At Drogheda Women’s & Children’s Refuge, accessible from https://www.droghedarefuge.org/, one of our main priorities is the privacy of our visitors. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that is collected and recorded by Drogheda Women’s & Children’s Refuge and how we use it.
If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us.
This Privacy Policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information that they shared and/or collect in Drogheda Women’s & Children’s Refuge. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website.
Consent
By using our website, you hereby consent to our Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.
Information we collect
The personal information that you are asked to provide, and the reasons why you are asked to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point we ask you to provide your personal information.
If you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you such as your name, email address, phone number, the contents of the message and/or attachments you may send us, and any other information you may choose to provide.
How we use your information
We use the information we collect in various ways, including to:
- Provide, operate, and maintain our website
- Improve, personalise, and expand our website
- Understand and analyse how you use our website
- Develop new products, services, features, and functionality
- Communicate with you, either directly or through one of our partners, including for customer service, to provide you with updates and other information relating to the website, and for marketing and promotional purposes
- Send you emails
- Find and prevent fraud
Log Files
Drogheda Women’s & Children’s Refuge follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and a part of hosting services’ analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analysing trends, administering the site, tracking users’ movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.
Cookies and Web Beacons
Like any other website, Drogheda Women’s & Children’s Refuge uses “cookies”. These cookies are used to store information including visitors’ preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimise the users’ experience by customising our web page content based on visitors’ browser type and/or other information.
Advertising Partners Privacy Policies
You may consult this list to find the Privacy Policy for each of the advertising partners of Drogheda Women’s & Children’s Refuge.
Third-party ad servers or ad networks uses technologies like cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons that are used in their respective advertisements and links that appear on Drogheda Women’s & Children’s Refuge, which are sent directly to users’ browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. These technologies are used to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and/or to personalise the advertising content that you see on websites that you visit.
Note that Drogheda Women’s & Children’s Refuge has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.
Third Party Privacy Policies
Drogheda Women’s & Children’s Refuge’s Privacy Policy does not apply to other advertisers or websites. Thus, we are advising you to consult the respective Privacy Policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information. It may include their practices and instructions about how to opt-out of certain options.
You can choose to disable cookies through your individual browser options. To know more detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers, it can be found at the browsers’ respective websites.
GDPR Data Protection Rights
We would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:
The right to access – You have the right to request copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service.
The right to rectification – You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request that we complete the information you believe is incomplete.
The right to erasure – You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
The right to restrict processing – You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
The right to object to processing – You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
The right to data portability – You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organisation, or directly to you, under certain conditions.
If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.
Children’s Information
Another part of our priority is adding protection for children while using the internet. We encourage parents and guardians to observe, participate in, and/or monitor and guide their online activity.
Drogheda Women’s & Children’s Refuge does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 13. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on our website, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will do our best efforts to promptly remove such information from our records.
Changes to This Privacy Policy
We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. Thus, we advise you to review this page periodically for any changes. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. These changes are effective immediately, after they are posted on this page.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or suggestions about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us.
You can also download this policy document.
This Privacy Notice is issued by Drogheda Women & Children’s Refuge (Registered Charity Number 20037581) of St Anthony’s, Priestlane, Drogheda (“DWCR”).
In the course of our work, we collect and process personal information from a range of stakeholders. DWCR is committed to handling all personal data lawfully, responsibly, and in full compliance with Irish Data Protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
References to “you” or “your” means any individual with whom we have a relationship, including service users, staff, volunteers, board members/trustees, professional referrers, donors, supporters, contracted service providers and visitors. Information provided by you is held in strict confidence.
This policy explains what personal information we collect, access, use, store, transfer, and/or disclose, the reasons we process your personal information, to who personal information is disclosed and your rights under relevant laws. To fully understand your rights, we encourage you to read this policy in full. We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other organisations. We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. By using our services or website, you are agreeing to the Privacy Policy in place at that time. We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy regularly to stay informed about how we protect your information.
About Us
Drogheda Women & Children’s Refuge CLG is a dedicated organisation serving Co. Louth and East Meath. We provide vital support services to women and children who are at risk of, or affected by, domestic abuse. We work to create safety and security for women and their families by offering compassionate support, practical assistance, and pathways to a life free from violence.
Our services include:
- 24 Hour Helpline
- 24 Hour 7 days a week Refuge Accommodation
- Community Outreach Support Services
- Children’s Support services including a registered playschool
- Therapeutic Supports for adults and children
- Policy and Advocacy Work on Domestic Violence issues
- Education and Awareness programmes and workshops
- Transitional housing
Data Controller
DWCR is the controller of the personal data it processes.
If you would like to exercise your statutory data protection rights, or if you have any concerns or questions about how we handle personal data, you can contact us by email at: dp@droghedarefuge.org
Please send your communication clearly indicating ‘F.A.O. Data Protection Office’ and your message will be passed directly to the DPO for attention.
Data Protection
We take our responsibility to protect your data seriously. Any personal information which you volunteer to us will be treated strictly in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Acts 1988-2018.
This privacy notice applies to you if:
- You visit our website
- You enquire about our products and/or services
- Your Personal Data is provided as part of a referral
- You are an existing service user
- You are a referral partner, legal partner or other support service
- You contact us by email, telephone or by using our online contact form
- You sign up to receive newsletters and/or other promotional communications from us, based on your explicit consent
Where data is submitted, it will be used only for the stated purpose and any reasonably incidental purposes. We do not sell or distribute your personal information to third parties for marketing. Communicating via the internet and sending information to you may involve your data passing through or being handled by third parties. This site may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications; clicking on these may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our site, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.
Where we are under a legal or regulatory duty to do so, we may disclose your details to An Garda Siochana, regulatory bodies or legal advisors, and/or, where we consider necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the Drogheda Women & Children’s Refuge, its personnel, users or others.
The information we collect:
- For general web-browsing certain statistical information is available to us via our internet service provider. This information may include the IP and logical address of the server you are using, the top level domain name from which you access the internet (for example .i.e, .com, etc.), the type of browser you are using, the date and time you access our site and the internet address linking to our site.
- You have an opportunity to send us information via this website, such as through the “contact us” pages or any other area where you may send e-mails, request information, or provide feedback. You may also choose to provide us with personal data (e.g. name, email, postal address or other contact details) in an e-mail message to the address listed on our site. We use these details solely for the purpose for which you provided them.
- Information contained within a job application (CV) where that is sent via our website.
What Personal Data is:
‘‘Personal Data’ means any information from which someone can be identified either directly or indirectly. For example, you can be identified by your name or an online identifier.
‘Special Category Personal Data’ is more sensitive Personal Data and includes information revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data for the purposes of uniquely identifying someone, data concerning physical or mental health or data concerning someone’s sex life or sexual orientation. Personal Data’ means any information from which someone can be identified either directly or indirectly. For example, you can be identified by your name or an online identifier.
Personal Data we collect:
The type of Personal Data we collect about you will depend on our relationship with you. However, whilst providing our services, the Personal Data we may collect and process includes (but is not limited to):
- Name, address, telephone number, email address
- Date of Birth, Age, Gender
- Nationality, Racial or Ethnic Origin
- Identification documents (Passport or Driving Licence)
- Information about dependents
- Medical or health information
- Financial records
- Criminal record or offence information
- Records of correspondence
- Call recordings
- CCTV surveillance footage, Photographs
To find out how and why we use the above Personal Data, please refer to the section entitled ‘Purposes for which we use personal data and the legal bases’.
How we collect your Personal Data:
We collect most of the Personal Data directly from you in person, by telephone, text or email, and/or website.
However, we may also collect your Personal Data from third parties such as:
- others to whom you have provided consent (via our referral partners for example)
- publicly available sources such as social media platforms, websites, and search engines
- sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services
- advertising networks
- analytics providers; and
- search information providers
Purposes for which we use personal data and the legal bases
We will only use your Personal Data when the law allows. Most commonly, we will use your Personal Data in the following circumstances:
| Purpose | Lawful Basis for Processing |
| Responding to correspondence from you | It is in our legitimate interest to respond to enquiries made via our website, by email, through our social channels or any other means. |
| Sending you information on upcoming events or service information which may be of interest | Drogheda Women & Children’s Refuge does not engage in direct marketing to service users for commercial purposes. However, where individuals (including service users, donors, or supporters) actively opt-in to receive newsletters or updates about our services, awareness campaigns, or fundraising activities, we will process personal data solely for that purpose. Such communications will always comply with applicable laws and regulations, and you may withdraw your consent or opt out at any time. Marketing activities will never involve the use of personal data without consent. |
| Provision of our services | For partners, the processing is necessary for the performance of the contract between us. If you have been referred to us by one of our partners, this referral would be carried out with your consent. For the management of your case and for providing ongoing support to you, we would rely on legitimate interests as our lawful basis. Where Special Category Data is required to be processed as part of the service, the lawful basis for processing would be your explicit consent. In certain circumstances, we may rely on Substantial Public Interest for the processing of Special Category Data. Schedule.1, Part.2, Condition 18 (Safeguarding) of the Data Protection Act 2018 would be the relevant condition for this. Where Criminal Offence Data is required to be processed as part of the service, the lawful basis for processing would be your consent, with Schedule.1, Part.3, Condition 29 (Consent) of the Data Protection Act 2018 being the relevant condition. In certain circumstances, where it is not possible, not reasonable, or it could cause prejudice to obtain consent from an individual, we may rely on Schedule.1, Part.2, Condition 18 (Safeguarding) of the Data Protection Act 2018 for processing Criminal Offence Data. |
| To maintain a record of contact for current partner and/or service user engagement | It is our legitimate interest to maintain a record of the contact we have with you within our database |
| Business management, forecasting and statistical purposes | We process data as part of our legitimate interest to identify opportunities for managing current business relationships, developing new products and services, and improving overall business operations. Where special category data forms part of a dataset being processed for these purposes, we may rely on Article 9(2)(j) of the GDPR for “statistical purposes,” as transposed under Section 54 of the Data Protection Act 2018. This legal basis applies when we process special category data for statistical analysis, such as surveys or research into domestic abuse trends, provided that appropriate safeguards are in place. |
| Improving our websites and the overall website visitor and user experience | It is our legitimate interest to allow analytics and search engine providers to help improve and optimise our websites. |
| Improving our websites and the overall website visitor and user experience. | We use cookies on our websites with your consent. |
Where Personal Data is processed because it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party, we will be unable to provide our services without the required information.
Sharing your Personal Data:
We may also disclose your information to third parties in connection with other purposes set out in this privacy notice. These third parties may include:
- business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors who may process information on our behalf
- referral partners, legal partners and other support services
- advertisers, social media platforms, and advertising networks
- analytics and search engine providers
- IT service providers
International Transfers:
DWCR may, from time to time, transfer personal data outside the EEA. If this is required, transfers will comply with GDPR using EU Standard Contractual Clauses or other approved restrictions and safeguards.
How long we keep your data:
We will retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to provide you with our services and for a reasonable period thereafter to enable us to meet our contractual and legal obligations and to deal with complaints and claims.
At the end of the retention period, your personal data will be securely deleted or anonymised, for example by aggregation with other data, so that it can be used in a non-identifiable way for statistical analysis and business planning.
For full details of our approach to data retention, including retention periods for specific personal data types held by DWCR, please refer to our Data Retention Policy.
