Skip to main content

Privacy Notice

Cork City Council Website Privacy Notice

 

This Privacy Notice relates to our privacy practices in connection with Cork City Council websites:

  • corkcity.ie
  • corkcitylibraries.ie
  • corkarchives.ie
  • corklearningcity.ie
  • data.corkcity.ie

 We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other websites.

Introduction

This Privacy Notice outlines how Cork City Council (referred to as "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and protects personal data obtained through our websites. We are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected and that any personal data you provide is handled in accordance with applicable data protection laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Data Controller

Cork City Council, located at City Hall, Anglesea Street, Cork, T12 T997, is the data controller responsible for the processing of your personal data collected through this website.

How do we collect your data?

If you are simply browsing our website, then no personal data is collected. However, if you engage with any of our online services then we will ask you to provide personal data. This will vary according to the type of service required. We may collect this data directly or we may engage a third-party processor to collect the data on our behalf. When a third-party processor is involved, we will always make this as clear as possible to you before you are directed to the service. When engaging third parties to process data on our behalf, Cork City Council ensures that they adhere to the highest possible standards regarding data protection and security, and that your rights as a data subject under all relevant legislation are protected. We would encourage you to visit our third-party services information page to learn more

What data do we collect?

Personal data will be collected only where necessary and relevant to allow us to provide a service.  This is in line with the principle of necessity and proportionality. If you submit a digital application form or participate in online public consultation, you will initially be required to register on the service with your name and email address. Depending on the application or consultation process, you may be asked to provide further details such as postal address, phone number, vehicle registration, financial information, and various other types of information. This will vary from service to service, and you will be informed of what is required before being asked to provide your personal data. Supplementary, supporting documentation may need to be uploaded in some cases.

No credit card details are collected or stored by us on our website.  For services that require online payments the third parties that we use are reputable, secure payment service providers.

Should you consent to the storage of analytics cookies on your device, an anonymised version of your IP address is recorded, along with your country of origin, device and operating system used, time and date of visit, type of referral site (not the specific URL), and pages viewed. This information helps us to monitor traffic and improve how our website works for you. Cork City Council uses a GDPR compliant web analytics platform called Matomo. Our website analytics are never shared with any third parties.

If you choose not to accept the analytics cookie, your visit is still recorded using a non-identifiable id. The visitor config_id is a randomly seeded, privacy-enabled, time-limited hash of a limited set of the visitor’s settings and attributes, which expires within 24 hours. However, the ‘Do Not Track’ instruction in your browser will be followed if you have it enabled and this record of your visit will not take place. You can also ensure that no record of your visit to our website is created by unticking the box below.

How will we use your data?

Any data collected from you will only be used for the purpose for which the data was submitted and will not be further processed in a manner incompatible with that purpose without your consent. This is in line with the principle of purpose limitation.

How do we store your data?

Our website uses pTools content management system and is hosted on Amazon Web Services. Data submitted directly through our website using an embedded contact form for example, is securely processed, and stored in the EU.

There are links on this website to a third-party digital applications service, Submit.com. The URL will appear as corkcity.submit.com.  Personal information on this service is processed and stored in the EU.

Consultations are collected via a third-party platform managed by CiviQ, at the following web address; consult.corkcity.ie. and are processed and stored in the EU.

However, where online payments occur as part of an application process, the transactions are processed through Stripe, a payment service provider that operates globally and data can be transferred outside of the EU, including to the US. If you prefer not to make a payment in this way, please contact the relevant department within Cork City Council for an alternative method of payment. Please visit our third-party services information page to learn more about other sub processors that we use.

How long do we keep your personal data?

We ensure that personal information collected and processed through cloud-based platforms is held only for as long as necessary to fulfil the function and comply with audit.

Digital applications on corkcity.submit.com, are stored for two years, after which time they are permanently deleted from the cloud platform, along with all dormant user accounts. This data, however, may have been exported to internal storage systems by the relevant department. In this case the data retention period for that particular service area would be applicable.

Website analytics data is automatically deleted from Matomo after thirteen months.

What is the legal basis for processing?

We process your personal data based on one or more of the following legal grounds:

  • Performance of a contract: When you provide personal data necessary for the fulfilment of a contract between you and us. When you apply for a license or permit, for example.
  • Consent: When you have given us your explicit consent for specific processing activities, such as receiving communications from a mailing list to which you have subscribed or a texting service such as Cork City Alerts.
  • Legitimate interests: When we have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data that is not overridden by your data protection rights.
  • Legal obligations: When processing is necessary to comply with our legal obligations.

How is your data shared?

In addition to relevant staff of Cork City Council your personal data may be shared with trusted third parties, including service providers, contractors, and authorized personnel who assist us in operating our website or providing services requested by you. We ensure that these parties handle your data securely and in compliance with applicable data protection laws. Your data will never be shared with non-disclosed third parties for marketing, advertising or any other such purpose.

Are cookies used on this site?

Cookies are used on this site in order to improve the range of services on offer to you and to enhance your browsing experience. In accordance with legislation, only necessary cookies are enabled by default. All other cookie types are blocked unless you explicitly consent to them by using the tick-box options on our cookie banner. We ensure that all areas of this site and all information regarding our services are accessible to you without the need to consent to extra cookie categories, but you may find that certain content types will be unavailable, such as embedded video or audio, eCommerce and eTicketing or any other content embedded on the site from a third-party resource. You may change your consent options or withdraw your consent to cookies at any time by clicking on the cookie widget on the bottom-left of the screen. You may also manage cookie options and view your consent status and consent id on the cookies management page. See the relevant links below:

What are your data protection rights?

You have the following rights, in certain circumstances and subject to applicable exemptions, in relation to your personal data:

  • the right to access the personal data that we hold about you, together with other information about our processing of that personal data.
  • the right to require us to rectify any inaccuracies in your personal data.
  • the right to require us to erase your personal data.
  • the right to request that we no longer process your personal data for particular purposes.
  • the right to object to our use of your personal data or the way in which we process it and
  • the right to receive your personal data, which you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format or to require us to transmit that data to another controller.

Please note that to help protect your privacy, we take steps to verify your identity before granting access to personal data.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please submit a request to our Data Protection Officer outlining the specific details of the request:

Email:  dataprotection@corkcity.ie

Phone: +353 21 4924000

All valid requests will be processed without undue delay and in any event within one month of receipt of the request.  This period may be extended by up to two further months where necessary.

Changes to our Privacy Notice

Cork City Council keeps its Privacy Notice under regular review and updates this webpage as required.

This webpage was last updated: 05-02-2025

How to contact us:

For any queries relating to the Cork City Council Privacy Website Notice or Data Protection policies, please contact our designated Data Protection Officer.

Email: dataprotection@corkcity.ie

Postal Address: Data Protection Officer, Cork City Council, City Hall, Anglesea Street, Cork, T12 T997

Phone: +353 21 4924000

Right of Complaint to the Office of the Data Protection Commission

If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the response you received from Cork City Council in relation to your data subject rights, then you are entitled to make a complaint to the Data Protection Commission who may investigate the matter for you.

The Data Protection Commission’s website is www.dataprotection.ie or you can contact their office at:

Telephone: +01 7650100

Lo Call Number: +1800 437737

E-mail: info@dataprotection.ie

Postal Address: Data Protection Commission, 21 Fitzwilliam Square South, Dublin 2, D02 RD28, Ireland.