Website Privacy Statement of Eastern & Midland Regional Assembly


Eastern & Midland Regional Assembly has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to your privacy. By visiting emra.ie you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Statement

This statement relates to our privacy practices in connection with the aforementioned website. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other websites. Any external links to other websites are clearly identifiable as such. Some technical terms used in this statement are explained at the end of this page.

General Statement

Eastern & Midland Regional Assembly fully respects your right to privacy, and we will not collect any personal information about you on this website without your clear permission. Any information which you volunteer to Eastern & Midland Regional Assembly websites will be treated with the highest standard of security and confidentiality, strictly in accordance with the Data Protection Acts, 1988 & 2003.

Here are the types of information we gather:

Information You Give Us:

We receive and store any information you enter on our website or give us in any other way. You can choose not to provide certain information, but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of our features. When you register for a newsletter, we require personal information (like name, email address, etc.) We use the information that you provide for such purposes as responding to your requests, customising our online services for you, improving our online services and communication with you.

Where a user voluntarily provides personal information, the data will be used for analysis, research or customer service purposes only. Any personal data provided by you to us will be held in accordance with the data protection principles set out in the Data Protection (Amendment) Act, 2003, the Data Protection Act, 1988, Electronic Commerce Act, 2000, and other relevant EU and Irish legislation.

If we do use mailing lists to pass on information on to you about our online services, we will always have a clear mechanism for you to remove yourself from future mailings. Eastern & Midland Regional Assembly assures you that the identity of all who contact us through this website is kept confidential: we do not rent, sell, or exchange mailing lists, or otherwise disclose such information to third parties, except as may be required by law, or through voluntary cooperation with law enforcement authorities if we judge that such cooperation is necessary to combat fraud or other crime.

Automatic Information

For general web browsing no personal information is revealed to us, although certain statistical information is available to us from our website logs. For example, like many websites, we obtain certain types of information when your web browser (browser are pieces of software that allow you to access the internet; examples include; Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Morzilla, etc.) accesses emra.ie. See below for examples:

Examples of information collected:

  • Internet Protocol (IP)address used to connect your computer to the internet (for example 192.168.88.21)
  • Login – if using our account services
  • Email address– if you email any of our public email addresses
  • Computer and connection information such as browser type and version, operating system, platform, referring url and pages visited

Eastern & Midland Regional Assembly will make no attempt to identify individual visitors or to associate the technical details listed above with any individual, except in cases where criminal activity has taken place (i.e. in response to a “hacking” incident). It is the policy of Eastern & Midland Regional Assembly never to disclose such technical information in respect of individual website visitors to a third party (except for law-enforcement bodies and then only in response to illegal activity such as “hacking”; also our Internet Service Provider which records such data on our behalf and which is bound by confidentiality provisions in this regard), unless obliged to disclose such information by a rule of law.

The technical information will be used only by Eastern & Midland Regional Assembly, and only for statistical and other administrative purposes. You should note that technical details, which we cannot associate with any identifiable individual, do not constitute “personal data” for the purposes of the Data Protection Acts, 1988 & 2003.

Cookies

See also: Cookies page

Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser. The “Help” portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. However, cookies allow you to take full advantage of some of EMRA.ie’s account-based features, and we recommend that you leave them turned on.

To ensure your security, we use cookies to ensure that security is maintained by preventing the “hijacking” of your online identity (see below for more on cookies). The only information that is stored in that cookie is a key code which can be used by our server only during the current visit to verify your identity online. The cookie becomes unusable after either the user logs out or after 20 minutes of inactivity on our website.

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyse how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States . Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. By using www.roscommoncoco.ie, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Does emra.ie share the information it receives?

Rarely. In cases where there is a statutory requirement to share information with a government agency or other local authority or where your information must be shared with another agency in order to answer a customer query, then the minimum amount of information required will be shared in an appropriate manner. Generally, information is shared with other agencies as a aggregate rather than as a specific piece of data. We may choose to release automatic information and other information received to the website to companies and organisation for fraud protection. Information of this type will only be shared about users who have caused or attempted to cause damage to emra.ie. This type of information would be shared only as a result of “hacking” attacks, fraud or other illegal actives.

What information Can I Access Online?

Emra.ie will make as much public information available online as possible in order to improve the transparency of our organisation. We also publish annually details of beneficiaries of EU Funding and expenses paid to our Assembly Members.
Links To Other Websites

In order to make more information easier to find for our users, EMRA.ie link to content owned and hosted by other local authorities, government agencies, companies, organizations, etc. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other websites. Any external links to other websites are clearly identifiable as such. We link to other websites that provide information relevant to members of the public. EMRA.ie makes no promises or recommendations about the quality of services provided by groups owning the websites we link to.

Glossary of Technical Terms Used

Web Browser: The piece of software you use to read web pages. Examples are Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator and Opera.

IP Address: see above

Cookies see above.

Amendments

EMRA reserves the right in its sole discretion to amend this privacy statement at any time, and you should regularly check this privacy statement for any amendments.
Further Information

Further information in regard to data privacy rights are available on the website of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner.

EMRA Contact Details:

3rd Floor, Ballymun Civic Centre,

Main Street,

Ballymun,

Dublin 9

Telephone: +353 1 807 4482

Email: info@emra.ie