Privacy Policy

Our privacy policy can be found below.

Privacy Policy      

First Edition          

This is the Privacy Policy of the Irish-Hellenic Society.

1. What is a Privacy Policy?

A Privacy Policy is a way of communicating what information we hold, what the reason for collecting this information is and what we use the information for.    It also lets you know what your rights are.

This Privacy Policy relates to data processed by the Irish-Hellenic Society.   In addition, it sets out how the Irish-Hellenic Societyuses and protects any information that is provided to us, in the normal operation of the Irish-Hellenic Societyand specifically when you use the Irish-Hellenic Societywebsite.

 2. Who are we?

The Irish-Hellenic Societyis  a voluntary society, composed of its members and annually elected Committee.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy you can contact us either by email, at    info@irishhellenic.ie  or by speaking to any one of the officers of the Society at one of our regular meetings, where copies of this policy will be available. 

All requests thus received will be dealt with as soon as possible.

3. What is the General Data Protection Regulation?

The new General Data Protection Regulations (the “GDPR Regulations”)is a European Union (EU) wide set of standardised rules for the handling and storage of personal information within the EU.  The GDPR Regulations came into force on 25th May 2018, bringing substantial changes to Irish Data Protection Laws[1]and is designed to strengthen and unify data protection within the European Union.

The GDPR Regulations apply to any organisation which controls or processes Personal Data[2]of an EU citizen.

We are designated as a Data Controller under the GDPR Regulations.  The society’s Officers process the personal data received for the purposes  of  the Irish-Hellenic Societyonly.   For all data related matters or queries please contact us at info@irishhellenic.ie

4. What information do we collect and store?

We collect information about you, which you voluntarily provide to us.   

We hold contact details for specific purposes in connection with organising events or activities or other matters as befits the Scope and Purposes of the Society and that are accordingly defined in our Constitution.  

The information which we collect, and store is as follows: 

  • First Name
  • Surname
  • Postal Address
  • Email Address
  • Phone number (landline and/or mobile) 
  • Your Membership and Subscription Status

We will never trade, sell or distribute your Personal Information to a third party without your consent unless we are allowed to do so by law, or in an emergency.   

The Irish-Hellenic Societywebsite does not hold personally identifiable information and is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected in accordance with the practices set out in this Privacy Policy. 

We will not transfer or store your personal data outside of the European Union.

5. How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you voluntarily provide this information to us.  

This may be by any means including written or oral, when you email us, fill in a form or questionnaire or when you interact with us via our website. 

This may include but is not limited to when you contact us in relation to any forthcoming events, or for any other reason.

6. Is your information secure?

The privacy and data security of our members is very important to us.

We hold your information either securely within our own electronic data base filing system or on paper, which is held securely at the premises of designated Irish-Hellenic SocietyCommittee members. 

Our data protection policies are set out in this document and appropriate Procedures are in place to manage this security.

Your data is protected against loss and unauthorized access. 

Access by us to ‘visitor’ information, gathered through the website, is limited to those within the Irish-Hellenic Societywho are duly authorized to access that information.  

Please be aware that non-sensitive details (i.e. your email address) which are typically  transmitted by you over the Internet,  e.g. by email, are never  guaranteed to be 100% secure . 

Additionally, it is not possible to guarantee the complete security of our database.  However, once we receive your information, we will make every effort to ensure its security. 

7. Who has access to your information?

Only the officers of the Irish-Hellenic Society  have access to information you volunteer to us.

It is important to note:

  • We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.
  • We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

8. How is your information used?

The information we collect and store from you, as set out in section 4 above, may be used in any of the following ways:

  • To process  membership applications or renewal of membership records of  the Irish-Hellenic Society
  • To process annual membership fees
  • To process applications for courses, activities or events
  • The maintaining of electronic mailing lists
  • To send periodic notifications of events and to inform you of any cancellations  
  • To seek your views or comments 
  • To notify you of changes to our services  and /or improve our services.
  • To send you other communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you including information about  activities and promotions of the Irish-Hellenic Society, as well as to inform you of the venues of any meetings and other details.

We will only send you communications of a non-commercial nature, although it is possible we may on occasion publicise commercial events or activities if we believe these may be of interest to our members. 

