Privacy policy

Data Privacy Notice

Welcome to The Irish News’ Data privacy notice.

Who We Are

The Irish News Limited (we, us, our or The Irish News) is the best-selling regional newspaper in the UK and Ireland. We are based at Fountain Centre, College Street, Belfast BT1 6ET. This policy (together with any other documents referred to in it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

Important information

At The Irish News, we take your privacy seriously and we are committed to protecting your personal data. We aim to be clear about how we use personal data and this privacy notice will inform you how we look after your personal data, what personal data we process and why. It applies to both your visit to our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and when you use our services.

At The Irish News we collect different types of information about our users for three main reasons:

1. To provide personalised services unique to individual users;

2. To help us to monitor and improve the services we offer; and

3. If we have permission from the user, or where otherwise allowed by law, to market services to them.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

Controller

The Irish News Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as “TIN”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice).

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements or practices. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

Where you can contact us if you have any questions about how your personal data is processed by us

We have appointed a Data Supervisory Officer who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the Data Supervisory Officer dataprotection@irishnews.com.

What types of personal data we process, where we get that personal data from

As part of our services, we may need to collect use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

Identity Data includes first name, last name, username or similar identifier, title, date of birth and gender.
Contact Data includes billing address, email address and telephone numbers.
Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of services you have purchased from us.
Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical data for any purpose.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data) unless we have your explicit consent to do so. Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Direct interactions. You may give us various personal data by placing an order, filling in forms, signing up to our newsletter or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes information you provide when you register to use our site, subscribe to our service, search for a product, place an order on our site, participate in discussion boards or other social media functions on our site, enter a competition, promotion or survey and when you report a problem with our site. The information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number, financial and credit card information, personal description and photograph.
Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical Data about your browsing actions. We collect this personal data by using cookies.

How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

Generally we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data other than in relation to sending direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us at dataprotection@irishnews.com.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Please contact us at dataprotection@irishnews.com if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Processing For Journalistic Purposes

As a media group, Into Media and The Irish News processes personal data for the purpose of exercising the right to freedom of expression and information and for journalistic purposes. It is recognised that this is in the public interest.

We may process your personal information for journalistic purposes where you submit content to be published online and in our printed publication
Where you have voluntarily contributed your experience to us and we publish this information
If we publish a letter you have written to the Editor
If you participate in one of our surveys or polls

It is important to understand that certain rights which you have in relation to your personal information, including the right to erasure, may not apply where that data is processed for journalistic purposes.

Newsletters

All readers who register, will receive The Morning Briefing newsletter five days a week. These newsletters are a selection of our latest stories delivered each morning. Readers can unsubscribe at any time, by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of each newsletter or going to ‘My Account’.

From time to time these newsletters may change dependent on the service it is connected with and such changes may be communicated to you directly and will be reflected in our Privacy Statements.

When you sign up for newsletters, we collect information to enable us to deliver the newsletter and to tell us what content you are interested in.

What we process:

Identity data – your email address and name
Newsletter Interest – which newsletters you wish to receive.
Interaction data – newsletters that you open and the links you follow in the newsletter

Why we process this data: The legal basis for processing this data is consent and/or contract, so as to enable us to deliver the newsletters that you have consented to receive or forms part of your contracted service. This identity and interest data help us deliver the relevant newsletters. The interaction data allows us to understand which parts of the newsletter and which content interest you to enable us to improve the service that we deliver to you.

Who has access: Only Irish News employees will have access to this data through our email and customer identity systems. Access may be granted to third parties such as our email campaign provider in order to resolve problems sending emails etc. but only under the strictest governance by Irish News. We ensure that our email campaign provider adheres to the highest standards of data protection and privacy

Competitions

When you enter a competition on any Into Media site or publication such as but not limited to the Irish News, we may collect data about you or your entry in order to manage the competition and enable us to deliver the prize to you if you are lucky enough to win.

Entering a competition: When you enter a competition, we need to process your entry.

What we process:

Identity data- including name, address, phone number, email
Data about entry– including date of entry, device used etc.

Why we process this data: The legal basis for processing this data is legitimate interest. In order to decide the competition winner, it is necessary for us to process your entry. This data is required to enable The Irish News to contact winners and manage the competition.

Who has access: This data will only be processed by Irish News employees and systems, and subcontracted service providers for the sole purpose of managing the competition. The only exception to this is where a 3rd party is sponsoring the competition and requests to get access to your information. Information will only be shared with this 3rd party with your consent, and this will be made clear to you before submitting your competition entry to ensure that you have full control of who sees your data.

Delete my competition entries: If you wish to delete any competition entries that you have made please make your request by contacting us: dataprotection@irishnews.com and request that you wish to have your competition entries deleted.

Winning a competition: If you are lucky enough to win a competition, then we need to contact you to ensure delivery of your prize and know where to send it.

For further information, please refer to our competition T&Cs found.

Quizzes, Surveys and Polls

When you enter a quiz or answer a poll or survey on any Irish News site we collect data about you and your response.

What we process:

Identity data- online identifier such as IP address
Quiz, Poll & Survey Data- data you provide in your response to the poll or survey

Why we process this data: The legal basis for processing this data is your consent for us to process your response to the poll or survey that you have entered. This data is required to enable The Irish News to display the results of the poll or survey. No poll data is ever associated with your email or other personal identifier. We do record whether you have interacted with the poll or survey to ensure that duplicate entries are not counted but this is linked to your browser or device and never contains information on your poll response.

Who has access: This data will only be processed by both the Irish News employees and systems, sub contracted service providers for the sole purpose of managing the quiz, survey or poll. The only exception to this is where a 3rd party is running or sponsoring the quiz, survey or poll. This will be made clear to you, along with what happens to your data before submitting your entry to ensure that you have full control of who sees your data.