How we protect your data
We ensure that all personal data is processed securely, using appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect against unauthorised or unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction, or damage. Security measures are regularly reviewed to maintain confidentiality, integrity, and availability of personal data.
We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect data against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage.
The above measures include implementing access controls at all levels and encrypting data whilst in transit and at rest.
We regularly monitor our system for possible vulnerabilities and attacks, and we carry out penetration testing to identify ways to further strengthen security.
In addition to the technical and organisational measures we have put in place, there are simple things you can do to in order to further protect your personal information, such as:
- Never share One Time Passcodes (OTPs).
- Never enter your details after clicking on a link in an email or text message.
- Always send confidential information by encrypted email to reduce risk of interception.
- If you’re logged into any online service do not leave your computer unattended.
- Close down your internet browser once you’ve logged off.
- Never download software or let anyone log on to your computer or devices remotely, during or after a cold call.
- You can easily identify secure websites by looking at the address in the top of your browser which will begin https:// rather than http://.
Your data protection rights
Drogheda Women & Children’s Refuge would like to make sure you are fully aware of your rights. We will always ensure, no matter where you are located in the world, that we adhere to and fully respect your data protection rights.
You have the following rights if you are located in Ireland:
| Rights | Description |
| Right to be informed | Individuals have the right to be informed about the collection and use of their personal data. |
| Right of access | Individuals have the right to receive a copy of their personal data, and other supplementary information. |
| Right to rectification | Individuals have the right to have inaccurate personal data rectified or completed if it is incomplete. |
| Right to erasure (the ‘right to be forgotten’) | Individuals have the right to request their personal information to be erased, in certain circumstances. |
| Right to restrict processing | Individuals have the right to request the restriction or suppression of their personal data, in certain circumstances, in particular: if your data is not accurate; if your data has been used unlawfully but you do not want us to delete it; if your data is no longer needed, but you want us to keep it for use in legal claims; or if you have already asked us to stop using your data but you are waiting to receive confirmation from us as to whether we can comply with your request. |
| Right to data portability | Individuals have the right to obtain and reuse their personal data, in a machine-readable format, for their own purposes across different services, in certain circumstances. |
| Right to object | Individuals have the right to object to the processing of their personal data, in certain circumstances. Where we are using your personal data because it is in our legitimate interests to do so, you can object to us using it this way. Where we are using your personal data for marketing communication, including profiling for direct marketing purposes, you have an absolute right to ask us to stop doing so. |
| Rights with respect to automated decision-making and profiling | Individuals have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you. |
In addition to the above, an individual also has the following rights:
| Rights | Description |
| Right to withdraw consent (if applicable) | Where we are using your personal data based on your consent, you can withdraw your consent at any time. |
| Right to complain | If you are unhappy with how we are using your personal data, you have the right to make a complaint to us or to the Data Protection Commission. www.dataprotection.ie |
Exercising your data protection rights
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.
If you wish to exercise your data protection rights, please email: dp@droghedarefuge.org
Children’s Privacy
We do not market our products or services to children, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Data of children without parental consent, unless permitted by law. If we learn that a child has provided us with their Personal Data without parental consent, we will securely and permanently delete it.
If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with their Personal Data without your consent, please contact us.
However, as part of the services provided, DWCR may process the Personal Data of children. Where such processing takes place, DWCR will pay particular attention to data security and privacy rights, in accordance with the applicable privacy laws, including, EU GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Children’s First Act.
For full details of how we protect children’s personal information, including how long we retain specific types of data related to children and young people, please refer to our Children’s Privacy and Data Retention Policy.
How to complain
In the first instance, if you are concerned about the way in which we are handling your Personal Data, and would like to make a complaint, please contact us using the information listed above.
If we are unable resolve the issue internally, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in Ireland is the Data Protection Commissioner, who can be contacted online at https://www.dataprotection.ie.
Changes to this privacy notice
We may update this notice (and any supplemental privacy notice), from time to time. We will notify of the changes where required by applicable law to do so.