9. What is our legal basis for processing your personal data?

Our lawful basis for processing your general personal data under article 6 of GDPR is as follows: –

Consent of the data subject:

We will directly ask for your  consent to process data;

  • When you register for membership or renew your annual membership of the Irish-Hellenic Society
  • When you make application for courses, activities or events

We will collect and use your personal data in the following circumstances;

  • We will use your personal data to process and facilitate your membership of the Irish-Hellenic Society
  • Likewise when you wish to reserve places for the Irish-Hellenic Societyevents so that We can process your application for such events, and
  • When processing may be necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests of the data controller or a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights or freedoms of the data subject;

Consent to Receive Certain Emails:

We send email communications about our activities to members and visitors to our website who sign up and give prior consent. Any emails that are sent, are sent for such purposes or information.

10. How long doesthe Irish-Hellenic Society retain your personal information?

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis.

We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations.

If  you require further information about this please let us know.  

11. Your choices

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct communications from us, then please let us know.

Opting out can be accomplished by writing or by emailing us.  We will not contact you by email, phone or in writing unless you have given us your prior consent.

12. What happens when you no longer wish to receive information from us

Under the GDPR, you have the right to ‘erasure’,  which is also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’. This enables you to request the deletion or removal of your personal data where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing by us.

13. How you can access and update your information

The accuracy of your information is important to us. 

If you change email or postal address, or you believe that any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please write to us or  email us at: info@irishhellenic.ie.

14. Subject Access Requests

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information which the Irish-Hellenic Societyholds about you.

Should you send us a Subject Access Request, we are obliged to provide you with the personally identifiable information which we hold.  The information we hold will only be your email address, your first name and your surname and any details mentioned in Clause 4 above. For the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), we have one month’s notice to provide this information to you.

15. Data Breaches

The GDPR places a duty on all organisations to report specific types of data breach to the Data Protection Commissioner, and to the individuals affected. 

We will only have to notify the Data Protection Commissioner of a breach where it is likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals.

16. How to make a complaint?

To exercise all relevant rights, or to submit queries or complaints  please, in the first instance,  contact info@irishhellenic.ie or contact the Secretary of  the Irish-Hellenic Society.

If this does not resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commissioner’s Office.

17. Photographs taken at Irish-Hellenic Societyevents

The Irish-Hellenic Societymembers and friends may take photos at society events e.g. meetings, talks, Christmas parties etc.   In order to ensure compliance with Data Protection Acts and privacy laws, the photographer should obtain the prior consent of the persons being photographed and in the case of children or minors (under 18 years) the permission of the child’s parent/guardian will need to be obtained.  

All Photographs provided to us by Members must have the appropriate consents of the persons being photographed.   In addition,the permission of the copyright holder, usually the person who took the photograph, is also required. 

Photographic images will be stored securely.   

If you wish to withdraw any photographs which may contain your image and which were

submitted to us for future publication, please contact the society.

18. Cookies

A “cookie” is a small data text file which may be placed in your browser. 

The Irish-Hellenic Societydoes not use cookies to collect personal information.

19. Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations as a convenience to you when you visit our website.

If You follow a link to any of those websites, please note that that does not imply that the Irish-Hellenic Societyhas endorsed those third-party external websites.

These third-party websites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility and disclaim liability for the content, policies and activities of these linked websites.

You are advised to read the privacy policy of external sites before disclosing any personal information.

Should you click on a link, then you are discharging the Irish-Hellenic Societyfrom any liability through your use of the third-party site. Nevertheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these websites.

20. Review of this  Privacy Policy 

With the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulations(GDPR) on 25th May 2018, this privacy policy has been updated to reflect the changes in the data protection laws.

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. 

We accordingly reserve the right at our discretion, to modify, add or remove such portions of this privacy policy at any time by posting any changes on this page of our website.  We would therefore advise that you should continue to check this specific page periodically for such changes.

This privacy policy was last updated on the 24th. October, 2018.

________________________________

Pamela O’Neill,  President

[1]Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003 (ROI)

[2]Personal data can be defined as any information relating to a natural person, the data subject, who can be directly or indirectly identified by the use of that data. The GDPR Regulations refines the definitions of personal data and sensitive data. Personal Data now extends to online identifiers such as an email address, IP address and cookies.