 months and proof of your identity e.g. a legible photocopy or scan of your passport or driving licence.
Website Privacy
Cookies and how you use this website
To make this website easier to use, we sometimes place small text files on your device (for example your mobile phone, iPad or laptop) called cookies. Most big websites do this too.
They improve things by:
- remembering the things you’ve chosen while on our website, so you don’t have to keep re-entering them whenever you visit a new page
- remembering data you’ve given (for example, your address) so you don’t need to keep entering it
- measuring how you use the website so we can make sure it meets your needs
By using our website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device.
We don’t use cookies on this website that collect information about what other websites you visit (often referred to as privacy intrusive cookies).
Our cookies aren’t used to identify you personally. They’re just here to make the site work better for you. You can manage and/or delete these files as you wish.
To learn more about cookies and how to manage them, visit AboutCookies.org or watch a video about cookies.
How you use this website (something called Google Analytics)
We use Google Analytics to collect information about how people use this site. We do this to make sure it’s meeting peoples’ needs and to understand how we can make the website work better.
Google Analytics stores information about what pages on this site you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here and what you click on while you are here.
We do not collect or store any other personal information (e.g. your name or address) so this data cannot be used to identify who you are.
| Name | Typical Content | Expires |
| _cfduid | Randomly generated number | 1 month |
| _utma | randomly generated number | 2 years |
| _utmb | randomly generated number | 30 minutes |
| _utmc | randomly generated number | when you close your browser |
| _utmt | randomly generated number | 2 years |
| _utmz | randomly generated number and data on how the site was reached (e.g. direct or via a link, organic search or paid search) | 6 months |
We also collect data on the number of times a word is searched for and the number of failed searches. We use this information to improve access to the site and identify gaps in the content and see if it is something we should add to the site.
Unless the law allows us to, we do not:
- share any of the data we collect about you with others, or
- use this data to identify individuals
Other people’s cookies
We use feeds from other websites such as Facebook and Twitter. These websites place cookies on your device when watching or viewing these pages.
Below are links to their cookie policies:
Turning off cookies
You can stop cookies being downloaded on to your computer or other device by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser. If you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website.
There is more information about how to delete or stop using cookies on AboutCookies.org. You can also opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics.