PRIVACY POLICY

MAKING CONNECTIONS PRIVACY POLICY

MAKING CONNECTIONS (MC) has created this privacy notice in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to your privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for this website: www.makingconnections.ie

Continuing our commitment to our obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation 2016, Making Connections has appointed a Data Protection Controller to be responsible for Data Protection & Privacy.

You may contact our Data Protection Controller by emailing info@makingconnections.ie or by writing to Data Protection Controller, Making Connections, Glenard, 36 Roebuck Road, Clonskeagh, Dublin14.

This notice informs you of our policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information we receive from users of the site. By using the site, you are accepting the terms of this policy; if you are not happy with these terms, you should not use this website.

The policy covers pages on the Making Connections.ie domain only. While we try our best to only provide links to useful, high-quality sites, Making Connections is not responsible for the content or the privacy policies of external websites.

INFORMATION COLLECTION AND USE

While using our site, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you. This information falls into two categories: Personal Data and Non-Personal Data.

PERSONAL DATA

This is information that identifies you or can be used to identify or contact you. This may include your name, address, email address, location, age, gender and telephone number. This information is only collected if you voluntarily submit it to us, e.g. to register as a Making Connections volunteer using the Making Connections Registration form, sign up to Making Connections fundraising events, or request access to or refer somebody to Making Connections support services.

WHY WE COLLECT DATA

As a Charity which brings volunteers and older, vulnerable adults together in a befriending relationship, Making Connections needs to collect and process personal and/or sensitive personal data to pursue its legitimate interests, including for the proper provision, matching and safeguarding of the older people and volunteers involved. In order to continue to exist as a charity, Making Connections relies on donations from individual supporters and corporate donors and needs to obtain personal data in that context. Of the permitted legal reasons for ‘processing’ (meaning using) your personal data the following are applicable to Making Connections:

• the legitimate interests of Making Connections, referred to above; a contract or a proposed contractual relationship with you; express consent; a legal obligation.

Where your consent is relied on, you can withdraw it whenever you wish by contacting the Making Connections Data Controller.

NON-PERSONAL DATA

Like most websites, we gather general, non-personal information on our visitors for statistical purposes. This cannot be used to identify or contact you. This might include your IP address, the browser you use, the pages of our site you visit and similar anonymous data.

COOKIES

In order to function correctly and provide the best browsing experience this site uses cookies. Cookies are small files with a small amount of data which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a website and stored on your computer’s hard drive and do not collect personal data or information which could be used to identify you. Like many sites, and in line with EU Law we use these cookies to collect anonymous information. You can control the cookies your computer saves by adjusting your settings in your internet browser privacy settings or by opting out of cookies on our website However, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our site.

Note: The option to control this directly via our website is under construction.

SECURITY

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under its control. Information held by this site is stored on password-protected machines, behind a firewall and not accessible to the general public via the Web.

Personal data submitted to Making Connections.ie is held on our secure servers. Whilst no data transmission over the internet can ever be guaranteed to be 100% secure, we will take all reasonable steps (technically and organisationally) to protect your information. We will also work only with third parties who have clear and suitable privacy and data protection policies of their own.

In order to register as a Making Connections volunteer, or make a donation to Making Connections, you will be asked for some personal information when you register with us. This may include your name, email address, postal code age range and country of residence. The information received from you will only be disclosed to such third parties as may be necessary in order to process your application or donation. We will take all reasonable precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of information you give us. Agents or contractors of Making Connections who have access to your information are required to keep that information confidential and are not permitted to use it for any purpose other than to carry out the services which they are performing for us.

HOW IS THIS INFORMATION USED?

Personal data you submit on Making Connections.ie will only be used to contact you when necessary, e.g. to process an application to volunteer, respond to a request or a referral for support, to send you any information or notifications you ask for, to acknowledge a donation, etc. Any personal data communicated via our online, email and phone support services are confidential within normal limits.

Our Making Connections.ie site does not carry any third-party advertising, therefore your data is not being used for commercial targeting.

We also use visitor information to get a better understanding of how people use the website, e.g. which pages are most popular, which links people find most useful, etc. This helps us to improve the site and provide better information and support for those who use it.

IS THIS INFORMATION SHARED?

Non-identifiable information may occasionally be used to compile statistics or generate reports that may be shared with others – e.g. the number of visitors to the site, number of new volunteers, online submissions for support, age groups, and location-based information (postcode, county) etc.

Some areas of the site, such as the email newsletter or sections involving online payment, depend on applications or software built by trustworthy, reputable third parties. These third parties are bound by similar privacy and data protection requirements as Making Connections.

If you have given us information about yourself and would like copies of that information, or you would like us to correct any factual inaccuracies in that information, or if you would like that information deleted from our records, please contact our Data Protection Controller by emailing info@makingconnections.ie or by writing to Data Protection Controller, Making Connections, Glenard, 36 Roebuck Road, Clonskeagh, Dublin.14.

We will use reasonable efforts to supply, correct or delete information about you on our files. Personal data will only be released to external sources in order to comply with applicable laws, summonses, search warrants, court or regulatory orders, or other statutory requirements.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

If you choose to visit and use this site, your visit and use and any dispute arising therefrom in respect of privacy, is subject to this Privacy Notice and our Terms and Conditions of use including the limitations and the exclusions expressed and included therein.

This Privacy Notice will be the subject of change and the use of information that we gather shall be subject to the privacy notice in effect from time to time. It shall be your responsibility to check our website frequently to see recent changes.

LINKS

This site may provide links to other sites. Privacy notices on these sites may differ from that on the Making Connections site, and we advise that you review the other site’s notices before providing personal information. While every care has been taken to ensure the high quality and standard of the sites that we link, Making Connections takes no responsibility for the content of these sites.

CONTACT US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, please contact us at info@makingconnections.ie or by writing to Data Protection Controller, Making Connections, Glenard, 36 Roebuck Road, Clonskeagh, Dublin14.

Updated: 2019