Privacy | Irish Ancestry

Irish Ancestry Privacy Statement

Irish Ancestry (“Irish Ancestry”, “we” or “us”) is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy and strives to ensure your personal information is treated in a responsible manner.

When we refer to “Irish Ancestry” we are referring to the Irish Genealogy firm Irish Ancestry, based at Orwell Gardens, Dublin 14, Ireland.

What personal information do we collect about you?

We may collect personal information from you (and, through you, from, business owners, partners, employees, secondees, representatives, agents and contractors) in the course of our business, when you contact or request information from us, when you engage our genealogy and research services or other services or as a result of your relationship with one or more of our staff and clients.

The personal information that we process includes:

basic information, such as your name (including name prefix or title), the company you work for, your title or position and your relationship to a person; contact information, such as your postal address, email address and phone number(s)
financial details, such as payment-related information;
technical information, in relation to materials and communications we send to you electronically;
information you provide to us for the purposes of attending meetings.
identification and background information provided by you or collected as part of our services;
personal information provided to us by or on behalf of our clients or generated by us in the course or providing services to them, which may include special categories of data such as, but not limited to, financial information or medical information and
any other information relating to you which you may provide to us.

How we obtain your personal information

We collect information from you as part of our business acceptance / client sign up and about you and others as necessary in the course of providing genealogy research services. We also collect your personal information while monitoring our technology tools and services, (including our email communications sent to and from Irish Ancestry) and we gather information about you when you provide it to us, or interact with us directly, for instance engaging with our staff. We may also collect or receive information about you from other sources (eg. Pay Pal), such as keeping the contact details we already hold for you accurate.

How we use your personal information

We collect and process personal information about you in a number of ways, in the provision of services by us. We use that information:

to provide and improve our services to you and to our clients, including handling the personal information of others on behalf of our clients;
to manage and administer our relationship with you and our clients;
to provide information requested by you;
to fulfil our legal and regulatory obligations, including establishing, exercising or defending legal claims;
to promote our services, including sending updates, publications and details of events;
for the purposes of recruitment;

Use of Irish Ancestry website

Our website uses Google Analytics, a web-based analytics tool that tracks and reports on the manner in which the website is used to help us to improve it. We use Cookies to authenticate user and for website traffic monitoring purposes. A cookie is a piece of information, which is stored on your computer’s hard drive by your web browser. On revisiting the Website, Irish Ancestry’s computer server recognises the cookie, giving Irish Ancestry information about your last visit. Cookies do not contain personal information and Irish Ancestry does not use cookies to personally identify you. Irish Ancestry uses cookies for the sole purpose of managing functional aspects of the Website. Most browsers accept cookies automatically, but usually you can alter the settings of your browser to prevent their automatic acceptance. If you choose not to receive cookies, you may not be able to use all of the Website’s features.

Meetings

We also collect and process personal information about you in relation to your attendance at our offices or elsewhere. We collect, create, hold and use personal information in the course of and in connection with the services we provide to you, our clients. We will process identification and background information as part of our business acceptance, finance and administration. We will also process personal information provided to us by or on behalf of our clients for the purposes of the work we do for them. The information may be disclosed to third parties to the extent reasonably necessary in connection with that work..

On what basis we use your personal information

We use your personal information on the following basis:

to perform a contract, such as engaging with an individual to provide Genealogy Research Services or other services;
to comply with legal and regulatory obligations;
for legitimate business purposes.
where you have consented to our use.

How long we keep your personal information

Your personal information will be retained in accordance with our data retention policy which categorises all of the information held by Irish Ancestry and specifies the appropriate retention period for each category of data. Those periods are based on the requirements of applicable data protection laws and the purpose for which the information is collected and used, taking into account legal and regulatory requirements to retain the information for a minimum period, limitation periods for taking legal action, good practice and Irish Ancestry’s business purposes.

Who we share your personal information with

We may also share your personal information with certain trusted third parties in accordance with contractual arrangements in place with them, including:

suppliers to whom we outsource certain support services such as document or record retention, word processing, translation, photocopying and document review;
professional advisers including IT service providers to Irish Ancestry;
third parties engaged in the course of the services we provide to clients and with their prior consent, such as payment providers, legal firms and technology service providers such as CCTV service companies.
third party providers of Anti Money Laundering (AML) / CTF (countering the finance) and similar services.

Where necessary, or for the reasons set out in this statement, personal information may also be shared with regulatory authorities, government agencies and law enforcement agencies. While it is unlikely, we may be required to disclose your information to comply with legal or regulatory requirements, we will use reasonable endeavours to notify you before we do this, unless we are legally restricted from doing so.

How we protect your personal information

We use a variety of technical and organisational measures to help protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, alteration or destruction consistent with applicable data protection laws. However, although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted to us by any means. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk.

We cannot guarantee the complete security of our database, nor can we guarantee that information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to us by electronic means. We have however implemented strict internal guidelines to ensure that your privacy is safeguarded at every level of our organisation and will continue to update policies and implement additional security features as and when technological advances allow.

Your rights regarding your personal information

The General Data Protection Regulation enacted on the Irish statute and other applicable data protection laws provide certain rights for data subjects. Please see in the attached link what those rights are:

www.dataprotection.ie/en/individuals/rights-individuals-under-general-data-protection-regulation

All requests for data we hold on you should be addressed to: info@irishancestry.ie

You also have the right to lodge a complaint in relation to our processing of your personal information with a local supervisory authority which in Ireland is the Data Protection Commissioner.

If you object to the processing of your personal information, or if you have provided your consent to processing and you later choose to withdraw it, we will respect that choice in accordance with our legal obligations. Your objection (or withdrawal of any previously given consent) could mean that we are unable to perform the actions necessary to achieve the purposes set out above (see ‘How we use your personal information’) or that you may not be able to make use of the services and products offered by us. Please note that even after you have chosen to withdraw your consent we may be able to continue to process your personal information to the extent required or otherwise permitted by law, in particular in connection with exercising and defending our legal rights or meeting our legal and regulatory obligations.

We must ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. Therefore, please advise us of any changes to your information by emailing us at info@irishancestry.ie

Data controllers

The sole entity through which Irish Ancestry provides genealogy research services is Irish Ancestry Limited currently based at Orwell Gardens, Rathgar, Dublin 14 , Republic of Ireland.

Our main IT systems are located in Ireland and are controlled by Irish Ancestry. Our Webserver(s) is managed by a 3rd party, located in Ireland within the EU.

Irish Ancestry reserves the right to change this Privacy Statement from time to time at our sole discretion. We will post those changes here and update the “Last Updated” date at the bottom of this Privacy Statement. Your continued use of our website http://www.irishancestry.ie after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes. Please check this Privacy Statement periodically for updates.

Last Updated: March 29th 2024