Websites of Donegal County Council

Donegal County Council has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to your privacy. By visiting Donegalcoco.ie, Donegallibrary.ie, DonegalCDB.ie or Donegal.ie, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Notice.

This statement relates to our privacy practices in connection with the aforementioned websites. We are not responsible for the content or pricacy 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

Donegal County Council 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 Donegal County Council's websites will be treated with the highest standard of security and confidentiality, strictly in accordance with the Data Protection Acts, 1988 & 2003.

Information You Give Us:

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.

We do not store any record of your credit card or Laser number. Any credit or debit card data is transferred directly from your computer to our card services partners’ server over a secure, encrypted connection. Our card services partners are the Local Government Computer Services Board (LGCSB) and RealEx.

Donegal County Council 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 (browsers are pieces of software that allow you to access the internet; examples include: Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Mozilla, etc.) accesses Donegalcoco.ie or our other websites. See below for examples. Also, to ensure the security of your online account information in our ePayments area, 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.

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

Donegal County Council 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 Donegal County Council 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" or, unless obliged to disclose such information by a rule of law. The technical information will be used only by Donegal County Council, 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

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 and to provide security in future online applications e.g. making payments online for council services.

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 will allow you to take full advantage of some of the future account-based features which will be included on Donegal County Council websites, and we recommend that you leave them turned on.

Does Donegal 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 an aggregate rather than as a specific piece of data.

How Secure is Information About Me?

We do not collect credit card information or other payment methods via this website. Any future online transactions will be completed via the Local Government Computer Services Board (LGCSB)/RealEx online payment processing engine to ensure maximum protection for your account information.

It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off from your computer when using a shared computer.

What Information Can I Access Online?

Donegalcoco.ie and the other council websites will make as much public information available online as possible in order to improve the transparency of our organization.

Links To Other Websites

In order to make more information easier to find for our users, Donegalcoco.ie and the other Council websites 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 living in Donegal and to websites whose content we think would be of interest or assistance to those planning a visit to Donegal. Donegal County Council makes no promises or recommendations about the quality of services provided by groups owning the websites we link to.

web browser

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

IP address

The identifying details for your computer (or your internet company’s computer), expressed in "internet protocol" code (for example 192.168.72.34). Every computer connected to the web has a unique IP address, although the address may not be the same every time a connection is made.

cookies

See above.

Disclaimer

Whilst Donegal County Council make every effort to keep the information on this web site accurate, we disclaim any warranty or representation, express or implied about its accuracy, completeness or appropriateness for a particular purpose.   Thus, you assume full responsibility for using the information at this web site, and you understand and agree that neither Donegal County Council nor any of its employees or agents are responsible or liable for any claim, loss or damage resulting from its use.   If you find anything that causes concern please let us know.

Amendments

Donegal County Council 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.

More Information/Contact

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this or another Donegal County Council website or your dealings with this or another Donegal County Council website, you can contact:

webmaster@donegalcoco.ie

or write to

Webmaster
IS Section
Donegal County Council,
The Diamond,
Lifford, Co. Donegal