Delete my quiz, survey or poll entries: If you wish to delete any quiz, survey or poll entries that you have made, please send your request to: dataprotection@irishnews.com

Classified Ads/Memoriam Notices:

By placing a classified ad or a memoriam notice via our website, we collect data about you and any third parties named. This data is strictly necessary for the performance of the site.

What we process:

Identity data – your email address, name, phone number.
Registration & login data as described in the Sign-Up and Social Sign-Up Sections.
Transaction data- Payment details

Why we process this data: The legal basis for processing this data is legitimate interest, in order for us to provide the service to you, we must process the required data.

By placing a classified ad or a memoriam notice in The Irish News, through our website, you are considered a Controller of the data shared and the Irish News are considered the Processor. By accepting the terms and conditions and posting ad or memoriam, you agree that you are responsible for the data privacy of any third parties named.

Who has access: This data will only be processed by both the Irish News employees and systems and sub contracted service providers for the sole purpose of managing the portal and facilitating your advert.

Site Function

We use analytics providers for us to understand our audience, the content that appeals to them and how well our site is working. We also provide tools from the major social networks (X, Facebook etc.) to allow you to share content from our site.

Analytics

Analytics tools allow us to understand how our audience interacts with our site and our content and enables us to provide a better service to our site visitors. We do not collect or process any personal information in our analytics platform.

What we process:

Your IP Address- In Order To Track Your Activity On Our Site We Process Your IP Address
Anonymous Data About Your Device – Your Operating System (E.G. Ios11), Device Type (E.G. Tablet)
Anonymous Aggregated Demographics– For Example Your Current City And Other Anonymous Data.
Anonymous Data About Your Browsing- Stories You Read, Types Of Content Consumed And Browsing Patterns.

Why we process this data: The legal basis for processing this data is the legitimate interests of the Irish News to manage and optimise the running of our site and its content.

This data helps us optimise the way the site is structured and how content is arranged on the site. It also allows us to show interested parties how many people access the different parts of our site and on average how often they visit. This allows understanding of how many people look at our content at different times of the day etc. These statistics are always calculated on an aggregated basis – never individually. We use the data for future marketing and personalised Advertisement. (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2700409?hl=en-GB&utm_id=ad).

Who has access: Anonymised versions of the data are hosted on Google Analytics platform. At no point do we have access to personally identifiable information through Google Analytics.

Stop being tracked: These analytics tools run on most sites across the web. If you wish to opt out of analytics tracking you must do so on these 3rd party sites or by changing your browser settings. Click on a link below to see the privacy policy and manage your consent across the web for each cookie type:

Further information can be found in our [Link To Your Cookie Policy.]

We have set out below, a description of additional ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate

.Purpose/Activity

Type of data

Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest

To register you as a new customer

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

Performance of a contract with you

To process your order including:

(a) Manage payments, fees and charges

(b) Collect and recover money owed to us

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(d) Transaction

(e) Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests

To manage our relationship with you which will include:

(a) Notify you about information relevant to your purchase with us;

(b) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(d)Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a contract with you

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our products/services)

To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation

To make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(d) Usage

(e) Profile

Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business)

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. We have established the following personal data control mechanisms:

Promotional offers from us

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have registered with us and confirm that you opt in to receive marketing communications from us.

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside Irish News for marketing purposes. We may share your personal data with third party courier companies but these will only use your personal data to fulfil your order.

Opting out

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time (or, withdrawing your consent) by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at dataprotection@irishnews.com at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase, product/service experience or other transactions.

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see [Link To Your Cookie Policy.]

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us at. dataprotection@irishnews.com.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Who we disclose your personal data to and why

We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above:

External Third Parties as set out in the Glossary
Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

International transfers

We do not transfer your personal data outside of the UK other than to the European Economic Area.

How we store your data securely

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

Where you are an account holder, we will retain your information for at least as long as your account is active, as needed to provide you services or as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, protect our legal interests and enforce our agreements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the

purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available in our retention policy which you can request from us by contacting us at dataprotection@irishnews.com.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see Request erasure below for further information.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

What rights you have in relation to your personal data and how you can exercise these rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). Address: Information Commissioner’s Office 3rd Floor, 14 Cromac Place, Belfast, BT7 2JB Tel: 028 9027 8757 or 0303 123 1114 Email: ni@ico.org.uk.

We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

When we receive a complaint from a person, we make up a file containing the details of the complaint. This normally contains the identity of the complainant and any other individuals involved in the complaint.

We will only use the personal information we collect to process the complaint and to check on the level of service we provide.

We usually have to disclose the complainant’s identity to whoever the complaint is about. This is inevitable where, for example, the accuracy of a person’s record is in dispute. If a complainant doesn’t want information

identifying him or her to be disclosed, we will try to respect that. However, it may not be possible to handle a complaint on an anonymous basis.

We will keep personal information contained in complaint files in line with our retention policy. This means that information relating to a complaint will be retained for two years from closure. It will be retained in a secure environment and access to it will be restricted according to the ‘need to know’ principle.

Similarly, where enquiries are submitted to us we will only use the information supplied to us to deal with the enquiry and any subsequent issues and to check on the level of service we provide

You have the right to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at dataprotection@irishnews.com.

No fee usually required

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 is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Glossary

LAWFUL BASIS

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us at dataprotection@irishnews.com.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.

THIRD PARTIES

External Third Parties means:

service providers acting as processors based who provide IT, marketing and system administration services.
professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the United Kingdom who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services;
professional bodies who may be entitled to receive personal data in accordance with any compliant or dispute, such as the ICO or insurance brokers or lawyers; and
HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom.

If you have any queries about our Privacy Policy, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

This Privacy Notice was last modified 13 November 2023